APPENDIX II:
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY TIMELINE 1601 - Modern Times

THE COVENANT In Action is being released concurrently with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown (Virginia) settlement, representing the first expression of democracy in the New World. But for African Americans, 1607 does not represent a celebration, for they did not arrive on these shores as free people. Their history, their heritage, their legacy were not a part of the record then … and for too many black folk today, the record is still not clear.

It is only appropriate, then, that The Covenant movement include a history of African Americans to not only understand where we have to go, but—equally importantly—from whence we have come! We believe that the following timeline is both informative and instructive.

Timeline: Before 1601

c. 476—End of the Roman Empire.

c. 750—Islam is introduced in West Africa.

c. 800—Evidence suggests that African travelers may have come to the Americas before Europeans. One indication is the great stone carvings of the Olmec era in Mexico, bearing African facial features.

951—Paris is founded.

1076—The Empire of Ghana emerges in West Africa.

1230—The Empire of Mali emerges in West Africa.

1260—By this date the city of Timbuktu is the religious, commercial and political center of the Empire of Mali.

1400—By this date a flourishing slave trade exists in the Mediterranean World. Most of the slaving countries are Italian principalities such as Florence and Venice. Most of those enslaved are Greeks and Eastern Europeans. Between 1414 and 1423, 10,000 Eastern European slaves are sold in Venice alone.

1434—The Portuguese establish trading outposts along the West African coast.

1441—Antam Goncalvez of Portugal captures Africans in what is now Senegal, initiating direct European involvement in the African slave trade.

1450—The Kingdom of Benin emerges in West Africa.

1453—The Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople and thus divert the trade in Eastern European slaves away from the Mediterranean to Islamic markets. The Italians increasingly look to North Africa their source for slaves.

1464—The Empire of Songhai emerges in West Africa.

1468—Mali conquered by the Empire of Songhai.

1470—By this point small vineyards and sugar plantations have emerged around Naples and on the island of Sicily with Africans as the primary enslaved people providing the labor on these estates.

1490—Small populations of free and enslaved Africans extend from Sicily to Portugal.

l492—Christopher Columbus makes his first voyage to the New World, opening a vast new empire for plantation slavery.
1494—The first Africans arrive in Hispaniola with Christopher Columbus. They are free persons.

1501—The Spanish king allows the introduction of enslaved Africans into Spain’s American colonies.

1511—The first enslaved Africans arrive in Hispaniola.

1513—Thirty Africans accompany Vasco Nunez de Balboa on his trip to the Pacific Ocean.

1517—Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas petitions Spain to allow the importation of twelve enslaved Africans for each household immigrating to America’s Spanish colonies. De Las Casas later regrets his actions and becomes an opponent of slavery.

1518—King Charles I of Spain grants the first licenses to import enslaved Africans to the Americas.

The first shipload of enslaved Africans directly from Africa arrives in the West Indies. Prior to this time, Africans were taken first to Europe.

1519—Hernan Cortez begins his conquest of the Aztec Empire. Black Spaniards are among the Conquistadors.

1520s—Enslaved Africans are used as laborers in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Mexico.

1522—African slaves stage a rebellion in Hispaniola. This is the first slave uprising in the New World.

1526 – Spanish colonists lead by Lucas Vasques de Allon build the community of San Miguel de Guadape in what is now Georgia. They bring along enslaved Africans, considered to be the first in the present-day United States. These Africans flee the colony, however, and make their homes with local Indians. After Ayllon’s death, the remaining Spaniards relocate to Hispaniola.

1527-1539 – Esteban, A Moroccan-born Muslim slave, explores what is now the Southwestern United States.

1540 – An African from Hernando de Soto’s Expedition decides to remain behind to make his home among the Native Americans there.

Africans serve in the New Mexico Expeditions of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and Hernando de Alarcon.

1542—The Spanish Crown abolishes Indian slavery in its colonial possessions.

1550—The first slaves directly from Africa arrive in the Brazilian city of Salvador.

1562—An expedition to Hispaniola led by John Hawkins, the first English slave trader, sparks English interest in that activity. Hawkins’ travels also call attention to Sierra Leone. Hawkins is knighted in 1588 for his service in England’s victory over the Spanish Armada,

1565_African farmers and artisans accompany Pedro Menendez de Aviles on the expedition that establishes the community of San Agustin (St. Augustine, Florida).

1570—New Spain’s (Colonial Mexico) population includes 20,569 blacks and 2,439 mulattoes.

1573__Professor Bartolome de Albornoz of the University of Mexico writes against the enslavement and sale of Africans.

1591—Fall of the Empire of Songhai.

1598—Isabel de Olvera, a free mulatta, accompanies the Juan Guerra de Resa Expedition, which colonizes what is now New Mexico.

