Slavery in the New Nation

1776 to 1860

A new nation was born, promising liberty. It wrote slavery into its own law.

In 1787, the Constitution counted every enslaved person as three-fifths of a person, ordered that anyone who escaped be "delivered up," and let the trade in Africans run for twenty more years. It never once used the word "slave."

In 1793, President Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act: a slaveholder could seize a person in any state, and anyone who hid him paid five hundred dollars.

The money reached everywhere. In 1838, a college sold 272 people to pay its debts. In 1859, at a racecourse in Savannah, 436 men, women and children were sold in two days. The families called it the weeping time. In 1860, the census counted 3,953,760 people held in slavery.

And they fought back: Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman. White allies stood with them, from William Lloyd Garrison to John Brown, who gave his life at Harpers Ferry.

Tap Next to read each record. Every fact in them carries a small [Source] mark. Tap it to see where the fact comes from.

We don't need to raise our voice. The truth, told exactly, is enough.

1787 Proven

Slavery in the Constitution

They were careful never to write the word. But they wrote us into the nation's founding law three times.

The men who wrote the Constitution of the United States in 1787 never used the words "slave" or "slavery." ^[Source 1]

First, in dividing up seats in Congress, every enslaved person counted as three-fifths of a person: "three fifths of all other Persons." Our bodies gave the slaveholding states more power, and we got none of it. ^[Source 1]

Second, Congress was barred for twenty years from ending "the Migration or Importation of such Persons," and could tax it at up to ten dollars "for each Person." ^[Source 1]

Third, a person "held to Service or Labour" who escaped into another state could not be freed there. He "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." ^[Source 1]

This is the nation's own document. The nation stood guard over slavery from its first day.

1793 Proven

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

Six years after the Constitution, the President signed the hunt into law.

On 12 February 1793, President George Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act. ^[Source 1]

It gave a slaveholder, or his agent, the power "to seize or arrest" a person who had escaped, and bring him before a judge or a local magistrate. ^[Source 1]

To take him back, the slaveholder needed only to satisfy that judge, by spoken testimony or a sworn paper. The person seized had no jury. ^[Source 1]

Anyone who hid him, rescued him, or stood in the way had to "forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars." ^[Source 1]

1800 Proven

Gabriel's Plan

Twenty-four years after "all men are created equal," an enslaved blacksmith decided to make Virginia mean it.

Gabriel was enslaved by Thomas Prosser, of Henrico County, Virginia. ^[Source 1]

He planned to take Richmond by force, seize the Capitol and the state's armory, and hold Governor James Monroe hostage to bargain for the freedom of Virginia's enslaved people. ^[Source 1]

One of the men testified that Gabriel meant to carry a flag with three words on it: "death or liberty." ^[Source 1]

On 30 August 1800, a tremendous storm swelled the creeks and turned Richmond's streets to mud, and the men could not gather. A few told their masters of the plan. Twenty-six enslaved men were hanged, and others were sold out of Virginia. ^[Source 1]

The storm stopped them. Their courage did not fail.

1801 Proven

George Washington and Mount Vernon

The first President held 317 of us at his home when he died.

In 1799, 317 people were enslaved at Mount Vernon, George Washington's plantation in Virginia. Washington owned 123 of them. Another 153 belonged to the estate of his wife Martha's first husband, and 40 were rented from a neighbor. ^[Source 1]

His will said: "Upon the decease of my wife, it is my Will & desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom." He told his executors to "see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled." ^{[Source 2] [Source 3]}

Martha did not wait for her own death. She freed them early, and on 1 January 1801 they became free. ^[Source 1]

The other 153 were not his to free, he wrote, "it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the Dower Negroes are held, to manumit them." They stayed enslaved. ^{[Source 4] [Source 1]}

1807 to 1808 Proven

The Ban on Bringing In Africans

They closed the door to new captives, and kept every one already inside.

On 2 March 1807, President Thomas Jefferson signed a law that banned bringing enslaved people into the United States. It took effect on 1 January 1808, the first day the Constitution allowed. ^[Source 1]

A captain caught with Africans on board for sale faced a fine of up to $10,000 and two to four years in prison. Ships fitted out for the trade were seized. ^[Source 1]

But the Africans found on those ships were not set free. The law handed them to whoever each state appointed, and the state decided what became of them. ^[Source 1]

The law ended the trade across the ocean. It did not free one person already enslaved, or one child born to them. And as the next record shows, it made the trade inside the country worth more than ever.

