Spanish Bishop Bartolomeo de las Casas persuaded Charles V, the king of Spain, to grant Spanish colonists permission to import twelve enslaved Africans each. The Bishop also requested that these Africans be Spanish or Christian Blacks. Charles V agreed as a means of encouraging emigration to the New World colonies in this time when European countries were in heavy competition for land claims and the rights to the riches that were being discovered.

As Spain's profits from the slave trade grew, England entered into competition by granting asientos. These were commercial licenses to ship enslaved Africans to the Spanish colonies free of customs duties, thereby making the English-shipped enslaved Africans cheaper.

Charles V, the king of Spain, granted the governor of Brese, Lorenzo de Gomenot, permission to ship 4,000 Blacks to Spanish colonies on Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. As a favor to Charles V, Gomenot was also able to secure a virtual monopoly on slave trade to the Spanish colonies. Other licenses were granted, but primarily only to those who were importing domestic enslaved Blacks in small numbers and were not trafficking them.

Henrique, son of Alfonso, first and last African bishop of the Congo, returned to Mbanza after thirteen years in Europe.

Henrique, son of Alfonso, first and last African bishop of the Congo, returned to Mbanza after thirteen years in Europe.

This revolt happened in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola. On the first or second day of Christmas, enslaved Blacks on the Nueva Isabela sugar plantation owned by the colony's governor Diego Colón (a descendant of Chistopher Columbus) rebelled. Local oral tradition says that the rebellion was led by Maria Olofa (Wolofa) and Gonzalo Mandinga, a romantic couple, from the nation of Wolof and Muslim. Just days after the uprising, on Jan 6th, 1522, Diego introduced strict laws designed to prevent the enslaved Africans from uprising again.

In response to a well-planned and well-coordinated enslaved African rebellion that had taken place on his sugar plantation, the Nueva Isabela, Diego Colon (a descendant of Christopher Columbus) introduces strict laws designed to prevent future rebellions. These laws restricted the physical movements of the enslaved Africans, prohibited them from bearing arms and accessing weapons, required enslavers to keep strict slave registers, and introduced harsh punishment in the form of physical torture and execution. This would be the model that is eventually passed on during chattel slavery in the US.

Blacks accompanied Don Pedro de Alvarado in the conquest of Guatemala.

Some rebellious enslaved Africans were left behind by Spanish explorers during the Lucas-Vasques de Ayllon expeditions of 1525-1527. The Spaniards had attempted to find a colony along the Carolina coast, but the expeditions were plagued by fever and Indian hostility. The enslaved Africans were left behind in the wake of the fleeing Europeans. Nearly a century before Jamestown was founded, these Blacks became the first permanent, non-Indian residents of what is now the United States.

San Miguel de Gualdape is a former Spanish colony founded in 1526 by Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon. It was the third settlement in North America north of Mexico. In the early 1500s, Spaniards were conducting expeditions to the area now known as South Carolina and Georgia to kidnap Native Americans as slaves. In 1521, wealthy planter, lawyer and magistrate Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon dispatched an expedition led by Francisco Gordillo to the Bahamas to capture natives, and Gordillo returned with seventy Indians. Ayllon took a recently baptized Indian with him to Spain to speak with the court chronicler about his homeland and people, as well as tales of valuable gems found in the region. After meeting with the King, Ayllon received a royal patent, giving him permission from King Charles V and the Royal and Supreme Council of Indies to establish a settlement on the eastern seaboard in 1523.

In April of 1525, Ayllon hired Pedro de Quejo who set sail with two boats and sixty men to explore the new region. When Quejo returned successfully, Ayllon began to assemble a crew and selected passengers for the impending new settlement. The fleet consisted of six ships, approximately 600-700 people, supplies and livestock that included pigs, cows, sheep and one hundred horses. Among the passengers were approximately 100 enslaved Africans from previous expeditions and trade. On August 9, 1526, the fleet lost its flagship when it struck a sandbar and sank off the coast of South Carolina. The court interpreter and other Indians brought along as guides deserted the fleet and escaped into the woods. After building a replacement ship, Ayllon and his fleet moved 200 miles south, and upon landing, immediately began building houses and a church. On September 29, 1526, the settlement was christened San Miguel de Gualdape (sometimes called San Miguel de Guadalupe), a reference to the local Guale tribe.

