Slavery had existed in Europe from Classical times and did notdisappear with the collapse of the Roman Empire. Slavesremained common in Europe throughout the early medievalperiod. However, slavery of the Classical type becameincreasingly uncommon in Northern Europe and, by the 11thand 12th centuries, had been effectively abolished in theNorth.

Nevertheless, forms of unfree labour, such as villeinage and serfdom, persisted in the northwell into the early modern period. In Southern and Eastern Europe, Classical-style slaveryremained a normal part of the society and economy and trade across the Mediterranean andthe Atlantic seaboard meant that African slaves began to appear in Italy, Spain, Southern France,and Portugal well before the discovery of the New World in 1492. From about the 8th centuryonwards, an Arab-run slave trade also flourished, with much of this activity taking place in East Africa, Arabia, and the Indian Ocean. In addition, many African societies themselves hadforms of slavery, although these differed considerably, both from each other and from theEuropean and Arabic forms. Although various forms of unfree labour were prevalent in Europethroughout its history, historians refer to 'Chattel Slavery', in which slaves are commodities tobe bought and sold, rather than domestic servants or agricultural workers. Chattel Slavery isthe characteristic form of slavery in the modern world, and this chronology is concernedprimarily with this form.

• 6800 B.C. The world’s first city grows up in Mesopotamia.With the ownership of land and the beginnings of technologycomes warfare in which enemies are captured and forced towork: slavery.

• 2575 B.C. Egyptians send expeditions down the Nile Riverto capture slaves. Temple art celebrates the capture of slavesin battle.

• 550 B.C. The mighty Greek city-state of Athens uses up to 30,000 slaves in the silver mines it controls.

• 120 Slaves are taken by the thousands in Roman militarycampaigns; some estimates put the population of Rome atmore than half slave.

• 500 In England, the native Britons are enslaved afterinvasion by Anglo-Saxons.

• 1000 Slavery is normal practice in England’s rural economy, as destitute agricultural workers place themselves and their families in a form of debt bondage to landowners.• 1380 In the aftermath of the Black Plague, Europe’s slave trade revives in response to the labor shortage. The slaves come from all over Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

• 1441: Start of European slave trading in Africa.

• 1452: Start of the 'sugar-slave complex'. Sugar is firstplanted in the Portuguese island of Madeira and, for thefirst time, African slaves are put to work on the sugarplantations.

• 18 June 1452: Pope Nicholas V issues Dum Diversas, a bullauthorising the Portuguese to reduce any non-Christiansto the status of slaves

• 8 January 1454: Pope Nicholas V issues Romanus Pontifex, a bull granting the Portuguese a perpetual monopoly in trade with Africa. Nevertheless, Spanish traders begin to bring slaves from Africa to Spain.

• 1462: The Portuguese colony on the Cape Verde Islands is founded, an important way-station in the slave trade.

• 1462: Portuguese slave traders start to operate in Seville (Spain)• 1470s: Despite Papal opposition, Spanish merchants begin to trade in large

numbers of slaves in the 1470s.

• 1441: Start of European slave trading in Africa.

• 1452: Start of the 'sugar-slave complex'. Sugar is firstplanted in the Portuguese island of Madeira and, for thefirst time, African slaves are put to work on the sugarplantations.

• 18 June 1452: Pope Nicholas V issues Dum Diversas, a bullauthorising the Portuguese to reduce any non-Christiansto the status of slaves

• 8 January 1454: Pope Nicholas V issues Romanus Pontifex, a bull granting the Portuguese a perpetual monopoly in trade with Africa. Nevertheless, Spanish traders begin to bring slaves from Africa to Spain.

• 1461• 1462: The Portuguese colony on the Cape Verde Islands is founded, an important

way-station in the slave trade.• 1462: Portuguese slave traders start to operate in Seville (Spain)• 1470• 1470s: Despite Papal opposition, Spanish merchants begin to trade in large

numbers of slaves in the 1470s.

• 1481: A Portuguese embassy to the court of King EdwardIV of England concludes with the English governmentagreeing not to enter the slave trade, against the wishesof many English traders.

• 1483: Diogo Cão discovers the Congo river. The region islater a major source of slaves.

• 2 January 1492: The Moorish town of Granada surrenders to the Spanish forces of the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, marking the end of La Reconquista, the war between Moors and Spaniards in the Iberian peninsular. Both sides retain many slaves taken during the course of the war.

• 12 October 1492: Christopher Columbus becomes the first European since the Viking era to discover the New World, setting foot on an unidentified island he named San Salvador (modern Bahamas).

