This timeline reflects the evolving legal and political landscape between Britain and the Southern Colonies, particularly concerning the institution of slavery and the assertion of legal rights.
1215
King John signed Magna Carta which prohibited slavery in England and guaranteed justice for all under the rule of law throughout the British Empire.
1328
King Edward the Third married a woman of Moorish descent... Queen Phillipa. She’s England’s first black Queen consort.
1526
Enslaved Africans were part of a Spanish expedition to establish an outpost on the North American coast in present-day South Carolina.
1586
Scores of Africans plundered from the Spanish were aboard a fleet under the command of Sir Francis Drake when he arrived at Roanoke Island, Virginia.
1606
King James the First granted the first charter to the colony of Virginia and it memorialized that the colony will be bound by England’s rule of law and the Magna Carta. Born in Virginia conferred British subjecthood per charter and all legal rights of being an Englishman.
1616
Africans in the West Indies were at work in Bermuda providing expert knowledge about the cultivation of tobacco.
1619
The first nineteen Africans are brought to Point Comfort, Virginia in British America. The rule of law officials made Africans indentured servants and after a proscribed period each was granted freedom and British subjecthood. Their children were born Englishmen.
1632
The colony of Maryland was granted a charter and it memorialized that the colony was bound by England’s rule of law and the Magna Carta. Born in Maryland conferred British subjecthood.
1638
The New England slave trade begins in Boston.
1640
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law that excluded lacks from the requirement of possessing arms.
1661
The Parliament of Great Britian enacted the Sedition Act of 1661 criminalizing the passing of laws in the Kingdom by inferior legislatures without first securing England’s King’s assent.
1662
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law of partus sequitur ventrem: chattel slavery. Any child born to an enslaved woman will also be a slave. It violated parliamentary law setforth in the Sedition Act of 1661.
1663
In Gloucester County, Virginia, the first documented slave rebellion in the American colonies took place and the colony of Maryland legalized slavery without the King’s Assent.
1664
The legislative assemblies of Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and the Carolinas each passed a law that mandated lifelong servitude for black slaves without the King’s Assent.
1667
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law that baptism does not bring freedom to blacks.
1668
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law that free black women, like enslaved females over the age of 16 are taxable. White women remained nontaxable.
1669
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a “casual killing of slave” law that if a slave dies while resisting his master, the act will not be presumed to have occurred with “prepended malice.”
1672
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law that it is legal to wound or kill an enslaved person who resisted arrest. Owners of any slave killed as he resisted arrest would receive financial compensation for the loss of an enslaved laborer.
1676
The British created the “white race” in response to Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia where all classes within colony rebelled against British rule.
1680
The State of Virginia forbids blacks and slaves from bearing arms, prohibits blacks from congregating in large numbers, and mandates harsh punishment for slaves who assault Christians or attempt escape.
1682
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law that made imported Africans──slaves for life without the King’s Assent.
1689
England’s Parliament enacted Bill of Rights. The bill codified the liberty rights of all Englishmen. No Englishman can be born a slave.
1691
In 1691, Virginia enacted laws banning interracial marriage, imposing long indenture terms on mulatto children born to white indentured servants, and fining white women who bore mulatto children, with non-payment leading to additional indentured servitude.
1692
The legislative assembly of Virginia enacted a law that slaves are denied the right to a jury trial for capital offenses. They also legislate that enslaved individuals are not permitted to own horses, cattle, and hogs after December 31of that year.
1702
England’s Court of the King’s Bench ruled in Smith v. Browne & Cooper that “as soon as a negro comes to England, he is free; one may be a villein [serf] in England, but not a slave.”
1705
The Virginia Slave Code codified the status of slaves, further limited their freedom, and defined some rights of slave owners.
1708
Blacks outnumbered whites in South Carolina.
1712
The New York Slave Revolt of 1712. The American colonies restricted the importation of Africans into their colonies and encouraged domestic slave practices.
1729
The colonies of South and North Carolina were granted charters and each memorialized that the colony would be bound by England’s rule of law and the Magna Carta. Born in either colony conferred British subjecthood per charter and all legal rights of being an Englishman.
