Slavery Chronology
1500-1550
The Reformation
1506
Columbus dies in obscurity in Vallodolid, Spain, still believing he had reached the East.
1513
Ponce de Leon "discovers" Florida and encounters the Calusa Indians.
1513
Machiavelli: The Prince
1519-22
Spanish expedition circumnavigates the globe under the leadership of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who is killed in the Philippine Islands.
1519-20
A Spanish expedition led by Hernando Cortes begins the conquest of Mexico in 1519. By 1521 the Spaniards have killed the Aztec ruler, Moctezuma, and Tenochtitlan has fallen to Spanish arms, the enmity of other Indians, and smallpox. The city is razed and the Spaniards construct Mexico City over it.
1520s-1620
Expansion of the slave trade; Portuguese control most of it through purchase of licenses to sell slaves in the Spanish colonies in the Americas, the main market for slaves.
1524
Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian in the service of France, sails up the North American coast from Cape Fear to Newfoundland.
1533
A Spanish expedition led by Francisco Pizarro begins the conquest of Peru. By 1535 the Spaniards have murdered the Inca Atahualpa and defeated a massive Inca revolt.
1534-41
Voyages of Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, to Labrador coast, St. Lawrence, sites of Quebec and Montreal.
1539-1542
de Soto explores Missisippi
1540-42
Coronado explores southwest North America
1545
Spaniards discover and begin to exploit huge silver deposits at Potosi in Bolivia.
1562-63
Sir John Hawkins brings slaves from Africa to Americas, the first Englishman to do so. Elizabeth I invests in his second voyage.
1568
The Netherlands begin an eighty-year battle for their independence from Philip II, Catholic king of Spain.
1585-86
Sir Walter Raleigh'sfirst colony at Roanoke.
1587-?
Second colony at Roanoke (the lost colony). John White, the artist who supplied some of the first drawings of Native Americans and Native American flora and fauna, serves briefly as governor but goes to England in 1587. When he returns in 1591 the colony is in ruins and the inhabitants dead or vanished.
Late 16th c.
Iroquois League of the Five Nations is formed by the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. The league was a major political, military, and economic force in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both Britain and France courted the Iroquois, recognizing that the power that counted the Iroquois as an ally would control the Northeast. The Iroquois tried to remain neutral and play one against the other, recognizing that their position depended upon continuing hostility between the two. France's defeat in the Seven Years' War spelled the beginning of the end of Iroquois power because (a) the English now controlled the trade that had belonged to the French; (b) English colonists no longer needed protection from the French and their Indian allies; and (c) English colonists renewed their interest in western lands. Britain's defeat in the American Revolution (the Iroquois had for the most part supported the British) opened up these lands for settlement.
1600
Spaniards introduce sheep and the loom to the Southwest.
1600-1700
Use of the horse spreads from Mexico throughout the Southwest and into the Great Plains.
1607
English settle Jamestown, Virginia.
1608
French colony at Quebec
1609
Henry Hudson, an Englishman employed by the Dutch East India Company, searches for the Northwest Passage and sails along the Middle Atlantic coast and up the North (Hudson) River.
1616 Shakespeare 1564-1616
1618
Thirty Years' War begins as a struggle between Protestants and Catholics in Germany. At the war's beginning Spain is the dominant power in Western Europe and the Holy Roman Empire controls Central Europe. At its end in 1648 France is the dominant power in Western Europe, Germany is devastated, and the House of Hapsburg is in disarray.
1620
Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, is established.
1626
Dutch colony of New Netherland is founded; includes northeastern New Jersey and Manhattan Island (though the Dutch claim all of New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, Long Island and portions of Connecticut).
1627,
St. Vincent was granted by the British crown to Lord Carlisle. Prior to that it had been nominally Spanish, but the Caribs made settlement uncomfortable. St. Vincent and Dominica, having more mountainous areas than flat land, were the last holdouts of the Caribs. Barbados is a relatively flat island, suitable for the British style of plantation agriculture of cash crops worked by slaves. St. Vincent, being downwind of Barbados, is the refuge for slaves escaping Barbados by boat. The Africans are tolerated by the Caribs and become the Black Caribs or Garifuna.
1630
Massachusetts Bay Colony is established.
1630s-40s
Dutch enter the slave trade and conquer Portuguese slave depots at Elmina, Axim, and Shama on West African coast. Many European states establish national slaving companies to compete for slaves with the Dutch and the Portuguese, most notably England, France, Sweden, Denmark, and Brandenburg.
1635
Thomas Young explores Delaware Bay.
1636
Rhode Island founded. /Harvard University founded.
1637 First sugar cane in Barbados
1638
Colony of New Sweden is established along the shores of Delaware Bay (centered at modern Wilmington, Delaware).
1638 Galileo: Two New Sciences
1667
Meeting was held between Calinago (Carib) chiefs and Gov Willoughby of Barbados, in which he invites them into slavery and they tell him they won't harm peaceful visitors. When a British party attempts to settle, the Caribs declare a war that lasts, off and on, to the 1800s.
