1640 
The Bay Psalm Book, the first book in the English colonies, is published in Boston. 

Charles I of England summons the Long Parliament. 

1641 
The famous “Body of Liberties” laws is enacted in Massachusetts and gives tacit approval to the institution of slavery: “There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitie amongst vs, unles it be lawful Captives taken in just warres, & such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. . . .” Connecticut follows suit in 1650; Virginia, 1661; Maryland, 1663; New York and New Jersey, 1664; South Carolina, 1682; Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, 1700; North Carolina, 1715; Georgia, 1750. 

The earliest record of a slave baptized and taken into the church is documented in Dorchester, Massachusetts. 

The French Compagnie de l’Orient is founded for the purpose of colonizing Madagascar (East Africa). 

The English are slaughtered in Ireland. 

1642 
Cardinal Richelieu of France dies. 

1644 
The earliest record of the Manumission of slaves is in Nieuw Amsterdam. 

The Manchus end the Ming Dynasty in China. 

1645 
The Rainbowe, first American slave ship, under Captain Smith, captures and imports Africans into Massachusetts. 

Sweden constructs for slave trading Fort Christianborg on the West African Gold Coast (modern–day Ghana). 

1646 
Africans revolt in Veracruz. The Mexican seaport city has one of the largest concentrations of Africans anywhere in Mexico during the colonial period. 

The mixed African and European population of Mexico reaches approximately 116,529. 

1647 
The Haarlem, trading ship of the Dutch East India Company, is wrecked at Table Bay, South Africa. The crew who survive suggest the establishment of a refreshment center at the Cape of Good Hope. Recognition of the KhoiKhoi as established and substantial cattle breeders makes the idea attractive to them. 

1648 
The Treaty of Westphalia ends the 30–Years War, and Holland and Switzerland are recog- nized as free republics. Prussia gains in importantance. The Treaty gives a complete victory neither to the imperial crown nor to the princes. 

Luanda (present–day Angola) falls to 1500 Brazilian invaders who arrive on 15 Portuguese ships. 

1649 
Charles I of England is executed. 

1650 
The once great empires of the Western Sudan have declined. According to as–Sadi, the Timbuktu historian, “The Sudan was one of God’s most favored countries in prosperity and fertility. . . . Now all that has changed. . . . Security has given place to danger, prosperity to misery and calamity. . . . Disorder spreading and intensifying has become universal.” 

The Navigation Act is promulgated in England during the commonwealth and protectorate period of Oliver Cromwell when a nascent nationalism finds expression. A second act is passed in 1651. The acts contribute to a desire for British hegemony and commercial superiority in the Caribbean. Navigation Act of 1663 requires that most imports for trade in the English colonies be transported via England on English ships. The Acts also limit exports of tobacco and sugar and other commodities to England or its colonies. The British Navigation Act of 1673 sets up the office of customs commissioner in the colonies to collect duties on goods that pass between plantations. 

1652 
The first Dutch settlers, led by Jan van Riebeeck, land at the Cape in South Africa to set up a refreshment station. 

1655 
Jamaica, the least developed of the Spanish Islands, is captured by an English expedition under Admiral Penn and General Venables sent out by Oliver Cromwell to attack the Spanish Empire in the West Indies. 

The Witte Paert is first vessel to import Africans into New York.   

The first law against slavery in North America is enacted by Rhode Island. 

A revolt of 1,500 Maroons erupts in Jamaica. The incidence of Maroons (and maroonage) is along with slave insurrections rampant throughout the history of slavery in the Caribbean and North and South America.

1657 
The so–called free burghers (independent farmers) settle on KhoiKhoi land in the Liesbeek Valley. Each burgher is given a farm of 28 acres free of taxes for 12 years. 

Slaves are first recorded at the Cape of Good Hope. 

1658 
Aurungzeb becomes the Great Mogul. 

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the English commonwealth, dies. 

1659 
Chief Autshumayo, leader of the KhoiKhoi, leads the first battles against the seizure by van Riebeeck of the best pasture lands in the Cape Peninsula (South Africa). 

1662 
A Virginia law makes enslavement of Africans hereditary, depending on mother’s condition of servitude. 

A War of Resistance is fought by the KhoiKhoi in defense of their lands. 

The first serious slave conspiracy in Colonial America occurs. Servants betray plot of white indentured laborers and African slaves in Gloucester County, Virginia. 

1663 
King Charles II of England dispatches Captain Robert Holmes with well–armed squadron to the African coast to protect English claims against interference with their slave trade; in 1664 he seizes and occupies Dutch factories (“slave warehouses”) at Gorée, Cape Verde, Cape Coast Castle, etc. 

Another slave insurrection breaks out in Jamaica. 