1822 Proven

Denmark Vesey

He was free. He could have looked after himself. He chose to stand with the rest of us.

In 1799, Denmark Vesey won $1,500 in a lottery and used it to buy his own freedom. He became a carpenter with his own shop in Charleston, South Carolina. ^[Source 1]

He worshiped at the African Church, the congregation that later became Mother Emanuel. ^[Source 1]

In 1822, he and others were accused of planning a rising for 14 July. One hundred thirty-one men were arrested. Of the 67 convicted, 35 were hanged. Vesey was hanged on 2 July 1822. ^[Source 1]

White Charlestonians tore down the church. South Carolina then passed laws to jail free Black sailors while their ships were in port, so they could not speak with the people of the city. ^[Source 1]

1825 Proven

Haiti's Ransom

The world asks how anyone could ever pay for slavery. Haiti paid. But Haiti paid the slaveholders.

On 1 January 1804, after its enslaved people rose up and won, Haiti declared its independence. ^[Source 1]

On 17 April 1825, King Charles X of France signed an ordinance. Haiti would pay "la somme de cent cinquante millions de francs, destinée à dédommager les anciens colons": 150 million francs, to compensate the former colonists. French ships would pay half the customs duties of everyone else. ^{[Source 2] [Source 3]}

Only "à ces conditions," on these conditions, did France grant Haiti its independence. ^[Source 4]

The sum was about twice what the United States paid for Louisiana. A French baron arrived with 14 warships carrying more than 500 cannons. On 11 July 1825, Haiti's president signed. ^[Source 1]

It was a payment by the formerly enslaved to the people who had enslaved them, made at gunpoint. ^[Source 5]

So the question was never whether slavery could be paid for. Haiti was made to pay for it, to the enslavers.

1827 Proven

Thomas Jefferson and Monticello

The man who wrote that "all men are created equal" held more than six hundred of us.

Thomas Jefferson enslaved more than 610 human beings in the course of his life. At any one time, about 130 people were enslaved at Monticello, his home in Virginia. ^[Source 1]

Of all of them, he freed only ten, all from one family. ^[Source 1]

He died on 4 July 1826, owing $107,000. To pay it, his executors sold the land, the house, everything in it, and the people. ^[Source 2]

His grandson and executor, Thomas J. Randolph, ran the notice in the Richmond Enquirer: "On the fifteenth of January, at Monticello," the estate would be sold, "consisting of 130 valuable negroes, stock, crop, &c." ^[Source 3]

The sale was held at Monticello in January 1827. "Families who had served the Jeffersons for nearly 60 years stood on the auction block." They were sold to pay a dead man's bills. ^[Source 2]

1828 Proven

Franklin and Armfield

Selling us was a business, with an office, newspaper notices and a business plan.

In February 1828, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield went into business together, with about $20,000. ^[Source 1]

That May, they told the readers of Alexandria's newspaper what they wanted: 150 "likely young negroes of both sexes between the ages of 8 and 25 years." They promised to "give more than any other purchasers." ^{[Source 2] [Source 3]}

Children as young as eight.

Armfield bought people in Virginia and Maryland from the firm's brick house on Duke Street in Alexandria. Franklin sold them in Natchez, Mississippi, and in New Orleans. ^{[Source 2] [Source 1]}

1831 Proven

The Liberator

Some white Americans stood with us, and would not be quiet.

On 1 January 1831, in Boston, William Lloyd Garrison printed the first issue of The Liberator, a newspaper calling for an end to slavery. ^[Source 1]

Its first story ended: "I am in earnest! I will not equivocate! I will not excuse! I will not retreat a single inch! And I will be heard!" ^[Source 1]

1831 Proven

Nat Turner

Nat Turner struck back. Then the South punished all of us.

Turner believed a sign would tell him when. When it came, he said, "I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons." ^[Source 1]

On the evening of 21 August 1831, Nat Turner and the men with him rose up in Southampton County, Virginia. Over about forty hours, they killed white men, women and children. The list printed with his confession counts them, "amounting to fifty-five." ^{[Source 2] [Source 3]}

More than 48 enslaved and free Black people were captured. Dozens more were killed, many where they stood. By the time Turner was caught, mobs had killed about a hundred more Black people. ^[Source 2]

Turner hid for two months. He was caught on 30 October. The court met "on Saturday, the 5th day of Nov. 1831," and the trial lasted six hours. He was hanged on 11 November 1831. ^{[Source 2] [Source 4]}

1833 Proven

Britain Paid the Slaveholders

When Britain ended slavery, it paid. It paid the wrong people.