• 3 November 1493: On his second voyage, Columbus againreaches the New World (modern Dominica). On thisvoyage he initiates the first transatlantic slave voyage, ashipment of several hundred Taino people sent fromHispaniola to Spain. There are doubts about the legality oftheir enslavement in Spain.

• 8 December 1493: Columbus founds the first European colony in the New World: La Isabela on the island of Hispaniola (modern Dominican Republic).

• 8 June 1496: Columbus returns from his second voyage, carrying around 30 Native American slaves. Once again, there are doubts about the legality of their enslavement.

• 24 June 1497: John Cabot, an Italian sponsored by King Henry VII of England, makes landfall on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland (modern Canada). This discovery became the basis of subsequent English claims to North America.

• 1499: More than 200 slaves taken from the northern coast of South America by Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Hojeda and sold - apparently without legal problems - in Cádiz.

• 22 April 1500: Pedro Cabral of Portugal discovers Brazil,landing at Porto Seguro, southern Bahia.

• 1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the firstmerchant we can identify to send an African slave to theNew World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permittedby the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Otherssend two or three.

• 1504: a small group of Africans - probably slaves captured from a Portuguese vessel - are brought to the court of King James IV of Scotland.

• 1505: first record of sugar cane being grown in the New World, in Santo Domingo (modern Dominican Republic).

• 1509: Columbus's son, Diego Cólon, becomes governor of the new Spanish empire in the Carribean. He soon complains that Native American slaves do not work hard enough.

• 22 January 1510: the start of the systematic transportation of African slaves to the New World: King Ferdinand of Spain authorises a shipment of 50 African slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo.

• 22 April 1500: Pedro Cabral of Portugal discovers Brazil,landing at Porto Seguro, southern Bahia.

• 1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the firstmerchant we can identify to send an African slave to theNew World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permittedby the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Otherssend two or three.

• 1516: the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, authorises slave-raiding expeditions to Central America. One group of slaves aboard a Spanish caravel rebel and kill the Spanish crew before sailing home - the first successful slave rebellion recorded in the New World.

• 1516: in his book Utopia, Sir Thomas More argues that his ideal society would have slaves but they would not be 'non-combatant prisoners-of-war, slaves by birth, or purchases from foreign slave markets.' Rather, they would be local convicts or 'condemned criminals from other countries, who are acquired in large numbers, sometimes for a small payment, but usually for nothing.' (Trans. Paul Turner, Penguin, 1965)

• 18 August 1518: in a significant escalation of the slavetrade, Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo deGorrevod permission to import 4000 African slaves intoNew Spain. From this point onwards thousands of slavesare sent to the New World each year.

• 1522: A major slave rebellion breaks out on the island of Hispaniola. This is the first significant uprising of African slaves. After this, slave resistance becomes widespread and uprisings common.

• 1524: 300 African slaves taken to Cuba to work in the gold mines.• 1527: earliest records of sugar production in Jamaica, later a major sugar

producing region of the British Empire. Sugar production is rapidly expanding throughout the Caribbean region at this time - with the mills almost exclusivlyworked by African slaves.

• November 1528: a slave called Esteban (or Estevanico) becomes the first African slave to step foot on what is now the United States of America. He was one of only four survivors of Pánfilo de Narváez's failed expedition to Florida.

• 1530: Juan de la Barrera, a Seville merchant, beginstransporting slaves directly from Africa to the New World(before this, slaves had normally passed through Europefirst). His lead is quickly followed by other slave traders.

• 22 January 1532: Martim Afonso de Souza founds the first Portuguese colony in Brazil at São Vicente. Sugar production begins almost immediately.

• 15 November 1532: Francisco Pizaro massacres the Incas at Caxamalca (modern Caxamarca) and captures King Atahuallpa, an event that marks the Spanish conquest of Peru.

• 30 May 1539: Hernando de Soto, following reports from Cabeza de Vaca, lands on the coast of Florida. Of about 1200 men in his expedition, around 50 were African slaves.

• July 1555: a small group of Africans from Shama (modern Ghana) described as slaves are brought to London by John Lok, a London merchant hoping to break into the African trade.

• 1555: the Portuguese sailor Fernão de Oliveira, in Arte de Guerra no mar (The Art of War at Sea), denounces the slave trade as an 'evil trade'. The book anticipates many of the arguments made by abolitionists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

• 1569: a Sevillian Dominican, Tomás de Mercado, publishesTratos y contratos de mercaderes (Practices and Contractsof Merchants), which attacks the way the slave trade isconducted.

