1619 The first black slaves to work on the North American mainland arrive at the Jamestown, Virginia, colony.

1641 Massachusetts becomes the first colony to mention slavery in its legal code.

1688 Friends (Quakers) in Germantown, Pennsylvania, draft the earliest antislavery document in America.

1700 Samuel Sewall writes The Selling of Joseph, the first antislavery tract published and distributed in the colonies.

1739 The Stono Rebellion takes place in South Carolina. The first major slave uprising, it begins when twenty slaves gather near the Stono River, south of Charleston. With stolen weapons, they kill local storekeepers and white families before being captured by the militia. Those blacks not killed on the spot are later executed.

1773 Slaves in Massachusetts petition the state legislature for their freedom.

1775 The first abolition society in America is organized by the Philadelphia Quakers.

1776 Thomas Jefferson pens the Declaration of Independence, with its reference to “all men” being...