In 1833, Parliament abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape. With it came "the grant of £20 million in compensation, to be paid by the British taxpayers to slave owners." ^[Source 1]

The Treasury itself says that was "approximately 40% of the Government's total annual expenditure." To raise it, the government borrowed £15 million. ^{[Source 2] [Source 3]}

The people who had been enslaved received nothing. Instead, they were made "apprentices," and kept working for the men who had held them. ^{[Source 3] [Source 1]}

So when anyone says repair cannot be paid, remember: it was paid once already. To the slaveholders.

1838 Proven

Georgetown's Sale of 272 People

A college of priests sold 272 of us to pay its bills. The contract still exists.

On 19 June 1838, in Washington, Thomas F. Mulledy signed a contract to sell 272 enslaved people held by the Jesuits of Maryland. He had been president of Georgetown College from 1829 to 1837. ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

The buyers were two Louisiana sugar planters, Jesse Batey and Henry Johnson, a former governor of Louisiana. ^[Source 2]

The price was $115,000: $25,000 when the first 51 people were handed over, and the rest over ten years, at six percent interest. Even after the sale, the people themselves were mortgaged to secure the debt. ^[Source 1]

The money paid off the most pressing debts of Georgetown College. ^[Source 2] The ship Katherine Jackson carried some of them to New Orleans, and they were split up among plantations near Baton Rouge. ^[Source 2]

1838 Proven

Frederick Douglass

He was born property. He became the most powerful voice in America against slavery.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in February 1818. ^[Source 1]

On 3 September 1838, dressed as a sailor, with a train ticket bought with the money of Anna Murray, a young free Black woman who risked her own safety for him, he boarded a train north. In less than a day he was in New York City, and free. ^[Source 1]

1839 to 1842 Proven

The Amistad

They took the ship, and then they took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and won.

In 1839, 53 Africans were kidnapped from what is now Sierra Leone and sold, against the law, into the Spanish slave trade. ^[Source 1]

In July 1839, aboard the Amistad, sailing between two ports in Cuba, they broke their chains. Led by a man the Spanish called Cinque, they killed the captain and two of the crew, and ordered the rest to sail them home to Sierra Leone. By night, the crew turned the ship north. ^[Source 2]

After 63 days at sea, it was sighted off Long Island, New York, seized by the U.S. Navy and towed to New London, Connecticut. ^[Source 1]

Their fight for freedom went from court to court. Former president John Quincy Adams argued for them before the Supreme Court. On 9 March 1841, the Court ruled that they were free. ^[Source 1]

In January 1842, the 35 who had survived sailed home to Africa. ^[Source 1]

1845 Proven

Douglass Tells His Own Story

They said a man that brilliant could never have been a slave. He answered them in print.

People doubted a man that brilliant had ever been enslaved. So in 1845 he answered them with his life story, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. ^[Source 1]

1846 to 1848 Proven

Life Insurance on Enslaved People

They insured our lives, and paid our deaths to the men who held us.

For two years, from 1846 to 1848, the company that became New York Life, then called the Nautilus Insurance Company, sold policies on the lives of enslaved people. ^[Source 1]

By its own records, it insured the lives of 520 people who appear to have been enslaved. ^[Source 1]

Its own counsel set down the payments: "Nautilus paid a total of 15 death claims under slave policies, with a total claim payment amount of $7,474." The money went to the men who held them, not to their families. ^{[Source 2] [Source 1]}

On 19 April 1848, the company's trustees voted to stop selling them. ^[Source 3]

1849 Proven

Harriet Tubman

She got free. Then she kept going back.

She was born Araminta Ross in Dorchester County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, in 1822, to Ben and Harriet Ross, both enslaved. She took the name Harriet when she married John Tubman in 1844. ^[Source 1]

Five years later, she escaped. ^[Source 1]

1850 Proven

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

With this law, nowhere in the United States was safe for us. Not even the North.

In 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, Congress passed a new Fugitive Slave Act. ^[Source 1]

Federal commissioners heard the cases. A person could be arrested on the sworn word of a man who claimed to own him. ^[Source 1]

And the person accused was not allowed to speak: "In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence." ^[Source 1]

The commissioner was paid $10 if he sent the person into slavery, and $5 if he set him free. The law paid double for slavery. Anyone who gave food or shelter to a person who had escaped could be fined up to $1,000 and jailed for six months. ^[Source 1]

1857 Proven

Dred Scott

The highest court in the land told us, in writing, what we were to this nation.