The settlers quickly suffered from dysentery, hunger, cold, and Indian attack. On October 18, Ayllon died, and leadership of the settlement was assumed by Captain Francisco Gomez, who wanted to stay at the settlement and wait for fresh supplies to arrive. Another faction, led by Gines Doncel and his lieutenant Pedro de Bazan, wanted to leave the settlement and return home. Doncel and a group of supporters seized and arrested Gomez and others supporting him, and locked them in Doncel’s home. When Doncel and Bazan set out to ambush other opponents, the enslaved Africans set fire to Doncel’s home, and freed Gomez and the other captives. The enslaved Africans escaped to live with the local Native Americans. This incident is regarded as the first slave rebellion in mainland North America. By July 1527, only one hundred and fifty of the original settlers had survived and returned home to Hispaniola.

Estevanico, an enslaved African from Morocco, accompanied his enslaver, Andres de Dorantes, on an expedition to conquer Florida. Estevanico, born around 1503 in Azemmour, Morocco, had probably been sold into slavery by the Portuguese, who had captured Morocco in 1513 and started selling its people after a drought in 1520. When Estevanico and the explorers arrived in Florida on April 12, 1528, they fought with the native population and lost. The survivors, Estevanico among them, served as the enslaved and medicine men until 1535 when Estevanico, Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes de Carranza, and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado escaped and headed up the Rio Grande toward the Northwest. In March of 1536, the five-man party met up with a Spanish patrol on the Rio Sinaloa and followed it back to a Spanish outpost. Later that year the group made its way to Mexico where the Viceroy of Mexico asked if they would lead an expedition into Arizona and New Mexico. Estevanico was the only one to accept and, in February of 1539, he led a party to northwest New Mexico. Later that year, however, he was captured by the Zuni tribe and killed as a spy.

Enslaved Blacks and Indians in Puerto Rico revolted and caused such great economic losses that many Whites left the island.

Blacks were part of the expedition of Panfilo Narvaez in the conquest of Florida. Enrique Eynger and Jeronomi Sayller received permits to introduce 4,000 Blacks in four years in the Indies. By this date there were about 10,000 Africans in the New World. An expedition started out from Mexico to discover the land which is now New Mexico. It was led by Steven Dorantes or Estevanico, a Black man who came to America with the Narvaez expedition in 1527. He and three Spaniards survived a succession of disasters and reached Mexico from Florida by the overland route. Because of his knowledge of Indian languages, Estevanico guided the expedition to the "Seven Cities of Cibola" as the land of the Zunis was supposed to be. He reached the pueblos but was killed by the Indians and the expedition following him turned back. It was forty years before other attempts were made to penetrate New Mexico.

Askia Mohammed was dethroned by his son, Mussa.

Spain's Charles V issued a royal edict to the Casa de Contratacion, the Spanish House of Commerce which controlled the purchase and supply of the enslaved Blacks. The edict intended to prevent the introduction of North African Blacks, such as the Berbers and Wolofs, into Spanish colonies because they were thought to have created the 1527 uprising in Puerto Rico. Those found guilty of the offense were fined 100,000 maravedis.

Carib Indian warriors raided some of the Windward Islands and looted the islands' Spanish plantations. Many of the enslaved Blacks were carried off the plantations by the Caribs. The Blacks later married some of the Caribs and the children of these unions were known as Garifuna, or Black Caribs.

A second royal decree was issued reiterating the ban on the importation of North African enslaved Blacks into the New World.

Real Cedula granted twenty licenses to import White slaves in Indies; one of these licenses was granted to Domingo de Irala. The license also permitted him to carry with him to the Rio de la Plata 200 Blacks.