Timeline: 1601—1700

1602—By Spanish law, mulattoes (people of combined African and European ethnicity), convicts, and “idle” Africans may be shipped to Latin America and forced to work in the mines there.

1607—Jamestown is founded in Virginia.

1609—Fugitive slaves in Mexico, led by Yanga, sign a truce with Spanish colonial authorities and obtain their freedom and a town of their own.

1617—The town of San Lorenzo de los Negros receives a charter from Spanish colonial officials in Mexico and becomes the first officially recognized free settlement for blacks in the New World.

1619—Approximately 20 blacks from a Dutch slaver are purchased as indentured workers for the English settlement of Jamestown. These are the first Africans in the English North American colonies.

1620—The Pilgrims reach New England.

1624—The first African-American child born free in the English colonies, William Tucker, is baptized in Virginia.

1626—The first enslaved Africans arrive in the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam (now New York City).

1629—The first enslaved Africans arrive in what is now Connecticut.

1634—Slavery is introduced in Maryland.

1638—France’s North American colonies open to trade in enslaved Africans.

1641—Massachusetts explicitly permits slavery of Indians, whites, and Negroes in its “Body of Liberties.”


1641 - Mathias De Sousa, an African indentured servant who came from England with Lord Baltimore, is elected to Maryland’s General Assembly.

1642 - Virginia passes a fugitive slave law. Offenders helping runaway slaves are fined in pounds of tobacco. An enslaved person is to branded with a large “R” after a second escape attempt.

When a French privateer brings to New Netherlands some Africans taken from a Spanish ship, they are sold as slaves because of their race, despite their claims to be free.

1643—The New England Confederation reaches an agreement that makes the signature of a magistrate sufficient evidence to re-enslave a suspected fugitive slave.

1645 - Merchaflt ships from Barbados arrive in Boston where they trade their cargoes of enslaved Africans for sugar and tobacco. The profitability of this exchange encourages the slave trade in New England.

1645 - Dutch colonists transfer some of their landholdings in New Amsterdam to their former enslaved Africans as compensation for their support in battles with Native Americans. A condition of the land transfer, however, is the guarantee of a specified amount of food from those lands to their former owners.

1646 - New Spain’s (Colonial Mexico) population includes 35,089 blacks and 116,529 mulattoes.

1650 - Connecticut legalizes slavery. Rhode Island by this date has large plantations worked by enslaved Africans.

The Dutch West India Company introduces new rules concerning slavery in New Netherlands. After gaining freedom, former slaves, for example, are required to give fixed amounts of their crops to the company. After the English capture of the colony, greater restrictions are imposed on free blacks and enslaved people.

1651_Anthony Johnson, a free African American, imports several enslaved Africans and is given a grant of land on Virginia’s Puwgoteague River. Other free African Americans follow this pattern.

1652—Massachusetts enacts a law requiring all African American and Native American servants to undergo military training so as to - able to help defend the colony.

1655—Anthony Johnson successfully sues for the return of his slave John Carson, whom the court had earlier treated as an indentured servant.

1656—Fearing the potential for slave uprisings, Massachusetts reverses its 1652 statute and prohibits blacks from arming or training as militia. New Hampshire and New York soon follow.

1660—A Connecticut law prohibits African Americans from serving in the militia.

1662—Virginia reverses the presumption of English law that the child follows the status of his father and enacts a law that makes the free or enslaved status of children dependent on the status of mother.

1663—Black and white indentured servants plan a rebellion in Gloucester County, Virginia. Their plans are discovered and the leaders are executed.

Marvland slave laws rule that all Africans arriving in the colony are presumed to be slaves. Free European American women who marry enslaved men lose their freedom. Children of European American women and enslaved men are enslaved. Other North American colonies develop similar laws.

In South Carolina every new white settler is granted twenty acres for each black male slave and ten acres for each black female slave he brings into the colony.

A planned revolt of enslaved Africans is uncovered in Virginia.

1664 - Virginia, the enslaved African’s status is clearly differentiated from the indentured servant’s when colonial laws decree that enslavement is for life and is transferred to the children through the mother. Black and “slave” become synonymous, and enslaved Africans are subject to harsher and more brutal control than other laborers.
Maryland establishes slavery for life for persons of African ancestry.

New York and New Jersey also recognize the legality of slavery.

1667—England enacts strict laws regarding enslaved Africans in its colonies. An enslaved African is forbidden to leave the plantation without a pass, and never on Sunday. An enslaved African may not possess weapons or signaling mechanisms such as horns or whistles. Punishment for an owner who kills an enslaved African is a 15-pound fine.

Virginia declares that baptism does not free a slave from bondage, thereby abandoning the Christian tradition of not enslaving other Christians.

