Timeline of African-American Civil Rights Movement - 17th Century

17th Century

1619

• The first record of African slavery in English Colonial America.

1640

• John Punch, a black indentured servant, ran away with two white indentured servants, James Gregory and Victor. After the three were captured, the white men were sentenced to four more years of servitude but Punch was required to serve Virginia planter Hugh Gym for life. It is one of the first cases in which lifetime indentured servitude was based on race.

1654

• John Casor, a black man, became the first legally recognized slave-for-life in the Virginia colony.

1662

• Virginia law defined that children of enslaved mothers followed the status of their mothers and were considered slaves, regardless of their father's status.

1672

• Royal African Company is founded, allowing slaves to be shipped from Africa to the colonies in North America. This company allowed England to enter the slave trade.

1676

• Both free and enslaved African Americans fought in Bacon's Rebellion along with English colonists.