1664 
Maryland enacts first anti–miscegenation law to prevent marriages of Englishwomen and Africans. Virginia bans inter–racial marriages in 1691; Massachusetts, 1705; North Carolina, 1715; South Carolina, 1717; Delaware, 1721; Pennsylvania, 1725. Many states maintain ban on inter-racial marriages well into the 20th century. The Maryland colony also passes a law making lifelong servitude for enslaved Africans mandatory to prevent them from taking advantage of legal precedents established in England which grant freedom under certain conditions, such as conversion to Christianity. Similar laws are later passed in New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas and Virginia. 

1665 
The Portuguese defeat the Congolese army at the Battle of Ambuila. Both sides fight under the banner of the Cross, signaling the beginning of a long period of instability and anarchy in the Congo. 

A slave insurrection occurs in Mexico City, prompting greater concern about the increasing African population in the entire colony. 

1667 
Pestilence makes slaves scarce in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

A law is passed by the Virginia Assembly stating that the baptism of Africans does not exempt them from bondage. 

1670 
Charleston, South Carolina, is founded, becoming the only “city” in the Deep South during the colonial period. 

In the Treaty of Madrid, Spain agrees to recognize the right of Britain to possess colonies in the West Indies. 

The state of Virginia declares it unlawful for Africans to buy white people. Africans buy so many white people in large numbers in Louisiana that they have to pass a law against it. This law is still in effect in 1818. 

1672 
The participation of buccaneers in the third Dutch War (1672–1678) contributes to the bank- ruptcy and collapse of the Dutch West India Company and enables the French to enforce a commercial monopoly in their own West Indian colonies. 

The Royal African Company is formed and monopolizes the slave trade to the English colonies. In 1696 Company loses its slave trade monopoly which spurs the New England colonists to engage in slave trading for profit. 

1673 
Another War of Resistance is fought by the KhoiKhoi, led by Chief Gonnema, over the white settlers’ attempt to alienate them from their lands. 

Dutch military forces retake New York from the British. 

Nieuw Amsterdam finally becomes British and is renamed New York after Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrenders to the British following a naval blockade. The Treaty of Westminster formally ends hostilities between the British and the Dutch. 

1675-1676
King Philip's War erupts in New England between colonists and Native Americans as a result of tensions over colonist's expansionist activities. The bloody war rages up and down the Connecticut River valley in Massachusetts and in the Plymouth and Rhode Island colonies, eventually resulting in 600 English colonials being killed and 3,000 Native Americans, including women and children on both sides. King Philip (the colonist's nickname for Metacomet, chief of the Wampanoags) is hunted down and killed on August 12, 1676, in a swamp in Rhode Island, ending the war in southern New England and ending the independent power of Native Americans there. In New Hampshire and Maine, the Saco Indians continue to raid settlements for another year and a half.  

1679 
The slaves revolt in Santo Domingo. Maroon communities are organized. 

1680 
In the Treaty of Raisbon, France agrees to restrict its buccaneers in the West Indies. In 1697,  with the Treaty of Ryswick, the age of buccaneering finally comes to an end. 

1681 
Philadelphia, the cultural center and largest city in the colonies in 1770s, on the eve of the American Revolution, is founded. 

1683 
The last Turkish attack on Vienna is defeated by John III of Poland. 

1685 
“Le Code Noir” is promulgated by French minister Colbert. This slave code is revised in 1724 and 1786. It serves as a model for both the British and the American slave codes. 

Slaves revolt again in Jamaica, with many fleeing to the mountains to join the Maroons. Martial law is proclaimed for several months. 

1687 
Slaves revolt in Antigua. 

A fever epidemic in South Africa spreads through the KhoiKhoi people, killing many.   

1688 
The pioneer attack on the institution of slavery is initiated by the Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania. 

Two hundred French Huguenot settlers arrive in South Africa.   

William Bosman arrives at Elmina slave trading fort on coast of modern–day Ghana. 

During the British revolution James II flees England, and William and Mary begin their reign. 

1689 
Peter the Great rules Russia until 1725. 

1690 
In Jamaica, the Maroons of Trelawney revolt. 

The Battle of the Boyne takes place in Ireland. 

1691 
A revolt erupts in Santo Domingo. 

1692 
Slaves revolt in Barbados. 

1693 
The Reverend Cotton Mather organizes the “Society of Negroes,” a pioneer effort to provide instruction for the slaves in Boston and to teach them to be content with their enslaved condition. 

1694 
Two slave uprisings occur in Jamaica. 

1695 
The Palmares revolt takes place in Brazil. See Irene Diggs, “Zumbi and the Republic of Os Palmares,” Phylon (1953). 

Maryland passes a law placing an imposition upon Africans, slaves, and white persons imported into the state. 

1697 
With the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick, Spain formally recognizes France’s possession of Saint Domingue. 

1700 
The first anti–slavery tract, The Selling of Joseph, is published by Samuel Sewall. 

The approximate date for the beginning of the European Industrial Revolution which spurs a great increase in the African slave trade during the eighteenth century. The rise of an Atlantic economy involving the maritime and colonial powers of Europe, “doing business with sword and Bible in hand,” extends European rivalries into Africa and the New World. The rise of Capitalism begins (see Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776). 