1667 Milton: Paradise Lost
1675
A committee of the Merchants of London had met with the Colonial Office to provide the resources that would allow Governor Willoughby to "destroy all of the savages of the Windward Islands". This attitude explains the policy of deliberate genocide followed by the British.
1694-1778
Voltaire
1712-1778
Rousseau
1719 Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
1723-1790
Adam Smith
1748
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle declares St. Vincent "neutral" meaning that the British and French agree that neither will tyr to settle St. Vincent.
1756-1763
The war between Britain and France that is called "The Seven Year's War" in Europe and "The French and Indian War" in North America.
1762
British settle St. Vincent in the face of Carib hostility as an action against the French. There had been French settlers living on subsistence agriculture for some time, but the British were intent on importing the Plantation system for cash crops.
1763
Treaty of Paris ends the "Seven Year's War" (French and Indian War in the U.S.) and France concedes rights to St. Vincent, Grenada, the Grenadines, Dominica and Tobago to Britain. These "Ceded Islands" are to be governed from Grenada.
1770
Boston Massacre
1773
Boston Tea Party
1773
Hostilities between Caribs and British are temporarily ended by the Treaty of 1773. British interpret treaty as making Caribs british subjects, Caribs interpret it as their ceding "4,414 squares of good land" from their independent nation.
1775
Paul Revere's Ride
1776-1783
American Revolution
1777
Articles of Confederation (Combination of North American States)
1778
Federated States and France allied.
1779
St. Vincent is surrendered to the French by Lt. Col. George Etherington under orders of Gov. Valentine Morris. Caribs are allied with the French.
1780
French restore Carib lands.
1780
British attempt to regain St. Vincent, are repulsed by French and Caribs
1780
French land troops in North America
1781
On Saturday, October 6, Lt. Col. George Etherington is subjected to a General Court Martial in St. Lucia in 1781 for surrendering St. Vincent. He is exonerated although King George, reviewing the transcript, is sorry he had not attempted a more spirited defense.
1781
October 17. British surrender at Yorktown, effectively ending warfare on the American continent.
1782
American States and Britain sign preliminary peace treaty.
1783
Treaty of Versailles returns St. Vincent to Britain, Britain recognises the Confederation that will become the United States.
1784
British rebuild forts destroyed in 1780, Caribs revolt. Order restored by reinforcements from Grenada.
1787-90
Bligh's first breadfruit voyage in Bounty
1789
French Revolution
1790-91
Bligh's second breadfruit voyage in Providence brings horticultural plants to the St. Vincent Botanical Garden.
1791
Slave revolt in British possession of St. Domingue (leads to massive troop commitments in Caribbean)
1793
British enter the French Revolutionary War.
1793
Sonthonax in Ste. Domingue declares slaves emancipated and forms army to resist British.
1794
French National Assembly declares slavery abolished in French colonies and all persons domiciled therein Citizens of France.
1794
Victor Hugues recovers Guadeloupe. His war to recover French territory and capture British territory is known as "The Brigand's War". Lt. (General) William Dyott described a "Brigand" as :"emancipated slaves and whites of extreme democratic principles."
1795
In March, in Grenada, Fedon's Rebellion started, quickly capturing much of the colonial establishment.,
1795
Governor Seton calls Paramount Chief Chatoyer and other leaders to a meeting, probably to seek aid against Fedon. Caribs do not attend, believing he has discovered their plot to recover St Vincent. Conflict begins, but is only intense when either side receives reinforcements. Chatoyer is appointed a General in the Armies of France.
1796
Gen. Abercrombie with fleet and reinforcements arrives in Barbados in March. By April he has taken St. Lucia and cut the French supply lines. He lands 4000 troops, including the "Lowenstein Jagers", Prussian mercenaries who are experienced mountain troops
1796
Chatoyer is killed. The British emerge as the victors in June of 1796. They unleash a massive man hunt, trapping 4,644 Caribs by October. to Baliceaux Island - where they were held on a 464 m. high cliff!
1797
Attempts at exploiting the native Caribs and Garifuna having failed; the British deported most of them in 1797. Some "Yellow Caribs" were classified as "benign" and returned to St. Vincent in the Sandy Bay-Fancy area in the Northeast part of Saint Vincent and in the interior around Greiggs. The remaining 2,026 captives were left on Honduras' Roatan Island with limited food and supplies on April 11, 1797. They were abandoned there because "not even an iguana could survive there", i.e. as a deliberate act of genocide. However Spaniards transported the Garifuna to the mainland. The Garifuna returned the favor, supplying food for the entire colony - which is dying of hunger because Spanish farming practices were not suited to Central America.
1804
The Saint Vincent Legislature passes an act vesting in the Crown all lands held by Caribs at the time of the 1773 treaty. In 1805 the Caribs remaining in St. Vincent were pardoned for the crime of High Treason, but their claim to lands were forfeit.