A slavery timeline from 6800 B.C. to 1900 A.D.

2. Slavery had existed in Europe from Classical times and did not
disappear with the collapse of the Roman Empire. Slaves
remained common in Europe throughout the early medieval
period. However, slavery of the Classical type became
increasingly uncommon in Northern Europe and, by the 11th
and 12th centuries, had been effectively abolished in the
North.
Nevertheless, forms of unfree labour, such as villeinage and serfdom, persisted in the north
well into the early modern period. In Southern and Eastern Europe, Classical-style slavery
remained a normal part of the society and economy and trade across the Mediterranean and
the Atlantic seaboard meant that African slaves began to appear in Italy, Spain, Southern
France,and Portugal well before the discovery of the New World in 1492. From about the 8th
centuryonwards, an Arab-run slave trade also flourished, with much of this activity taking place
in East Africa, Arabia, and the Indian Ocean. In addition, many African societies themselves had
forms of slavery, although these differed considerably, both from each other and from the
European and Arabic forms. Although various forms of unfree labour were prevalent in Europe
throughout its history, historians refer to 'Chattel Slavery', in which slaves are commodities to
be bought and sold, rather than domestic servants or agricultural workers. Chattel Slavery is
the characteristic form of slavery in the modern world, and this chronology is concerned
primarily with this form.

3. • 6800 B.C. The world’s first city grows up in Mesopotamia.
With the ownership of land and the beginnings of technology
comes warfare in which enemies are captured and forced to
work: slavery.
• 2575 B.C. Egyptians send expeditions down the Nile River
to capture slaves. Temple art celebrates the capture of slaves
in battle.
• 550 B.C. The mighty Greek city-state of Athens uses up to 30,000 slaves in the
silver mines it controls.

4. • 120 Slaves are taken by the thousands in Roman military
campaigns; some estimates put the population of Rome at
more than half slave.
• 500 In England, the native Britons are enslaved after
invasion by Anglo-Saxons.
• 1000 Slavery is normal practice in England’s rural economy, as destitute
agricultural workers place themselves and their families in a form of debt bondage
to landowners.
• 1380 In the aftermath of the Black Plague, Europe’s slave trade revives in
response to the labor shortage. The slaves come from all over Europe, the Middle
East, and North Africa.

5. • 1441: Start of European slave trading in Africa.
• 1452: Start of the 'sugar-slave complex'. Sugar is first
planted in the Portuguese island of Madeira and, for the
first time, African slaves are put to work on the sugar
plantations.
• 18 June 1452: Pope Nicholas V issues Dum Diversas, a bull
authorising the Portuguese to reduce any non-Christians
to the status of slaves
• 8 January 1454: Pope Nicholas V issues Romanus Pontifex, a bull granting the
Portuguese a perpetual monopoly in trade with Africa. Nevertheless, Spanish
traders begin to bring slaves from Africa to Spain.
• 1462: The Portuguese colony on the Cape Verde Islands is founded, an important
way-station in the slave trade.
• 1462: Portuguese slave traders start to operate in Seville (Spain)
• 1470s: Despite Papal opposition, Spanish merchants begin to trade in large
numbers of slaves in the 1470s.

6. • 1441: Start of European slave trading in Africa.
• 1452: Start of the 'sugar-slave complex'. Sugar is first
planted in the Portuguese island of Madeira and, for the
first time, African slaves are put to work on the sugar
plantations.
• 18 June 1452: Pope Nicholas V issues Dum Diversas, a bull
authorising the Portuguese to reduce any non-Christians
to the status of slaves
• 8 January 1454: Pope Nicholas V issues Romanus Pontifex, a bull granting the
Portuguese a perpetual monopoly in trade with Africa. Nevertheless, Spanish
traders begin to bring slaves from Africa to Spain.
• 1461
• 1462: The Portuguese colony on the Cape Verde Islands is founded, an important
way-station in the slave trade.
• 1462: Portuguese slave traders start to operate in Seville (Spain)
• 1470
• 1470s: Despite Papal opposition, Spanish merchants begin to trade in large
numbers of slaves in the 1470s.

7. • 1481: A Portuguese embassy to the court of King Edward
IV of England concludes with the English government
agreeing not to enter the slave trade, against the wishes
of many English traders.
• 1483: Diogo Cão discovers the Congo river. The region is
later a major source of slaves.
• 2 January 1492: The Moorish town of Granada surrenders to the Spanish forces
of the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, marking the end of La Reconquista,
the war between Moors and Spaniards in the Iberian peninsular. Both sides
retain many slaves taken during the course of the war.
• 12 October 1492: Christopher Columbus becomes the first European since the
Viking era to discover the New World, setting foot on an unidentified island he
named San Salvador (modern Bahamas).