The Rozwi state of Changamire is at its most powerful at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 

1701 
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) erupts between Britain and the Netherlands and France and Spain. The war stems from the ambitions of Louis XIV of France to unite the thrones of France and Spain under a single dynasty. The War ends with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt. 

Frederick I becomes the first King of Prussia. 

1702 
The first major military clash between Trekboers and the Xhosa people occurs near the banks of the Fish River in South Africa. 

The slaves revolt in Barbados. 

1703 
Anton Wilhelm Amo is born near Axim in modern–day Ghana. In 1727 Amo goes to the Uni- versity of Halle, Germany, where in 1729 he is graduated in Law. In 1730 he goes to Witten- berg University where he receives Doctor of Philosophy degree. 

". . . It was quite usual for high-born folk to have decorative [Africans] in their households . . . some might be tried out for experiments in education. [One such experiment was] Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal who was educated by Peter the Great and eventually made a Lieutenant-General of Artillery; he married a Russian noblewoman, and one of their great-grandchilldren was Alexander Pushkin. James Eliza Hohn Capitein, carried off from West Africa to Amsterdam, where was educated by a rich merchant, became so thoroughly imbued with the ideas of his mentors that he defended the slave trade in a Latin treatise on slavery (Dissertatio de servitute). In 1742 he published this in Dutch as well, A politico-Theological Investigation of Slavery as not Incompatible with Christian Liberty (Staatkundig-Godgeleerd Onderzoekschrift over de Slavernij, als niet strijdig tegen de Christelijke Vrijheid). In the same year, after the publi- cation of his 'Rousing Sermons' (Uitgewrogte Predikatien), he returned to West Africa — he was now twenty-five — as headmaster of a Calvinist mission school at Elmina, and translated some extracts from the bible . . . [Later the rumor circulated] that Capitein had 'reverted to idolatrous habits.' He died in 1747. Anton Wilhelm [Antonius Guilielmus] Amo came to Amsterdam in 1707 and was given to Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick–Wolfenbüttel, who handed him over to his son August Wilhelm. In 1708 Amo was christened with the names Anton Wilhelm after his patrons. in 1721 he was confirmed, in 1727 he went to Halle University, where in 1729 he graduated in law with his Disputation De jure Maurorum in Europa . . . In 1730 he went to Wittenberg University and there in the same year gained a degree as Doctor of Philosophy. In 1733, on the visit of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Dr. Amo led the students' procession in the monarch's honor. In1734, after having his Disputation published, he was made Professor of Philosophy. In 1736 he returned to Halle as lecturer and there taught psychology, 'natural law' and the decimal system — a universality which was then customary. . . . In 1738 Amo's Tractatus de arte sobrie et accurate philosophandi (Treatise on the Art of Philo- sophizing Soberly and Accurately) was published in Halle; he himself had become quite a bright star in the firmament of Halle's early Enlightenment. The following year moved to Jena University, where he gave his inaugural lectukre on 'The Frontiers of Psychology,' and no doubt stayed there till May 1740. The two sons of Duke Anton Ulrich had died in 1731 and 1735 respectively; Johann Peter von Ludewig, Chancellor of Halle University, died in 1742; and Amo probably found no other patron in Germany. At any rate we hear no more of him until 1753, when he was bacvk home in Axim, venerated apparently as a [traditional doctor. When he died is unknown]" (Janheinz Jahn, Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing [New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1968], pp. 35. 38-39).

Gibraltar is taken by British from Spain. 

1705 
A Virginia slave code holds that slaves are real estate. 

1707 
In London, Hymns and Spiritual Songs is published by Issac Watts, which influences the development of African American hymnody. The American edition is published in Boston in 1728. 

The death of Aurungzeb precipitates the disintegration of the Empire of the Great Mongul. 

1711 
Africans fight the French in Brazil. 

1712 
Slaves revolt in New York City. Sentries are placed around the island of Manhattan because black men are in rebellion. Twenty-one slaves are either burned, hanged, broken on the wheel or hanged alive in chains. Six commit suicide. 

Willie Lynch, a West Indian slave holder, is reputed to have told American slave holders the following in 1712:

Gentlemen, I greet you here on the bank of the James River in  the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentle- men of the Colony of Virginia,  for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your  problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest  plantation in the West Indies where I have experimented with  some of the new- est and still the oldest methods of control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program were  implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we  cherish. I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of woods as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great num- bers, you are here  using the tree and the rope on occasion. 

I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back. You are not only losing a valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for  maxi- mum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed. Gentlemen, you know what your problems are: I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enu- merate your problems, I  am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my  bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee everyone of you that, if installed correctly, it will control the slaves for at least 300 hundred years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. 

