Massachusetts courts affirm that slavery conflicts with the state constitution

During the American Revolution, Virginia’s royal governor offered freedom to enslaved people belonging to rebels who joined British forces. The offer was a military strategy, not a principled...

The Declaration announced that “all men are created equal” while its authors and the new republic remained entangled in slavery. The contradiction was challenged by Black writers, petitioners,...

Vermont adopted a constitution prohibiting adult slavery, an unusually early formal restriction in the region. The provision did not resolve all forms of coerced labor or guarantee equal civic...

Pennsylvania adopted a gradual abolition law, the first such statute enacted by a US state. It did not immediately free people already enslaved and preserved forms of compulsory service for children...

A law passed in May 1782 allowed enslavers to free people by deed or will without prior legislative approval. Manumission expanded, but it remained dependent on enslavers’ decisions, often imposed...

The act declared children born to enslaved women after its passage free, while placing them in long-term service and leaving people already enslaved in bondage. It was gradual and conditional...

Formerly enslaved Black people from London arrived to establish Granville Town near present-day Freetown. Their settlement aspirations met difficult conditions and British imperial oversight, and...

A small group of activists founded the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Its campaign used petitions, testimony, publications, and consumer organizing, and relied heavily on...

The ordinance prohibited slavery in the territory north and west of the Ohio River while also requiring the return of people escaping from labor service. The contradiction shows how the new republic...

Delegates signed a Constitution that included the three-fifths apportionment rule, a fugitive labor clause, and a temporary protection for the Atlantic import trade. It avoided naming slavery directly...