1670—A law is enacted in Virginia that all non-Christians who arrive by ship are to be enslaved.

A French royal decree brings French shippers into the slave trade, with the rationale that the labor of enslaved Africans helps the growth of France’s island colonies.

The Massachusetts legislature passes a law that enables its citizens to sell the children of enslaved Africans into bondage, thus separating them from their parents.

1671—A Maryland law states that the conversion of enslaved African Americans to Christianity does not affect their status as enslaved people.

1672—King Charles II of England charters the Royal African Company, which dominates the slave trade to North America for the next half-century.

1673—The Massachusetts legislature passes a law that forbids European Americans from engaging in any trade or commerce with an African American.

1675—An estimated 100,000 Africans are enslaved in the West Indies and another 5,000 are in British North America.

1676—Nathaniel Bacon leads an unsuccessful rebellion of whites and blacks against the English colonial government in Virginia.

1681—Maryland laws mandate that children of European servant women and African men are free.

1682—A new slave code in Virginia prohibits weapons for slaves, requires passes beyond the limits of the plantation, and forbids self-defense by any African American against any European American.

1685—New York law forbids enslaved Africans and Native Americans from having meetings or carrying firearms.

1688—Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, denounce slavery in the. first recorded formal protest in North America against the enslavement of Africans.

1690—By this year, all English colonies in America have enslaved Africans.

Enslaved Africans and Native Americans in Massachusetts plan a rebellion.

1692—The Virginia House of Burgesses enacts the Runaway Slave law, making it legal to kill a runaway in the course of apprehension.

1693—All fugitive Africans who have escaped slavery in the British colonies and fled to Florida are granted their freedom by the Spanish monarchy.

1694—The introduction of rice into the Carolina colony, ironically from West Africa, increases the need for labor for emerging plantations. This adds another factor to the economic justification and rationalization for expanding the slave trade.

1696—American Quakers, at their annual meeting, warn members against holding Africans in slavery. Violators who continue to keep ~1aves are threatened with expulsion.

1700—A census reports more than 27,000 enslaved people, mostly Africans, in the English colonies in North America. The vast majority of these bondspeople live in the southern colonies.

Boston slave traders are involved in selling enslaved Africans in New England colonies and Virginia.

Massachusetts Chief Justice Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a book that advances both the economic and moral reasons for the abolition of the trade in enslaved Africans.

Timeline: 1701—1800

1704—French colonist Elias Neau opens a school for enslaved African Americans in New York City.

1708—Africans in South Carolina outnumber Europeans, making it the first English colony with a black majority.

1711—Great Britain’s Queen Anne overrules a Pennsylvania colonial law prohibiting slavery.

1712—The New York City slave revolt begins on April 6. Nine whites are killed and an unknown number of blacks die in the uprising. Colonial authorities execute 21 slaves and six commit suicide.

1713—England secures the exclusive right to transport slaves to the Spanish colonies in America.

1721—South Carolina limits the vote to free white Christian men.

1724—Louisiana’s Code Noir is enacted in New Orleans to regulate black slavery and banish Jews from the colony.

Boston imposes a curfew on nonwhites.

1727—Enslaved Africans and Native Americans revolt in Middlesex and Gloucester counties in Virginia.

1733—Spain promises freedom in Spanish Florida to slaves who escape from the English colonies.

1735—South Carolina passes laws requiring enslaved people to we~ clothing identifying them as slaves. Freed slaves are required to lea the colony within six months or risk re-enslavement.

1737 – An indentured black servant petitions a Massachusetts Court and wins his freedom after the death of his master.

1739 – The first major South Carolina slave revolt takes place in Stono on September 9. A score of whites and more than twice as many black slaves are killed as the armed slaves try to flee to Florida.

Nineteen white citizens of Darien, Georgia, petition the colonial governor to continue the ban on the importation of Africans into the colony, calling African enslavement “shocking to human nature.” This is the first anti-slavery protest in the southern colonies. Ten years later, however, Georgia authorities repeal the ban.

1741—During the New York Slave Conspiracy Trials, New York City officials execute 34 people for planning to burn down the town. Thirteen African- American men are burned at the stake and another 17 black men, two white men, and two white women are hanged. Seventy blacks and seven whites are permanently expelled from the city.


Carolina’s colonial legislature enacts a law banning the teaching of enslaved people to read and write.

1742—New Spain’s (Colonial Mexico) population includes 20,131 blacks and 266,196 mulattoes.

1746—Lucy Terry, a slave, composes “Bars Fight,” the first known poem by an African American. A description of an Indian raid on Terry’s hometown in Massachusetts, the poem will be passed down orally and published in 1855.