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves: and I  take these differ- ences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will  work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of  differences, and think about them. On top of my list is “Age,” but it is there only because it starts with an “A,” the second is ‘’color" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantation, attitude of owners, whether  the slaves live in the valley, on the hill,East, West, North, South, have fine hair, coarse hair, or are tall or short. Now that you have  a list of differences. I shall give you an outline of action — but  before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust and envy is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration. 

The black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self re-fueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Don’t forget you must pitch the old black male vs. the young black male, and the young black male against the old black male. You must use  the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves. You must use the female vs. the male, and the male vs. the female. You must also have your white servants and overseers distrust all Blacks, but it is neces- sary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us. 

Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

1713 
The Treaty of Utrecht awards England valuable trade concessions, including the “El Pacto del Asiento de Negros,” a contract allowing for the supply, by a British company, of 4,800 slaves — Piezas de India — a year to Spanish American colonies for 30 years. 

In South Africa, smallpox — the white man’s disease — wipes out thousands of the KhoiKhoi people. 

Anthony Benezet, who establishes first school for Africans in Philadelphia, is born. 

Frederick the Great of Prussia is born. 

1715 
The slaves revolt in Surinam. 

1717 
The Dutch East India Company decides against encouraging European immigration and reducing dependence on the enslavement of Africans. 

1718 
A slave revolt erupts in Santo Domingo. 

1719 
The slaves revolt in Brazil. 

1722 
The Dutch discover the Samoan Islands, a 350–mile–long chain of volcanic islands in the South Pacific between Honolulu and Sydney, Australia. 

1723 
The earliest record of an African army musician — Negro Benson, a trumpeter — is found in Framingham, Massachusetts. 

The governor of Massachusetts issues proclamation on the “fires which have been designedly and industriously kindled by some villainous and desperate negroes or other dissolute people as appears by the confession of some of them.” 

1726 
The British and Maroons wage fierce battles in Jamaica. 

1727 
Sir Issac Newton, British physicist, dies. 

1728 
A slave conspiracy to revolt in Antigua is brutally crushed. 

1729 
Africans drive the Portuguese from their East African coastal forts north of Mozambique. 

1730 
A slave conspiracy is discovered in Norfolk and Princess Anne Counties, Virginia. Governor orders white males to carry arms with them even to church. 

1731 
Benjamin Banneker is born in Maryland. He becomes an astronomer, mathematician, publisher of annual almanacs, and member of Pierre Charles l’Enfant’s survey team which lays out the District of Columbia. 

First public concert in colonies is held in Boston. 

1732 
The first stagecoach route between Boston and New York begins. 

1733 
The slaves revolt in St. John, Virgin Islands. See Pierre J. Pannet, Report on the Execrable Conspiracy Carried out by the Amina Negroes on the Danish Island of St. Jan in America, 1733 (1984). 

The state of Georgia is founded by Ogelthorpe and settled by convicts released from British prisons. 

1734 
A Maroon war explodes in Jamaica. 

1735 
Five slaves are baptized by the Reverend Jonathan Edwards at the Northhampton, Massachu- setts, revival of the “Great Awakening” movement. 

Georgia passes an act rendering the colony more defensible by prohibiting the further importation and use of Africans. 

Dahomey captures an outlet to the Atlantic coast and becomes a major partner with European powers in the trans–Atlantic slave trade (see Walter Rodney’s Monograph, West Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade, ca. 1970 and his seminal work How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 1974). 

1736 
Nadir Shah raids India, marking the beginning of twenty years of raiding and disorder in India. 

1737 
The slaves revolt in Antigua; free Africans assist. 

1739 
The British sign a treaty with the Jamaican maroons guaranteeing them freedom and the possession “for themselves and posterity forever all the lands situate lying between Trelawney Town and the cockpits,” amounting to 1,500 acres. 

The Stono Rebellion, part of the so–called “Gullah War,” takes place near Charleston, South Carolina; 40 Africans and 20 whites lose their lives in this encounter. 

1740 
South Carolina prohibits teaching slaves to read. 

Maria Theresa of Austria–Hungary begins her reign; however, being a woman, she cannot be an empress. Her husband, Francis I, is emperor after 1745 until his death in 1765, when Maria’s son, Joseph II, succeeds him. 

Frederick the Great becomes King of Prussia. 

1741 
The War of Austrian Succession (1741–1748) is fought for West Indian ends. The war offers the British an opportunity to cripple French sugar production in their larger and more fertile West Indian Islands. 

A series of suspicious fires and reports of slave conspiracies lead to general hysteria in New York City in March and April. Thirty–one slaves and five whites are executed. 

The Empress Elizabeth of Russia begins her reign. 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the first permanent Moravian settlement in America, is founded with African men among the early settlers. This is the same mission that sponsored Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp’s expedition to the Virgin Islands in 1767 (see C.G.A. Oldendorp’s Geschichte der evangelischen Brüder auf den caraibischen Inseln S. Thomas, S. Croix und S. Jan, 1777). 