8. • 3 November 1493: On his second voyage, Columbus again
reaches the New World (modern Dominica). On this
voyage he initiates the first transatlantic slave voyage, a
shipment of several hundred Taino people sent from
Hispaniola to Spain. There are doubts about the legality of
their enslavement in Spain.
• 8 December 1493: Columbus founds the first European colony in the New World:
La Isabela on the island of Hispaniola (modern Dominican Republic).
• 8 June 1496: Columbus returns from his second voyage, carrying around 30
Native American slaves. Once again, there are doubts about the legality of their
enslavement.
• 24 June 1497: John Cabot, an Italian sponsored by King Henry VII of England,
makes landfall on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland (modern
Canada). This discovery became the basis of subsequent English claims to North
America.
• 1499: More than 200 slaves taken from the northern coast of South America by
Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Hojeda and sold - apparently without legal
problems - in Cádiz.

9. • 22 April 1500: Pedro Cabral of Portugal discovers Brazil,
landing at Porto Seguro, southern Bahia.
• 1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the first
merchant we can identify to send an African slave to the
New World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permitted
by the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Others
send two or three.
• 1504: a small group of Africans - probably slaves captured from a Portuguese
vessel - are brought to the court of King James IV of Scotland.
• 1505: first record of sugar cane being grown in the New World, in Santo
Domingo (modern Dominican Republic).
• 1509: Columbus's son, Diego Cólon, becomes governor of the new Spanish
empire in the Carribean. He soon complains that Native American slaves do not
work hard enough.
• 22 January 1510: the start of the systematic transportation of African slaves to
the New World: King Ferdinand of Spain authorises a shipment of 50 African
slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo.

10. • 22 April 1500: Pedro Cabral of Portugal discovers Brazil,
landing at Porto Seguro, southern Bahia.
• 1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the first
merchant we can identify to send an African slave to the
New World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permitted
by the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Others
send two or three.
• 1516: the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, authorises slave-raiding
expeditions to Central America. One group of slaves aboard a Spanish caravel
rebel and kill the Spanish crew before sailing home - the first successful slave
rebellion recorded in the New World.
• 1516: in his book Utopia, Sir Thomas More argues that his ideal society would
have slaves but they would not be 'non-combatant prisoners-of-war, slaves by
birth, or purchases from foreign slave markets.' Rather, they would be local
convicts or 'condemned criminals from other countries, who are acquired in
large numbers, sometimes for a small payment, but usually for nothing.' (Trans.
Paul Turner, Penguin, 1965)

11. • 18 August 1518: in a significant escalation of the slave
trade, Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo de
Gorrevod permission to import 4000 African slaves into
New Spain. From this point onwards thousands of slaves
are sent to the New World each year.
• 1522: A major slave rebellion breaks out on the island of Hispaniola. This is the
first significant uprising of African slaves. After this, slave resistance becomes
widespread and uprisings common.
• 1524: 300 African slaves taken to Cuba to work in the gold mines.
• 1527: earliest records of sugar production in Jamaica, later a major sugar
producing region of the British Empire. Sugar production is rapidly expanding
throughout the Caribbean region at this time - with the mills almost exclusivly
worked by African slaves.
• November 1528: a slave called Esteban (or Estevanico) becomes the first African
slave to step foot on what is now the United States of America. He was one of
only four survivors of Pánfilo de Narváez's failed expedition to Florida.

12. • 1530: Juan de la Barrera, a Seville merchant, begins
transporting slaves directly from Africa to the New World
(before this, slaves had normally passed through Europe
first). His lead is quickly followed by other slave traders.
• 22 January 1532: Martim Afonso de Souza founds the first Portuguese colony in
Brazil at São Vicente. Sugar production begins almost immediately.
• 15 November 1532: Francisco Pizaro massacres the Incas at Caxamalca (modern
Caxamarca) and captures King Atahuallpa, an event that marks the Spanish
conquest of Peru.
• 30 May 1539: Hernando de Soto, following reports from Cabeza de Vaca, lands
on the coast of Florida. Of about 1200 men in his expedition, around 50 were
African slaves.
• July 1555: a small group of Africans from Shama (modern Ghana) described as
slaves are brought to London by John Lok, a London merchant hoping to break
into the African trade.
• 1555: the Portuguese sailor Fernão de Oliveira, in Arte de Guerra no mar (The
Art of War at Sea), denounces the slave trade as an 'evil trade'. The book
anticipates many of the arguments made by abolitionists in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.