1732
The colony of Georgia was granted a charter and it memorialized that the colony as bound by England’s rule of law and the Magna Carta. Born in Georgia conferred British subjecthood and all legal rights of being an Englishman.
1735
Georgia’s Assembly enacted slavery laws within the colony without the King’s Assent.
1739
Slaves in Stono, South Carolina rebelled, sacked and burned an armory and killed whites. The militia put an end to the rebellion.
1751
King George II specially repealed Virginia’s Slave Code of 1705.
1761
Virginia’s 1691 law outlawed the marriage of King George and Sophia Charlotte, a descendant of the Black branch of the Portuguese Royal House.
1762
Queen Charlotte gave birth to George the Fourth, who upon birth was named the Prince of Wales; the heir apparent to the British throne. Under America’s Black Codes──he’s black.
1763
Kingdom of Great Britain abandoned its informal policy of salutary neglect.
1764
Parliament enacted the Sugar Act, imposing stricter regulations on trade.
1765
Parliament enacted the Stamp Act of 1764. Riots and civil unrests erupted within the American colonies opposing the act.
1766
Parliament repealed Stamp Act and passed the American Colonies Act of 1766, commonly known as the Declaratory Act of 1766.
1770
Crispus Attucks, a black Englishman was the first person to die in Boston Massacre.
1772
A unanimous ruling in James Somerset v. Charles Stewart, King’s Bench, June 1772 by England’s Twelve Judges that slavery was not “allowed and approved by the laws of this Kingdom” and can only be lawful by way of “positive law.” Slavery was deemed unconstitutional throughout the British Empire and 15,000 native sons are immediately released from bondage in England and Wales.
1774
The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia to organize colonial resistance to Parliament’s Intolerable Acts passed in May of the same year and vowed to discontinue the slave trade after the first of December.
1775
Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia declared martial law and granted freedom for all slaves held in bondage by colonial patriots. However, per English law, all slaves in American colonies are liberated.
1776
England’s thirteen colonies declared themselves an independent nation and issued its Declaration of Independence in July. The first three grievances against King George III related to his failure to freely give his “Assent” to laws proposed by colonial assemblies. The First Congress of the U.S. conferred citizenship unto all free Englishmen and formally adopted English rule of law.
1779
England’s General Henry Clinton issued The Phillipsburg Proclamation that declared freedom to all Revolutionary War-era slaves and conferred British subjecthood unto Africans suffering as slaves in the American colonies.
1782
The United States sued for peace and preliminary articles of peace are finally agreed to and signed by the parties. England required that all its citizens be “set at liberty” and the United States agreed, as a condition for peace. All hostilities ceased.
1783
In 1783, England protested against the abuse and kidnapping of Black Englishmen by slave catchers in the U.S., asserting that former slaves born in colonial America were under British protection, while General Guy Carleton transported 3,000 Black citizens out of the U.S., documenting their details in the Book of Negroes.
1784
Afro-Englishmen were terrorized by slave catchers and former slave masters.
1787
Congress reached a compromise to have an Electoral College and to count black Englishmen as three-fifths of the number of white inhabitants of that state for legislative and taxing purposes.
1788
Congress ratified the United States Constitution.
1822
Denmark Vesey is hanged for planning s slave revolt in Charleston, South Carolina.
1831
Nat Turner and six co-conspirators begins an unsuccessful slave revolt in Virginia.
1852
Frederick Douglass gives speech in New York, “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July”.
1857
The U. S. Supreme renders the Dred Scott v. John A. Sandford decision.
1859
Abolitionist John Brown’s Harper Ferry Raid.
1861
Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of the United States and confederate forces fires on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina: Civil War begins.
1863
President Lincoln gives his Emancipation Proclamation in Washington, D.C.
1865
The U.S. Congress passed the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, President Lincoln was assassinated, and Congress passed the 14th Amendment, and the U.S. Army informed enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, of their freedom.
1869
The U. S. Congress pass the 15th Amendment on February 26, 1869, ratified by the required number of states and officially adopted on February 3, 1870.