African American History in the 19th Century
1804 January 5
The Ohio legislature passed "Black Laws" designed to restrict the legal rights of free blacks. These laws were part of the trend to increasingly severe restrictions on all blacks in both North and South before the Civil War.
1808 January 1
The federal law prohibiting the importation of African slaves went into effect. It was largely circumvented.
1816 April 9
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized at the first independent black denomination in the United States.
1818 August 18
General Andrew Jackson defeated a force of Native Americans and African-Americans to end the First Seminole War.
1822 May 30
The Denmark Vesey conspiracy was betrayed in Charleston, South Carolina. It is claimed that some 5,000 blacks were prepared to rise in July.
1829 September
David Walker's militant antislavery pamphlet, An Appeal to the Colored People of the World, was in circulation in the South. This work was the first of its kind by a black.
From September 20-24, the first National Negro Convention met in Philadelphia.
1831 August 21-22
The Nat Turner revolt ran its course in Southampton County, Virginia.
1839 July
The slaves carried on the Spanish ship, Amistad, took over the vessel and sailed it to Montauk on Long Island. They eventually won their freedom in a case taken to the Supreme Court.
1849 July
Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. She would return South at least twenty times, leading over 300 slaves to freedom.
1854 January 1
Ashmum Institute, the precursor of Lincoln University, was chartered at Oxford, Pennsylvania.
1857 March 6
The Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court denied that blacks were citizens of the United States and denied the power of Congress to restrict slavery in any federal territory.
1861 August 23
James Stone of Ohio enlisted to become the first black to fight for the Union during the Civil War. He was very light skinned and was married to a white woman. His racial identity was revealed after his death in 1862.
1862 July 17
Congress allowed the enlistment of blacks in the Union Army. Some black units precede this date, but they were disbanded as unofficial. Some 186,000 blacks served; of these 38,000 died.
1863 January 1
The Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in states in rebellion against the United States.
1865 December 18
The Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery, was passed by Congress.
1866
Edward G. Walker and Charles L. Mitchell were the first blacks to sit in an American legislature, that of Massachusetts.
1868 July 6
The South Carolina House became the first and only legislature to have a black majority, 87 blacks to 40 whites. Whites did continue to control the Senate and became a majority in the House in 1874.
July 28, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. It made blacks citizens of the United States.
1870 March 30
The Fifteenth Amendment, which outlawed the denial of the right to vote, was ratified.
1875 March 1
Congress passed a Civil Rights Bill which banned discrimination in places of public accommodation. The Supreme Court overturned the bill in 1883.
Tennessee passed a law requiring segregation in railroad cars. By 1907 all Southern states had passed similar laws.
1895 September 18
Booker T. Washington delivered the "Atlanta Compromise" speech at the Cotton States International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.
1896 May 18
In Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court give legal backing to the concept of separate but equal public facilities for blacks.