• 1571: the Parlement of Bordeaux sets all slaves - "blacksand moors" - in the town free, declaring slavery illegal inFrance..

• 1573: a Spanish-Mexican lawyer, Bartolemé Frías de Albornoz, publishes Arte de los contratos (The Art of Contracts), which casts doubt on the legality of the slave trade.

• 20 February 1575: Paulo Dias de Novães founds the Portuguese colony of São Paulo de Luanda on the African mainland (modern Angola). The colony soon became a major slave-trading port supplying the vast Brazilian market.

• 29 January 1579: with the Union of Utrecht, the northern provinces of the Low Countries unite to create a Calvinist republic free from Spanish rule. The United Provinces (modern Netherlands) soon becomes an important slave-trading nation and an aspiring colonial power.

• 1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and ashort campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugalare united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes themost important colonial power - and the largestparticipant in the slave trade.

• 16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands.

• 1592: Bernard Ericks becomes the first Dutch slave trader.• 1594: L'Espérance of La Rochelle becomes the first French ship positively

identified as participating in the slave trade. However, French merchants may have been involved in small scale slave trading since the 1540s.

• 1595: in a pattern that was to be adhered to for several decades, Philip II of Spain grants Pedro Gomes Reinal, a Portuguese merchant, a near monopoly in the slave trade. Reinal agrees to provide Spanish America with 4250 African slaves annually, with a further 1000 slaves being provided by other merchants.

• 1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and ashort campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugalare united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes themost important colonial power - and the largestparticipant in the slave trade.

• 1601: The Jesuits build their first sugar mill in Brazil.• 1604: Shakespeare's play Othello: the Moor of Venice first performed. The play

features the figure of Othello, an African general, now working for Venice, who has previously suffered enslavement.

• 1600: Pedro Gomes Reinal dies. The Spanish slave-tradingmonopoly is passed to Jaão Rodrigues Coutinho, Governorof Angola.

• 1600: King Philip III of Spain outlaws the use of NativeAmerican slaves in Spanish colonies.

• 16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands.

• 1592: Bernard Ericks becomes the first Dutch slave trader.• 1594: L'Espérance of La Rochelle becomes the first French ship positively

identified as participating in the slave trade. However, French merchants may have been involved in small scale slave trading since the 1540s.

• 1595: in a pattern that was to be adhered to for several decades, Philip II of Spain grants Pedro Gomes Reinal, a Portuguese merchant, a near monopoly in the slave trade. Reinal agrees to provide Spanish America with 4250 African slaves annually, with a further 1000 slaves being provided by other merchants.

• 1601: The Jesuits build their first sugar mill in Brazil.

• 1604: Shakespeare's play Othello: the Moor of

Venice first performed. The play features the figure of Othello, an African general, now working for Venice, who has previously suffered enslavement.

• November 1611: Shakespeare's play The Tempest first performed. The play includes the figures of Caliban and Ariel, both enslaved.• 1617: first records of slaves in Bermuda.• 1627: a Spanish-Peruvian Jesuit, Alonso de Sandoval, publishes Naturaleza, Policia, ... Costumbres i Ritos, Disciplina, i Catechismo Evangelico de todos Etíopes (The Nature, Policy, ... Customs and Rituals, Disciplines, and Gospel Catechism of all Ethiopians), which argues that slavery combines all the world'sevils.• 17 February 1627: Henry Powell, John Powell's brother, along with 80 Britishsettlers and 10 African slaves, found a colony on Barbados at Jamestown (modernHoletown).

• 25 February 1644: A group of 11 enslaved people in New Amsterdam (modern-day New York) successfully petition the government there in what is the first group manumission ( formal emancipation from slavery ) in a North American colony.

• 1657: George Fox, the Quaker leader, writes a letter 'To Friends beyond sea, that have Blacks and Indian Slaves'. This is the first letter written by a Quaker expressing some doubts about slavery in the New World.• 1660: The newly restored King Charles II of England charters the 'Royal

Adventurers into Africa', the first English state-sponsored slave trading company.• 1671: A group of Quakers, including George Fox and William Edmundson, visit

Barbados and appear to have come into conflict with the Barbadian plantocracyfor suggesting that slave-owners should treat their slaves with humanity and attempt to convert them to Christianity.

• 1672: The financially troubled Royal Adventurers into Africa, founded in 1660, is restructured and given a new charter as The Royal African Company. The company remains England's major slave-trading organisation into the 1730s.