Spanish expedition including 200 blacks left Nicaragua for Quito.

Royal decree prohibited importation in the Indies of Moors converted to Christianity and their children.

Morocco claimed the principal salt mines at Tegazza but the reigning Askia refused to recognize the claim.

Charles V issued another royal decree prohibiting the importation of Wolof Blacks from the Senegal River area to the West Indian islands. According to the decree, "in as much as the Black uprising in the island of San Juan and others were the result of the independence, disobedience, rebelliousness and incorrigibility of the Wolof slaves, they must not be transported to any part of the Indies without special license." These Blacks were also undesirable in that they were descendants of the Moorish race and could pose a danger to the recently-planted Christianity in the colonies.

Blacks in Peru prohibited from carrying arms or being in the streets from 10:00 a.m.-4:00 a.m.

Slave revolt in Peru. Slaves burned the town of Santa Marta on north coast of South America.

Carlos I prohibited Blacks from being served by Indians: penalty for first offense, 100 lashes publicly administered; second offense, cutting off ears. If free, first offense 100 lashes; second offense, banishment. Neither Blacks nor "Mulatoes," enslaved or free, permitted to wear gold, silk, or pearls.

An English expedition to West Africa returned with a cargo of 400 pounds of gold and 250 ivory tusks, comfortably multiplying its capital investment many times over. Other Englishmen quickly followed and returned with equally satisfactory results. Eventually Queen Elizabeth herself invested in African trade and made a 1000 pound profit on one voyage.

English navigator John Hawkins hijacked a Portuguese ship carrying enslaved Africans to Brazil and, thus, English participation in the slave trade began. He traded the enslaved Blacks at Hispaniola for a sizable profit. Queen Elizabeth also profited from Hawkins's slave trade despite having expressed outrage at the institution of slavery.

East Africa declared a Portuguese territory.

Felipe II permitted Pedro Menendez de Aviles to introduce 500 Blacks into Florida. Menendez had a company of trained Black artisans and agriculturists when he founded St. Augustine.

Real Cedula prohibited enslaved Blacks married in Spain from being carried to America without wives and children.

The most famous of the kings of Bornu, Idris Aloma, came to the throne.

Under Idris III, the empire of Bornu was at its height. It ruled over Kano, the Air, Kanem, and land south of Lake Chad.

Slaves revolted in Lima when Sir Francis Drake arrived there in 1578.

The first enslaved Blacks arrive in North America when Philip II of Spain sends some of his enslaved Blacks to St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest permanent city founded by Europeans in America.

The Portuguese discovered Benin, one of the most carefully organized African states on the West Coast, and traded with it in enslaved persons and other produce.

The Sultan of Morocco seized the salt mines at Taghaza from the Songhay empire.

Swahili towns revolted against Portuguese in alliance with Turkish adventurer, Ali Bey.

Portuguese moved inland up the Zambezi and penetrated the empire of Mwanamutapa in the northern part of the country. They founded settlements on the Middle Zambezi at Sena and Tete, and used these increasingly as bases from which to interefere in affairs of Mwanamutapa.

A company of 3,000 Spanish renegades with muskets, led by Judar, attacked the Songhay. They overthrew the Askias at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591 and thereafter ruled at Timbuktu.

Moroccans invaded and overran the empire of Songhay. The Songhay, with their bows and arrows, were helpless against powder and shot, and were defeated at Tenkadibou. Askia Ishak, the king, offered terms, and Djouder Pasha referred them to Morocco. Firearms were in use in Bornu a few years before Judar and his desert army used them with devastating effect on the Songhay.

Philip II, the King of Spain, granted Gomez Reynal the most comprehensive slave trading agreement of the time. Reynal was to ship 38,250 enslaved Africans over a nine-year span. Of the 4,250 he was to take to the Americas each year, he had to ensure that 3,500 survived the trip. He agreed to bring the enslaved Blacks directly from Africa who were not mulattoes, mestizos, Turks, or Moors. Reynal paid 900,000 ducats for the deal, ten of which he had to forfeit for each slave short of the quota he fell.

