Chronology on the History of Slavery and Racism
Compiled from Archive, library and Internet source documentation, this timeline on Slavery and in part the History of
Racism, has been used to guide the direction of independent research into the history of enslaved Americans of African
descent at historic sites located at the National Zoo, in Washington, DC. Hopefully, this compilation of American history will
help others who undertake similar tasks.
This project has been conducted totally independently from research conducted by the Office of Architectural History and
Preservation at the Smithsonian and the National Zoo. Visit the Holt House Web Site for periodic updates. Be sure to go to
the bottom of the page and hit "Contents" to enter. This research was compiled by Eddie Becker who will be happy to give
advice on similar undertakings.
Citation information and credit: (Chronology on the History of Slavery, Compiled by Eddie Becker 1999, see on line at
http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html)
The Chronology is broken up into three parts:
1. 1619 – 1789
2. 1790 to 1829
3. 1830 - the end
For pre-17th century timeline see Cora Agatucci’s African Timeline.
Chronology Of The History Of Slavery: 1619-1789
1619
The other crucial event that would play a role in the development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A
Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in
legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular
conception of a racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680's. (A Brief History of Jamestown, The Association
for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, VA 23220, email: apva@apva.org, Web published February, 2000)
The legend has been repeated endlessly that the first blacks in Virginia were "indentured servants," but there is no hint of
this in the records. The legend grew up because the word slave did not appear in Virginia records until 1656, and statutes
defining the status of blacks began to appear casually in the 1660s. The inference was then made that blacks called servants
must have had approximately the same status as white indentured servants. Such reasoning failed to notice that Englishmen,
in the early seventeenth century, used the work servant when they meant slave in our sense, and, indeed, white Southerners
invariably used servant until 1865 and beyond. Slave entered the Southern vocabulary as a technical word in trade, law and
politics. (Robert McColley in Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, Edited by Randall M. Miller and John David Smith,
Greenwood Press, 1988 pp 281)
Jamestown had exported 10 tons of tobacco to Europe and was a boomtown. The export business was going so well the
colonists were able to afford two imports which would greatly contribute to their productivity and quality of life. 20 Blacks
from Africa and 90 women from England. The Africans were paid for in food; each woman cost 120 pounds of tobacco. The
Blacks were bought as indentured servants from a passing Dutch ship low on food, and the women were supplied by a private
English company. Those who married the women had to pay their passage--120 pounds of tobacco. (Gene Barios, Tobacco
BBS: tobacco news )
With the success of tobacco planting, African Slavery was legalized in Virginia and Maryland, becoming the foundation of
the Southern agrarian economy. (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS
Bookshelf.)
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