1743 
A “Negro School House” is opened in Charleston, South Carolina, by Alexander Garden with two educated slaves as teachers. The school continues in operation until 1764. 

On the Breda Plantation near Cap–Haïtien is born the indefatigable statesman, Toussaint l’Ouverture, called “the African Bonaparte.” A slave in Haiti for 48 years, he leads black revolt against French rule; and stuns the French court by becoming governor of Haiti. His diplomacy, popularity and development of Haiti “outrages” Napoleon who conspires to kill him. 

1744 
A serious slave revolt erupts in Tobago. 

1745 
A slave conspiracy occurs in Trelawney, Jamaica. 

1750 
An African participates in establishing the first settlement in the area of Los Angeles, California. 

Crispus Attucks, hero of the American Revolution, escapes from his masters in Framingham, Massachusetts. 

By a series of conquests, the Asante Empire dominates the Akan states of the Gold Coast.  Further to the west, in Yorubaland, the Kingdom of Oyo extends its frontiers to control its neighbors. The greatest state of Central Africa is the Lunda Empire (present-day Angola) which directs much of the trade to the coast. 

1754 
A slave insurrection occurs in Crawford Town, Jamaica. 

Benjamin Banneker, the first African American astronomer, is credited with making the first clock to strike the hour. People come from miles around to see and hear it sound the hours. President George Washington appoints him in 1789 to the Capitol Com- mission. While on the Commission he helps l’Enfant draw up the plans for the city of Washington, DC. For some reason the plans come up missing, and he draws them again, totally from memory, to the astonishment of his associates. On August 19, 1791, Banneker sent a letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in which he criticizes the peculiar American institution of slavery and Jefferson's hypocrisy as stated in the American Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's response to Banneker's entreaty is paternalistic and insulting. 

1755 
Britain and France struggle for America and India. 

1756 
The French and Indian War, which ends in 1760, is the last and most decisive of the wars in North America between France and England. 

A Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) begins in Europe with Austria, France, Sweden and Saxony aligned against Prussia and England, and lays the foundation of the British empire in the maritime and colonial conflicts that ensue between Britain and France. 

Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, is shipped to the West Indies as a slave. Later, in 1789, he publishes a narrative of his experiences (see Arna Bontemps, Great Slave Narra- tives, 1969). 

1757 
Samuel Davies publishes The Duty of Christians to Propagate Their Religion among Heathens. 

1758 
The Philadelphia Friends exclude buyers or sellers of slaves from membership. 

Francis Williams, the first black college graduate in the U.S., publishes his Latin poems. 

The Society of West India Planters and Merchants of London is formed. 

1759 
In the Battle of Quebec, during the French and Indian War, James Wolfe’s British expedi- tionary force defeats general Louis Joseph de Montcalm. Both officers are mortally wounded, however. This battle is decisive in the ceding of New France, i.e., Canada, to the British by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. 

Captain Paul Cuffee, son of African and Native American parents, is born in Connecticut. 

1760 
Richard Allen is born a slave in Philadelphia. 

Methodism in the colonies begins in New York. 

A revolt is led by Tackey in Jamaica. The British seek the aid of the Maroons to suppress it. 

George III becomes King of England. 

1761 
Phillis Wheatley, born eight years earlier, is kidnapped in Africa and brought to America.  She dies in 1784. 

Jupiter Hammon (1711– ca. 1806), a New York slave, one of the first black poets, publishes the first literary work by an African -- "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penetential Cries.” In 1787 Hammon's "Address to the Negroes of  the State of New York" is printed. In this address, Jupiter Hammon — contrary to African logic — admonishes his enslaved fellow Africans to heed the words of the Christian God, i.e., "do not kill and steal," and obey their slave masters.

1762 
Thomas–Alexandre Dumas, father of novelist Alexandre Dumas (père), is born of an African mother, Cessette, in Jérémie, Haiti. 

An insurrection of the “wild Africans” of Crawford Town, Jamaica, explodes. 

The Empress Elizabeth of Russia dies. Tsar Paul is murdered. Catherine the Great becomes Empress. 

1763 
The settlement of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenada takes place after they become British possessions. 

At the Peace of Paris, British decide to restore the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique to France in return for Canada. 

The British remain dominant in India. 

African slaves revolt in Dutch Surinam. 

1764 
The Sugar Act eliminates trade between American colonies and the West Indies. This Act stimulates the American desire for independence. 

At the Battle of Buxar in India, British defeat the Shiite Oudh army. 

1765 
During this year several slave rebellions occur in Jamaica. 

The Coromantyns of Westmoreland, Jamaica, rebel (after clicking on the link, select "The British Caribbean: Forced and Free Labor" button).  

Thomas Malthus, the British economist, is born. In 1798 he publishes An Essay on the Principles of Population, in which he contends that poverty is unavoidable and population growth is controlled by war, famine and “moral restraint.” 