Dred Scott had lived for years as an enslaved man in free places, in the state of Illinois and in the Wisconsin Territory. With his wife, Harriet, he sued for their freedom in St. Louis. ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

A Missouri court declared him free in 1850. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed it in 1852. ^[Source 2]

On 6 March 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him, seven to two. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote that people of African descent were not citizens of the United States, and that Congress could not ban slavery from a territory. Scott, the Court held, had never been free. ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

Taney wrote that we were "so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." ^[Source 3]

On 26 May 1857, after eleven years in the courts, Dred and Harriet Scott were freed anyway, in the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, when Taylor Blow paid their freedom bonds. Not by the law. By a man's purchase. ^[Source 4]

1859 Proven

The Weeping Time

This happened in Savannah. Our people remember it by the name they gave it.

On 2 and 3 March 1859, one of the largest sales of enslaved people in American history took place at the Ten Broeck Race Course in Savannah, Georgia. ^[Source 1]

To pay his creditors, Pierce M. Butler sold 436 men, women and children from his plantations near Darien, Georgia. ^[Source 1] Thirty of them were babies. Butler had lost his fortune to gambling and a costly divorce. ^[Source 2]

Before the sale, the people were kept in the sheds that usually held the race-goers' horses and carriages. Buyers inspected them in the pouring rain. ^[Source 2]

The sale brought in $303,850. Families were split apart. Dorcas was sold to South Carolina, and Jeffrey, the man she was to marry, to North Carolina. ^[Source 2]

The people never forgot. They called it "the weeping time." ^[Source 1]

1859 Proven

John Brown at Harpers Ferry

A white man who gave his life, and two of his sons, to end our slavery.

On the night of 16 October 1859, John Brown led his men into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His small army numbered twenty-one. ^[Source 1]

They seized the bridges, the U.S. Armory and Arsenal, and the rifle works, and took hostages. Townspeople and militia surrounded them. On 18 October, U.S. Marines broke into the engine house where Brown was holding out, and captured him. ^[Source 1]

Sixteen people were killed. Ten of them were Brown's men, and two of those were his sons, Oliver and Watson. ^[Source 1]

His trial took five days. The jury found him guilty in 45 minutes. On 2 December 1859, the day he was hanged, he wrote: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." ^[Source 1]

Less than two years later, the war came.

1860 Proven

What a Human Being Was Worth

This is why they would go to war to keep us.

The census of 1860 was the last to count the enslaved. It found 3,953,760 people held in slavery in the United States, up from 697,897 in 1790. ^[Source 1]

As property, the historian David Blight says, they were worth about three and a half billion dollars. ^[Source 2]

That was more than all of America's factories and all of its railroads put together. ^[Source 2]

Not one dollar of it was ours.

1860 Proven

Sold Down the River

This was our Trail of Tears. A million of us, marched south in chains.

In the fifty years before the Civil War, about a million enslaved people were moved from the Upper South, from Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky, to the Deep South: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. ^[Source 1]

From Virginia alone, nearly 450,000 people were uprooted and sent south between 1810 and 1860. ^[Source 1]

In 1834, a coffle of more than 300 people left Alexandria, Virginia. About 200 men walked chained in pairs. About 100 women and girls followed. Wagons carried the children, and those who collapsed. They walked about 20 miles a day, for two to four months. ^[Source 1]

At the end of the road were the slave pens. In 1841, Solomon Northup, a free man kidnapped into slavery, stood in one in New Orleans while a mother named Eliza watched her son Randall sold away from her. "All the time the trade was going on, Eliza was crying aloud, and wringing her hands." ^[Source 2]

"Sold down the river" is a saying now. For us it was a mother who never saw her children again.

1860 Proven

The Clotilda

Fifty-two years after the ban, they still brought us in.

On 27 February 1860, the schooner Clotilda cleared the port of Mobile, Alabama. Its papers said it was bound for "St. Thomas or a market." ^[Source 1]

It was built by Timothy Meaher, a white shipyard owner in Mobile. ^[Source 2]

On 8 July 1860, it came back carrying more than 100 enslaved people from West Africa. Bringing them in had been against the law for more than fifty years. ^[Source 2]

Its captain, William Foster, moved the Africans onto a riverboat, then burned and sank the Clotilda to hide the crime. ^[Source 2]