13. • 1569: a Sevillian Dominican, Tomás de Mercado, publishes
Tratos y contratos de mercaderes (Practices and Contracts
of Merchants), which attacks the way the slave trade is
conducted.
• 1571: the Parlement of Bordeaux sets all slaves - "blacks
and moors" - in the town free, declaring slavery illegal in
France..
• 1573: a Spanish-Mexican lawyer, Bartolemé Frías de Albornoz, publishes Arte de
los contratos (The Art of Contracts), which casts doubt on the legality of the
slave trade.
• 20 February 1575: Paulo Dias de Novães founds the Portuguese colony of São
Paulo de Luanda on the African mainland (modern Angola). The colony soon
became a major slave-trading port supplying the vast Brazilian market.
• 29 January 1579: with the Union of Utrecht, the northern provinces of the Low
Countries unite to create a Calvinist republic free from Spanish rule. The United
Provinces (modern Netherlands) soon becomes an important slave-trading
nation and an aspiring colonial power.

14. • 1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and a
short campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugal
are united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes the
most important colonial power - and the largest
participant in the slave trade.
• 16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial
interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the
Cape Verde Islands.
• 1592: Bernard Ericks becomes the first Dutch slave trader.
• 1594: L'Espérance of La Rochelle becomes the first French ship positively
identified as participating in the slave trade. However, French merchants may
have been involved in small scale slave trading since the 1540s.
• 1595: in a pattern that was to be adhered to for several decades, Philip II of
Spain grants Pedro Gomes Reinal, a Portuguese merchant, a near monopoly in
the slave trade. Reinal agrees to provide Spanish America with 4250 African
slaves annually, with a further 1000 slaves being provided by other merchants.

15. • 1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and a
short campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugal
are united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes the
most important colonial power - and the largest
participant in the slave trade.
• 1601: The Jesuits build their first sugar mill in Brazil.
• 1604: Shakespeare's play Othello: the Moor of Venice first performed. The play
features the figure of Othello, an African general, now working for Venice, who
has previously suffered enslavement.

16. • 1600: Pedro Gomes Reinal dies. The Spanish slave-trading
monopoly is passed to Jaão Rodrigues Coutinho, Governor
of Angola.
• 1600: King Philip III of Spain outlaws the use of Native
American slaves in Spanish colonies.
• 16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial
interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the
Cape Verde Islands.
• 1592: Bernard Ericks becomes the first Dutch slave trader.
• 1594: L'Espérance of La Rochelle becomes the first French ship positively
identified as participating in the slave trade. However, French merchants may
have been involved in small scale slave trading since the 1540s.
• 1595: in a pattern that was to be adhered to for several decades, Philip II of
Spain grants Pedro Gomes Reinal, a Portuguese merchant, a near monopoly in
the slave trade. Reinal agrees to provide Spanish America with 4250 African
slaves annually, with a further 1000 slaves being provided by other merchants.

17. • 1601: The Jesuits build their first sugar mill in Brazil.
• 1604: Shakespeare's play Othello: the Moor of
Venice first performed. The play features the figure of
Othello, an African general, now working for Venice, who has
previously suffered enslavement.
• November 1611: Shakespeare's play The Tempest first performed. The play
includes the figures of Caliban and Ariel, both enslaved.
• 1617: first records of slaves in Bermuda.
• 1627: a Spanish-Peruvian Jesuit, Alonso de Sandoval, publishes Naturaleza,
Policia, ... Costumbres i Ritos, Disciplina, i Catechismo Evangelico de todos
Etíopes (The Nature, Policy, ... Customs and Rituals, Disciplines, and Gospel
Catechism of all Ethiopians), which argues that slavery combines all the world's
evils.
• 17 February 1627: Henry Powell, John Powell's brother, along with 80 British
settlers and 10 African slaves, found a colony on Barbados at Jamestown (modern
Holetown).

18. • 25 February 1644: A group of 11 enslaved people in New
Amsterdam (modern-day New York) successfully petition the
government there in what is the first group manumission
( formal emancipation from slavery ) in a North American
colony.
• 1657: George Fox, the Quaker leader, writes a letter 'To Friends beyond sea, that
have Blacks and Indian Slaves'. This is the first letter written by a Quaker expressing
some doubts about slavery in the New World.
• 1660: The newly restored King Charles II of England charters the 'Royal
Adventurers into Africa', the first English state-sponsored slave trading company.
• 1671: A group of Quakers, including George Fox and William Edmundson, visit
Barbados and appear to have come into conflict with the Barbadian plantocracy
for suggesting that slave-owners should treat their slaves with humanity and
attempt to convert them to Christianity.
• 1672: The financially troubled Royal Adventurers into Africa, founded in 1660, is
restructured and given a new charter as The Royal African Company. The
company remains England's major slave-trading organisation into the 1730s.