1752—Twenty-one-year-old Benjamin Banneker constructs one of the first clocks in Colonial America, the first of a long line of inventions and innovations until his death in 1806.

1758—The African Baptist or “Bluestone” Church is founded on the William Byrd plantation near the Bluestone River, in Mecklenburg, Virginia, becoming the first known black church in North America.

A school for free black children is opened in Philadelphia.

1760 - Jupiter Hammons publishes a book of poetry. This is believed to be the first volume written and published by an African American.

1762 - Virginia restricts voting rights to white men.

1770_Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, becomes the first Colonial resident to die for American independence when he is killed by the British in the Boston Massacre.

1772—On June 22, Lord Chief Mansfield rules in the James Somerset case that an enslaved person brought to England becomes free cannot be returned to slavery, laying the legal basis for the freeing of England’s 15,000 slaves.

1773 - Phillis Wheatley publishes a book of poetry.

The Silver Bluff Baptist Church, the oldest continuously operating black church, is founded in Silver Bluff, South Carolina, near Savannah, Georgia.

1774—A group of blacks petition the Massachusetts General Court (legislature), insisting they too have a natural right to their freedom.

1775-1781—The American War of Independence. Approximately 450,000 enslaved Africans comprise 20 percent of the population of the colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence.

1775_African Americans participate on the Patriot side in the earliest battles of the Revolution - Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill.

General George Washington reverses his earlier policy of the services of slaves and free blacks in the army. Five thousand African Americans serve during the Revolutionary War, including two predominantly black units in Massachusetts, one in Connecticut, and one in Rhode Island.

The first Abolition Society meeting in North America Philadelphia; Benjamin Franklin is elected president of the Society.

On November 7, Lord Dunmore, British Governor of Virginia declares all slaves free who come to the defense of the British Crown against the Patriot forces. Dunmore eventually organizes the first regiment of black soldiers to fight under the British flag.

1776—A passage authored by Thomas Jefferson condemning the slave trade is removed from the Declaration of Independence due to pressure from the southern colonies.

Approximately 100,000 enslaved people flee their masters during the Revolution.

1777 - Vermont abolishes slavery.

1778 - Boston businessman Paul Cuffe and his brother, John, refuse to pay taxes, claiming as blacks they are not allowed to vote and they suffer taxation without representation.

1780 - Massachusetts abolishes slavery and grants African-American men the right to vote.

The Free African Union Society is created in Newport, Rhode Island. It is the first cultural organization established by blacks in North America.

Pennsylvania adopts the first gradual emancipation law. All children of enslaved people born after November 1, 1780, will be free on their 28th birthday.

1781 -1783—Twenty-thousand black loyalists depart with British Troops from the newly independent United States. Approximately 5,000 African Americans served with Patriot forces. Three times that many served with the British although not all of them leave the new nation.

1781 - Los Angeles is founded by 54 settlers, including 26 of African ancestry.

1784 - Connecticut and Rhode Island adopt gradual emancipation laws.

Congress rejects Thomas Jefferson’s proposal to exclude slavery from all western territories after 1800.

1785 - New York frees all slaves who served in the Revolutionary Army.

1787—Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, which establishes formal procedures for transforming territories into states. It provides for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the area north of the Ohio River, to be considered equal with the original 13. The Ordinance includes a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of religion, the right to trial by jury, public education, and a ban on slavery in the region.

The U.S. Constitution is drafted. It provides for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years and requires states to aid slave-holders in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It also stipu1ates that a slave counts as three-fifths of a man for purposes of determining representation in the House of Representatives.

Free blacks in New York City found the African Free School, where future leaders Henry Highland Garnet and Alexander Crummell are educated.

Richard Allen and Absalom Jones form the Free African Society in Philadelphia.

1788—In Massachusetts, following an incident in which free blacks were kidnapped and transported to the island of Martinique, the Massachusetts legislature declares the slave trade illegal and provides monetary damages to victims of kidnappings.

1789—The French Revolution begins.

1790—First Census of the United States
U.S. Population: 3,929,214
Black Population: 757,208 (19.3%), including 59,557 free African Americans.

Free African Americans in Charleston form the Brown Fellowship Society.

1791—The Haitian Revolution begins.

1793—The United States Congress enacts the first Fugitive Slave Law. Providing assistance to fugitive slaves is now a criminal offense.

Thanks for the chronology.

I archived it.

Point:

I always understood, from my reading of Chiekh Anta Diop's 'The African Origin of Civilization..' that The Mali Empire evolved into the Ghanian Empire, ...and

that it The Mali Empire spanned, approx. 300 AD to 800 AD...then The Ghanaian Empire to around 1200 AD... then The Songhai Empire to about 1500 to 1600 AD.

Obviously, I'm no historian.

Jim Chester