Missouri Compromise regulates slavery’s expansion in US territories

A large uprising began in Barbados during Easter week, with Bussa among its leaders. Enslaved people resisted the plantation regime and the threat that rumors of emancipation would be denied or...

The law provided that people enslaved in New York would gain freedom on a delayed timetable, with children born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799 already subject to long compulsory service. It...

Britain and Spain signed a treaty aimed at abolishing the slave trade and suppressing illicit trafficking by their subjects. Spain agreed to end the trade north of the equator sooner than its trade to...

Parliament reviewed the treaty with Spain on suppressing the slave trade. The debate took place after the agreement was signed and reflected Britain’s effort to secure international enforcement...

The treaty authorized bilateral action against Dutch slave ships and established mixed commission courts in Freetown and Paramaribo. Such courts created an early international enforcement system,...

Congress classified the international slave trade as piracy, punishable by death under federal law. The statute strengthened the legal ban on importation but was rarely enforced to match its stated...

A planned uprising involving free and enslaved Black organizers was scheduled for this date but was exposed before it began. White authorities relied on coerced testimony and secret proceedings,...

Independence from Portugal created a new state that maintained slavery and the Atlantic trade. Enslaved Africans and their descendants shaped Brazilian society and resisted bondage, while political...

The society formed to campaign against slavery across the British Empire. Its early focus on gradualism was challenged by activists such as Elizabeth Heyrick, who argued for immediate emancipation....

Thousands of enslaved people in Demerara rose against plantation authority. They organized across estates and sought freedom, amid rumors that emancipation had been granted in Britain but withheld...