Rhode Island adopts a gradual emancipation law

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...

In the Walker litigation, the state’s constitutional language of equality was applied against slavery. The decisions helped end slavery in Massachusetts through litigation and resistance by Quock...

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...

Parliament passed the Dolben Act, setting limits on the number of enslaved Africans carried on British ships and requiring a surgeon aboard. The act responded to public pressure and exposed the lethal...