• 1676: the Quaker George Fox publishes Gospel Family-Order, being a short discourse concerning the Ordering of Families, both of Whites, Blacks and Indians, which urged Quakers in America to treat their slaves humanely.

• the Quaker Alice Curwen visits Barbados and, in a letter to the slave-holding Barbadian Friend Martha Tavernor, becomes the first Quaker to unambiguously denounce slavery.

• 1781 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolishes serfdom in the Austrian Habsburg dominions.• 1787 The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in Britain.

• 1789 On August 26th, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly adopts The Declaration of the Rights of Man, one of the fundamental charters of humanliberties. The first of 17 articles states: “Men are born and remain free and equal inrights.”• 1791 Toussaint Louverture led a slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint•Domingue.• By 1804, the French were expelled from the colony and the island is declaredIndependent under its original Arawak name, “Haiti.”• 1803 Denmark-Norway becomes the first country in Europe to ban the Africanslave trade.• A law passed in 1792 takes effect in 1803 to forbid trading in slaves by Danishsubjects and to end the importation of slaves into Danish dominions.

• 1807 Thomas Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves into law, forbidding the importation of African slaves into the United States.

• 1807 After prolonged lobbying by abolitionists in Britain, led by WilliamWilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, the British Parliament makes it illegal for Britishships to transport slaves and for British colonies to import them.• 1811 – 1867 Operating off the Atlantic coast of Africa, the BritishNavy’s Anti-Slavery Squadron liberates 160,000 slaves.• 1813 Sweden, a nation that has never authorized slave traffic, consents to banthe African slave trade.• 1814 The King of the Netherlands officially terminates Dutch participation in theAfrican slave trade.

• 1814 During the Congress of Vienna, largely through the efforts of Britain, the assembled powers proclaim that the slave trade should be abolished as soon as possible. The Congress leaves the actual effective date of abolition to negotiation among the various nations.

• 1820 The government of Spain, pursuant to a treaty with Britain, abolishes the slavetrade south of the Equator. Slave trade in Cuba continues until 1888.

• 1833 The British Parliament’s Factory Act of 1833 establishes a normal working dayin textile manufacture. The act bans the employment of children under the age of 9and limits the workday of children between the ages of 13 and 18 to 12 hours.The law also provides for government inspection of working conditions.

• 1834 In Britain the Abolition Act of 1833 abolishes slavery throughout the BritishEmpire, including its colonies in North America. The bill emancipates the slaves in allBritish colonies and appropriates a sum equivalent to nearly $100 million tocompensate slave owners for their losses.

• 1837 Thomas F. Buxton begins a campaign to abolish coolie labor in India. After the abolition of slavery, this type of labor has become a preferred source of cheap labor. Buxton argues that coolie labor amounts to slavery, with workers often kidnapped, transported to the Caribbean and forced to toil in appalling conditions.

• 1840 The new British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society calls the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London to mobilize reformers to monitor and assist abolitionand post-emancipation efforts throughout the world. A group of abolitionists fromthe United States travels to London to attend the Convention, but Elizabeth CadyStanton and Lucretia Mott, as well as several male supporters, leave the meeting inprotest when women are excluded from seating on the convention floor.

• 1845 Thirty-six British Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.

• 1845 Thirty-six British Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.• 1848 After the revolution of 1848 in France, the new government abolishes slavery in all French colonies.• 1850 The government of Brazil adopts the Eusébio de Queirós Law, which ends the country’s participation in the slave trade. The law declares slave traffic to be a form of piracy and it prohibits Brazilian citizens from taking part in the trade.• 1861 By decree Alexander II, czar of Russia, emancipates all Russian serfs, who number around 50 million. The act begins the time of the Great Reform in Russia and earns Alexander II the title of “Czar Liberator.”

• 1863 In the United States, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation takes effect, freeing all slaves in the United States except for those in states, or parts of states, that were no longer under Confederate control. The emancipation does not apply to the border states or to areas that are already under control of the Union army.

• 1888 Slavery ends in South America when the legislature of Brazil frees the country’s 725,000 slaves by enacting the Lei Aurea (Golden Law).• 1865 – 1920 Following the Civil War in the United States, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans are re-enslaved in an abusive manipulation of the legal system called “peonage.” Across the Deep South, African-American men and women are falsely arrested and convicted of crimes, then “leased” to coal and iron mines, brick factories, plantations, and other dangerous types of work. The system begins to slow after the First World War, but doesn’t fully end until the 1940s.

Sources: http://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/chrono2.htmhttps://www.freetheslaves.net/SlaveryinHistory