19. • 1676: the Quaker George Fox publishes Gospel Family-
Order, being a short discourse concerning the Ordering of
Families, both of Whites, Blacks and Indians, which urged
Quakers in America to treat their slaves humanely.
• the Quaker Alice Curwen visits Barbados and, in a letter to
the slave-holding Barbadian Friend Martha Tavernor, becomes
the first Quaker to unambiguously denounce slavery.

20. • 1781 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolishes serfdom in the
Austrian Habsburg dominions.
• 1787 The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was
founded in Britain.
• 1789 On August 26th, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly adopts
The Declaration of the Rights of Man, one of the fundamental charters of human
liberties. The first of 17 articles states: “Men are born and remain free and equal in
rights.”
• 1791 Toussaint Louverture led a slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint
•Domingue.
• By 1804, the French were expelled from the colony and the island is declared
Independent under its original Arawak name, “Haiti.”
• 1803 Denmark-Norway becomes the first country in Europe to ban the African
slave trade.
• A law passed in 1792 takes effect in 1803 to forbid trading in slaves by Danish
subjects and to end the importation of slaves into Danish dominions.

21. • 1807 Thomas Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation
of Slaves into law, forbidding the importation of African slaves
into the United States.
• 1807 After prolonged lobbying by abolitionists in Britain, led by William
Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, the British Parliament makes it illegal for British
ships to transport slaves and for British colonies to import them.
• 1811 – 1867 Operating off the Atlantic coast of Africa, the British
Navy’s Anti-Slavery Squadron liberates 160,000 slaves.
• 1813 Sweden, a nation that has never authorized slave traffic, consents to ban
the African slave trade.
• 1814 The King of the Netherlands officially terminates Dutch participation in the
African slave trade.

22. • 1814 During the Congress of Vienna, largely through the
efforts of Britain, the assembled powers proclaim that the slave
trade should be abolished as soon as possible. The Congress
leaves the actual effective date of abolition to negotiation among
the various nations.
• 1820 The government of Spain, pursuant to a treaty with Britain, abolishes the slav
trade south of the Equator. Slave trade in Cuba continues until 1888.
• 1833 The British Parliament’s Factory Act of 1833 establishes a normal working day
in textile manufacture. The act bans the employment of children under the age of 9
and limits the workday of children between the ages of 13 and 18 to 12 hours.
The law also provides for government inspection of working conditions.
• 1834 In Britain the Abolition Act of 1833 abolishes slavery throughout the British
Empire, including its colonies in North America. The bill emancipates the slaves in all
British colonies and appropriates a sum equivalent to nearly $100 million to
compensate slave owners for their losses.

23. • 1837 Thomas F. Buxton begins a campaign to abolish coolie
labor in India. After the abolition of slavery, this type of labor has
become a preferred source of cheap labor. Buxton argues that
coolie labor amounts to slavery, with workers often kidnapped,
transported to the Caribbean and forced to toil in appalling
conditions.
• 1840 The new British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society calls the first World Anti-
Slavery Convention in London to mobilize reformers to monitor and assist abolition
and post-emancipation efforts throughout the world. A group of abolitionists from
the United States travels to London to attend the Convention, but Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott, as well as several male supporters, leave the meeting in
protest when women are excluded from seating on the convention floor.

24. • 1845 Thirty-six British Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-
Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the
world.
• 1845 Thirty-six British Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron,
making it one of the largest fleets in the world.
• 1848 After the revolution of 1848 in France, the new government abolishes
slavery in all French colonies.
• 1850 The government of Brazil adopts the Eusébio de Queirós Law, which ends
the country’s participation in the slave trade. The law declares slave traffic to be a
form of piracy and it prohibits Brazilian citizens from taking part in the trade.
• 1861 By decree Alexander II, czar of Russia, emancipates all Russian serfs, who
number around 50 million. The act begins the time of the Great Reform in Russia and
earns Alexander II the title of “Czar Liberator.”

25. • 1863 In the United States, President Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation takes effect, freeing all slaves in the United States
except for those in states, or parts of states, that were no longer
under Confederate control. The emancipation does not apply to
the border states or to areas that are already under control of the
Union army.
• 1888 Slavery ends in South America when the legislature of Brazil frees the
country’s 725,000 slaves by enacting the Lei Aurea (Golden Law).
• 1865 – 1920 Following the Civil War in the United States, hundreds of thousands
of African-Americans are re-enslaved in an abusive manipulation of the legal system
called “peonage.” Across the Deep South, African-American men and women are
falsely arrested and convicted of crimes, then “leased” to coal and iron mines, brick
factories, plantations, and other dangerous types of work. The system begins to slow
after the First World War, but doesn’t fully end until the 1940s.
Sources: http://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/chrono2.htm
https://www.freetheslaves.net/SlaveryinHistory