1767 
Spain expells the Jesuits from all of their colonial possessions, including about 700 from Mexico. 

1768 
Cruel punishment is meted out to rebellious slaves in Montserrat, British West Indies. 

1769 
A slave revolt is brutally suppressed in Jamaica. 

Spanish missions are established in California. 

Napoleon Bonaparte is born on the Island of Corsica. 

1770 
The estimated population of the 13 colonies is 2,312,000, of which 462,000 (19.98%) are enslaved Africans. 

In South Africa, the Gamtoos River is unilaterally declared the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony by the Dutch governors.
 

Crispus Attucks, an ex–slave and seaman, is killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre. 

The first “Kaffir War” erupts between Dutch– and Bantu–speaking peoples of South Africa. 

A series of slave revolts occurs over a year–long period in Tobago. 

A slave plot to revolt is discovered in St. Kitts. 

1772 
Slaves revolt in Surinam and establish a Maroon community.

James Bruce travels to Ethiopia and reaches the source of the White Nile in Uganda. 

Slavery is declared illegal in England by Chief Justice Mansfield. James Somerset, a slave is freed by Judge Mansfield who says that “the power claimed was never in the use here, nore acknowledged by the law . . . of England.” The decision is extended to the rest of the  British Isles, and by 1780 about 10,000 African slaves are freed. 

1773 
The first African Baptist church is organized at Silver Bluff, South Carolina. 

Poems on Various Subjects by Phillis Wheatley, a young Boston slave, is published in London. 

Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for their freedom. These is a record of eight such petitions during the Revolutionary War period. 

The Boston Tea Party provides an impetus for the nascent American Revolution. The works of Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (1651), John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (1689), and Jean Jacques Rousseau, Le Contrat social (1762), establish the intellectual basis for the revolution. 

The Marquis of Casa Erile obtains the privilege of introducing African slaves in Cuba. 

An insurrection of slaves in Jamaica is described as a “Negro rebellion.” 

1774 
The first Anti–Slavery Society is organized in Philadelphia with Benjamin Franklin as its president. 

From the time of the Trekboers’ arrival in South Africa, wars take place, and this period sees the San (KhoiKhoi) people fighting wars of resistance against the Boers’ policy of extermin- ation. The San are regarded as outlaws. The Cape government offers rewards of £3 pounds sterling per head for San of any age and either sex captured alive and handed over to serve life imprisonment on Robben Island. 

Louis XVI of France begins his reign. 

General Robert Clive, founder of the Empire of India, commits suicide after he is accused of corruption. 

The Continental Congress issues Declaration of Rights and agrees to import no more slaves into America.

Africans in Boston conspire to liberate themselves and try to get the British to help.

The American Revolutionary War begins (see map of the Thirteen Colonies). 

1775
African and white minutemen fight at Lexington and Concord.

African patriots participate in first aggressive action of American forces, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys.

African soldiers fight at Battle of Bunker Hill. Two heroes of the day are Peter Salem and Salem Poor.

Horatio Gates, Washington’s adjutant general, issues general order banning African soldiers from the Army.

A council of general officers decides to bar slaves and free Africans from the Army. The Continental Congress approves a resolution barring Africans from participating in the Revolution altogether.

General George Washington issues general orders which forbid enlistment of Africans by recruitment officers.

Lord Dunmore, deposed Royal Governor of Virginia, issues a proclamation which promises freedom to male slaves who join British Army. In the final reckoning, however, the British renege on their promise of freedom.

The British are soundly defeated in the Virginia during the at the Battle of Great Bridge. 

Alarmed by response to Dunmore’s proclamation, Washington reverses himself and orders
his officers to recruit free Africans. Later those Africans who join Washington’s forces are callously refused their freedom after offering their lives for America’s independence.

1776
The Declaration of Independence is signed in Philadelphia.

A slave conspiracy and revolt take place in Jamaica.

The Continental Congress approves Washington’s order on enlistment of free Africans.

An African baptist church is organized in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The American War of Independence contributes to the economic decline of the British West Indian colonies.

The Mason–Dixon Line is surveyed to separate Maryland from Pennsylvania, and is used later to separate the slave states from the so-called “free” states.

Without the “heroism” of a young African woman, America’s history might be different. The woman is Phoebe Fraunces, a waitress in her father’s tavern in New York City. Her lover, in an attempt to head off the Revolution, gives her a dish of poisoned peas to serve George Wash- ington. Instead she warns Washington and throws the peas into the yard. Chickens eat the peas and fall dead. Her lover, Thomas Hickey, is hanged before 20,000 on–lookers for this attempted assassination.

1777
African servicemen live up to their reputations of being good soldiers. At great peril, an African soldier captures Major Prescott of the British Army at Newport, Rhode Island. Seven hundred African men distinguish themselves in the Battle of Monmouth.