With the union of Spain and Portugal in 1580, the privilege of importing enslaved people fell to the Portuguese. In 1595 a detailed grant was given to Gomez Reynal. During nine years he was to deliver 38,250 enslaved persons, at the rate of 4,250 annually. Of these 3,500 had to be landed alive. For his concession he was paid 900,000 ducats; for every Black short of the quota he forfeited 10 ducats. The Blacks were to be fresh from Africa and were to include no Mestizos, Turks, or Moors. In 1600 Reynal died and the contract was transferred to Juan Rodrigues Cutiño, and extended to 1609.

Several thousand Blacks who worked in the rich gold mines near Zaragoza in Nueva Granada (now Colombia) wrecked the mines and killed the Spanish administrators and miners; they then defied the Spanish authorities from behind palisades that they had thrown up. The rebellion was suppressed with systematic ruthlessness by the colonial government.

By the middle of the sixteenth century there were 20,000 enslaved Africans in Cuernavaca and Veracruz. They caused the Spaniards more uneasiness than the more numerous Indians. The Viceroy Mendoza hanged a number of them as an example, but the Spaniards were still unable to take Blacks for granted. Early in the seventeenth century the rumor spread through Mexico City that the Blacks were going to rise and slaughter all the Spaniards on a certain day. One night the nervous Spaniards mistook the noise of a herd of runaway hogs in the streets for the sound of barefoot Blacks bent on their destruction. The next day they executed more than thirty Blacks in sheer panic.

The British established themselves in Bermuda to conduct trade, including slave trade.

The Dutch supplanted the Portuguese as slave traders on the African coast and brought the first slaves to the North American continent. In South America they settled Guiana in 1616 and began the cultivation of sugar cane. Later, to curb the rebellious Blacks, they brought in East Indians. The so called "Bush Negroes" in the interior of Guiana were descendants of runaway slaves who had established villages and an organized government. By the end of the seventeenth century, they had large settlements on the Surinam River and before the middle of the eighteenth century they were making repeated raids on the plantations.

Twenty Blacks who had been captured in Africa were sold to the highest bidders at Jamestown, Virginia. However, these were not the first of their race to arrive in North America. Blacks had traveled with Spanish, Portuguese, and French explorers in the Americas throughout the sixteenth century. The most noted Black explorer, Estevanico, had arrived in Florida in 1528 with Andres de Dorantes on a conquering expedition. Diego el Negro was a crew member on the Capitana as part of Christopher Columbus's last voyage to the New World. There were as many as thirty Blacks, including Nuflo de Olano, who were with Vasco Nunez de Balboa when the explorer discovered the Pacific Ocean. The twenty Blacks sold at Jamestown in 1619 were, nonetheless, the first permanent involuntary settlers of their race, hence the history of African Americans in what is now the United States began with their arrival. Scholars debate whether or not they were enslaved or indentured servants.

Anthony Johnson and his wife, Mary, were the first free Blacks in the United States, according to court records in Accomack, later Northampton County, in the colony of Virginia. The Johnsons had two sons, John and Richard, whose names appeared in 1654 Northampton County land transaction records.

Eleven enslaved Blacks were brought to New York in 1626 as indentured or bonded servants. They first lived in lower Manhattan in the area of Fort Amsterdam and Wall Street. They were later freed of their bonds and eventually developed into a free Black community in Manhattan and nearby Brooklyn. However, slavery was legal in New York for another two hundred years.

Prior to this date, Blacks had been sold in Boston, but it is not definitely known when the first enslaved Blacks were directly brought to the region. Authorities who claim that enslaved Africans were first brought to New England in 1638 base their contention on an entry in John Winthrop's Journal. Winthrop recorded on December 12, 1638, the arrival of the ship Desire at Boston. The cargo of the vessel, according to Winthrop, included salt, cotton, tobacco, and enslaved Blacks. The statement of Governor Winthrop is the first recorded account of Black slavery in New England.

