Timeline

Year	State and National Events	Slavery and Racial Issues	African American Institutions and Accomplishments
1800		Gabriel Prosser gathers an army of slaves to attack Richmond VA. Prosser and others are captured and hanged.	Of Nashville’s 345 inhabitants, 154 are black. Fourteen of them are free; by 1810, 130 free blacks live in Nashville.
1801	Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated the nation’s third President (1801-1809).	Nashvillian “Black Bob” Renfro is granted emancipation from his owner Robert Searcy by an act of the Fourth Tennessee General Assembly.
1803	The Louisiana Purchase doubles the size of the US	Haitian slaves continue their rebellion against Napoleon’s generals. Hundreds of people on both sides die in the violent fighting. The French surrender makes Haiti an independent republic. The success of the rebellion will haunt American plantation owners for years.
1804	Lewis and Clark expedition to the Northwest, 1804-1806
1807		The British Parliament abolishes the slave trade. The US Congress bans the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808.
1809	James Madison is inaugurated the nation’s fourth President (1809-1817).
1811		In the largest slave rebellion in the US, Louisiana slaves revolt in two parishes near New Orleans but are eventually subdued by federal troops.
1812	The War of 1812 begins
1815			About 2,000,000 Africans now live in America; around ten percent of them (roughly 200,000) are free persons of color.
1816		Federal troops are sent to destroy a runaway-slave (Maroon) settlement in Apalachicola Bay, Florida. All the slaves are killed or sold at auction. The American Colonization Society is established in Washington, D.C. Its white membership wants to enable blacks to return to Africa (Liberia).
1817	James Monroe is inaugurated the nation’s fifth President (1817-1825).		Richard Allen’s Bethel A.M.E. Church hosts a mass meeting to protest the deportation policies of the American Colonization Society.
1820	The Missouri Compromise settles the issue of slavery in the areas obtained by the Louisiana Purchase.
1822	The Illinois legislature amends the state constitution to permit slavery. Anti-slavery activists fight the proposal, defeating it in the 1824 election.		Denmark Vesey designs one of the most complex slave plots in history, involving thousands of African Americans in the Charleston SC area.
1824	Illinois passes a referendum declaring the state free; however, a complex series of indenture/apprenticeship laws keeps many people in bondage.
1825	John Quincy Adams becomes the nation’s sixth President (1825-1829).