Tasmania, or Van Diemen’s island, is visited by the British sea captain James Cook.

Vermont becomes first American state to abolish slave trade. By 1783, slavery is prohibited in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Pennsylvania provides for gradual emancipation in 1780, Connecticut and Rhode Island bar slavery in 1784, New York in 1799 and New Jersey in 1804.

1778
A trading post is established by Jean Baptiste Point de Saible, a French–speaking African from Santo Domingo, establishes the first permanent settlement at Eschikago (Chicago). He is often referred to as the founder of Chicago. (The portrait on the right is an artist's sketch of de Saible's probable likeness.) 

The first law offering freedom to slaves who should serve in the army for a number of years is enacted.

Four hundred Africans hold off 1,500 British in the Battle of Rhode Island.

1779
Haitian units of free Africans fight with the United States against the British at the seige of Savannah.

The first War of Resistance in South Africa occurs when the Xhosa people struggle against the advancing Boers, who succeed in remaining in the area called Zuurveld.

1780–1781
Peruvian Indians revolt at Tupac Amaru and force the Spanish to initiate some reforms in the colony.

1780
The first African Baptist church in Richmond, Virginia, is founded.

The French sign a treaty with the Maroons in their Caribbean possessions.

Maria Theresa’s reign ends. Emperor Joseph II succeeds her in the hereditary Habsburg dominions.

1781
Philadelphia is selected as the capitol of the United States and remains so until 1800.

African and African–Indian families help found the city of Los Angeles. At the time, it was called El pueblo de Nuestra Señora, la reina de Los Angeles.

Cornwallis, British commander during the American Revolution, surrenders.

1782
In Glasgow, Scotland, a Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs is published by James Aird and includes the first known printing of “Yankee Doodle” and “Negro Jig.”

The Reverend George Lisle of Georgia becomes the first African American Baptist Missionary.

1783
The American Revolution ends in emancipation for the thirteen colonies, but not for the slaves. Some five thousand Africans — slave and free — fight beside white men for American independence . . . which they themselves cannot enjoy.

A peace treaty between Britain and the new United States of America is signed in Paris.

Simón Bolívar, who is part African, is born in Caracas, Venezuela.

Quaco is set free after testing the Massachusetts’ Constitution which declares “all men are born free and equal.”

Shaka, pioneer South African nation–builder, who unites different ethnic groups which are later called the Zulus, is born. Shaka’s military expertise is legendary, and he is reported to have had up to 80,000 men in a standing army. See Mazisi Kunene’s Emperor Shaka the Great, A Zulu Epic (1979), for an accurate account of this great military strategist and nation–builder, based entirely upon South African oral traditions.

Africans are permitted to vote in Massachusetts.

1784
Anthony Benezet, a Quaker and teacher of African children in Philadelphia, provides in his Will that money be made available to “hire and employ a religious minded person or persons to teach a number of Negroe, Mulatto, or Indian children to read and write, Arithmetic, plan Accounts, Needlework &c.”

When Tom Molineaux, America’s earliest prizefighter and "a freed black slave, leaves [Virginia] in 1810 for England, he is determined to become a champion prize fighter. His superb physique and lightning fists quickly see him taken up by the fancy — the community of swells, gamblers, . . . and pugilists who follow the fight game, and in particular Captain Buckley 'Mad Buck' Flashman. Like his son, the arch cad Harry Flashman, the Captain always has an eye to the main chance, and in a world where half a million guineas can be wagered on a single fight, he sees significant advantage in becoming patron to the noble but innocent Molineaux. As Tom, or Black Ajax as he is dubbed, is slowly shaped into the wonder of the fancy, he is introduced to society, and is soon the toast of the town, even shaking the hand of the Prince Regent himself. A national figure, Tom is carried on a popular swell of fight fever towards his great ambition: to fight the invincible undefeated champion of England, Tom Cribb. enthralling, moving and absolutely captivating, Black Ajax is a fine portait of a man who brought the prize ring a fame and luster it had never known before and may never again" (George MacDonald Fraser, Black Ajax [London: HarperCollins, no date] some few revisions have been made to correct punctuation errors and mis- spellings). 

Phillis Wheatley dies in Boston.

1785
David Walker, the African abolitionist, is born free in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The New York Abolition Society is formed.

Many slaves are freed as a reward for their military services; many more are returned to their masters.

Thomas Jefferson becomes minister to France; John Adams is minister to Great Britain.

John James Audubon, son of a French father and Haitian mother, is born at Aux Cayes, Haiti.

1787
The pioneer protest against discrimination in Philadelphia is organized by three African men, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones and William White, who walk out of Old St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church because of discriminatory treatment.

The Quakers form the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

The Constitutional Convention of Philadelphia sets up the Federal Government of the United States. The Constitution is adopted by the delegates to this convention with three clauses sanctioning and protecting slavery, without using the word. Representation is apportioned on a three–fifths basis for “other persons” (i.e., African people); the slave trade is extended for twenty years, until 1807; and provision is made for the return of runaway slaves.

