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1619 Twenty African indentured servants are brought to the English col-
ony of Jamestown, Virginia, by a Dutch ship. These are the first
slaves to arrive in the country. By 1690, every colony has slaves.
1641 Massachusetts becomes the first English colony to legalize slavery.
1662 Successful entrepreneur Anthony Johnson, a tobacco farmer,
becomes the first free black man in North America.
1746 Lucy Terry, a slave, becomes the earliest known black American
poet. Her poem Bar’s Fight, about the last American Indian attack
on her village of Deerfield, Massachusetts, is not published until
1855.
1758 The first known black church in the United States, the African
Baptist or “Bluestone” Church, is founded on the William Byrd
Plantation near the Bluestone River in Mecklenburg, Virginia.
1770 Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, is the first Colonial soldier to die
for American independence, killed by British soldiers during the
Boston Massacre.
1772 James Derham is a slave owned by doctors. Although not allowed to
go to medical school, he works as an assistant to his masters, first in
New Orleans, and then in Philadelphia. He eventually purchases his
freedom and starts his own practice, treating both black and white
patients.
1773 The first book by an African American is published by Phillis
Wheatley, then a slave, entitled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious
and Moral.
1775 George Washington changes a previous policy of not allowing
free blacks to enlist in the Continental Army. Approximately 5,000
blacks enlist. To counter this, the British governor of Virginia offers
freedom to any slaves who enlist with the British forces.
1777 Vermont becomes the first state in the Union to outlaw slavery.
Timeline of African American
History in the United States