The Danish decree an end to their trade in humans in 1802.

The Free African Society is founded by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in Philadelphia.

The British assist 400 Africans residing in England in establishing Freetown, a settlement in Sierra Leone, with 60 white prostitutes.

African American Freemasonry begins with the establishment in Boston of African Lodge No. 459 by Prince Hall under warrant from the Grand Lodge of England. White American Freemasons had rejected the application of the Africans. Other benevolent and fraternal organizations are organized later.

Slavery is prohibited in the Northwest Territory; provisions are made for the return of fugitive slaves.

The New York Free African School is established by the New York Manumission Society.

1788
Buenos Aires is warned against multitudes of free Africans and slaves meeting in the city.  Such warnings are heard throughout the slave dominions.

An African Association is formed in Britain for the scientific study of the continent of Africa.

The first African Baptist church in Georgia is organized on a farm near Savannah.

The first Federal Congress of the U.S. meets in New York City.

Through the efforts of Sir William Dolben a bill is passed by the English Parliament limiting the number of slaves to be carried in ships in proportion to their tonnage.

1789
Benjamin Franklin issues a proposal for educating “free Negroes.”

The French States–General is assembled. The Bastille, a prison in Paris, is stormed on July 14. The French Revolution begins.

George Washington, a Federalist from Virginia, becomes the first American president.

Benjamin Banneker joins the survey team commissioned to lay out the District of Columbia.  Since Banneker has written a long letter in a similar vein to Thomas Jefferson, researchers suspect that he is the author of On Slavery, the first anti–slavery protest pamphlet even though he disguises his identity by using the pen name “Othello.”  

The Narrative of the Life of Gustavus Vassa is published in London.

1790
The first census of U.S. population totals 3,929,214. The African population is 757,363 (19.3%), including 59,466 free African men and women. New York City has 3,252 Africans of whom 2,184 are slaves. Philadelphia has 1,630 Africans, of whom 210 are slaves. Baltimore has 1,578; 323 are free. Boston has 791 Africans, all of whom are free.

Tom Fuller, the famous African calculator and slave, dies at the age of 80. . . . 

“He died . . . in Fairfax County, Virginia, near Alexandria, where he had lived out his entire adult life. . . . Tom Fuller was born in Africa. At the age of fourteen, he was brought to Alexandria, then a small town in His Majesty’s Colony of Virginia, and sold into a lifetime of slavery. He worked his entire life as a field hand. For most of these years he was owned by Presley and Elizabeth Cox . . . Very early in his adult life, Fuller taught himself calculation — first counting to ten, then  to one hundred. . . . In some fashion, short of genius, he developed a new technique of multiplication for the number of poles, yards, feet, inches for any given distance, including the diameter of the earth’s orbit! . . . In December, 1782, Presley Cox died. His death is of interest here because the inventory of his estate lists just one of the 16 slaves for which he was taxed in 1782. ‘Negro Tom’ heads the list of personal property, with a value of £15 [pounds sterling].  This is somewhat above the value of a bed and bedstead with quilt and bolster, and well above the numerous lesser items such as a looking glass, a pewter teapot and assorted furniture. . . . In 1777, a Philadelphia Quaker and business- man, William Hartshorne, . . . and three fellow Quakers traveled from Philadel- phia to meet the slave known for his arithmetic feats. One of the visitors took notes and made calculations on paper, and the others fired questions at the gray–haired old slave.  First question: How many seconds are there in a year and a half? In about two minutes came Tom Fuller’s reply — 47,304,000.  Next question: How many seconds has a man lived who is seventy years, seventeen days and twelve hours old?  Fuller’s answer — 2,210,500,800 — came in a minute and a half. ‘Objection,’ called the recorder, who was busily multiplying on paper. He challenged Fuller’s answer as being too large. But Fuller retorted promptly: ‘’top, massa, you forget de leap years.’ By adding the seconds of the leap years, the recorder finally acknowledged the correctness of Fuller’s result. The final question was proposed to Fuller: Suppose a farmer has six sows and each sow has six female pigs the first year, and they all increase in the same proportion each year. At the end of the eighth year, how many sows will the farmer have? The question was stated in such a way that Fuller misinterpreted it. As soon as the statement was clarified, his lightning mind responded: 34,588,806. (No wonder that Fuller misinterpreted the question. The use of ‘proportion’ in this context is ambiguous.) . . . The Philadelphians picked up their notes and took their leave. As they departed, one of the visitors remarked what a pity it was that this man had been denied an education. Perhaps demeaning himself too much, old Tom Fuller disagreed: ‘No, massa — it is best I got no learning, for many learned men be great fools!’ . . . For a brief moment late in his life, this modest black man became a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean” (TheChristian Science Monitor, February 12, 1980).

The Indian War occurs in the Northwest Territory.

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