The colony of Virginia passed a regulation prohibiting Blacks from bearing firearms.

Massachusetts recognized slavery as a legal institution, the first of the North American colonies to do so. Section ninety-one of the Body of Liberties of 1641 read: "There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or Captivities amongst us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel. .. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie."

The New England Confederation declared that certification by a magistrate was sufficient evidence to convict enslaved Black runaways.

During this time there were skirmishes with Native American people and the Dutch wanted the enslaved Blacks to help protect their settlements rather than join the Native Americans. They were granted partial freedom, where they could buy land and a home and earn a wage from their enslaver, and then full freedom. Their children remained in slavery. During such times, intermarriage with working class whites became common.

Anthony Johnson, a Black man, qualified for a 200-acre land grant after importing five servants to North Hampton, Virginia. Other Blacks joined Johnson and began an African community. The settlement had twelve African homesteads at its height.

A Virginia statute recognized slavery and established the status of mixed-blood offspring as enslaved or free in accordance with the status of the mother. Known as "partus sequitur ventrem", this legal doctrine was derived from Roman civil law and translates to "offspring follows belly" (referring to the belly of the mother). The Slave Codes of Virginia, and those that followed them, were motivated by the growth of the Black population and the fears of uprisings of the enslaved Africans. They were also specifically designed to protect the property in enslaved Blacks. Generally, enslaved Africans were not allowed to leave the plantation, to wander, or to assemble without permission from their enslaver. They could not own weapons and could not testify against Whites in court. Enslaved Blacks found guilty of murder or rape were to be executed. For petty offenses, they were whipped, maimed, or branded. The codes of the enslaved Africans grew out of the laws regulating indentured servitude, but the enslaved, unlike the indentured servants, had practically no rights.

Maryland declared that Black slaves should serve durante vita (for duration of life). This law gave legal recognition to slavery in the colony of Maryland.

French slavery in the New World centered in Haiti. The French annexed the eastern part, thus dividing the island between France and Spain.

The Royal African Company began its monopoly on the slave trade to the British-American colonies. The monopoly held strong until 1698 when the trade was opened to all English subjects.

The Gloucester County Conspiracy also known as the Servant’s Plot or Birkenhead’s Rebellion, took place in Virginia in 1663. The plan involved a rebellion of African, English, Irish, and Indian indentured servants and slaves plotting against authorities in Gloucester County, Virginia. On September 1, 1663, nine indentured servants: John Gunter, William Bell, Richard Darbishire, John Hayte, Thomas Jones, William Ball, William Poultey, William Bendell, and Thomas Collins met at a small house belonging to Peter Knight in the woods near Cooks Quarter in Gloucester County, to plan the rebellion. Bell and Gunter were appointed leaders of the rebellion.

The group also planned to meet the following Sunday, September 6, 1663, at a place called Poplar Spring. The plan was for the servants to bring enough weapons that they could scavenge and steal that they hoped would arm a company of thirty men. From Poplar Spring, they would march to the home of Virginia’s Colonial Lieutenant Governor Francis Willis, a member of the governor’s council, to seize more arms and a much-needed drum. The group has recruited a drummer from the county militia company named Major John Smith.

The group’s main destination, however, was the Green Spring mansion of Governor Sir William Berkeley where they would demand that all indentured servants who were normally required to serve seven years of indenture, be released instead one year from the beginning of their service. It is unclear as to how the status of enslaved people would change.

John Birkenhead, one of the indentured servants who attended the meeting betrayed the conspirators and shared the plans to Governor Berkeley. In response the governor arranged for the conspirators to be ambushed at their meeting place and arrested. The general court tried the captured servants for treason and they were later hanged. On September 16, 1663, The Virginia House of Burgesses rewarded Birkendhead his freedom and five thousand pounds of cotton for revealing the plot.

Historian Robert Beverly Jr. in his 1705 The History of Virginia gave much of the initial information about the Gloucester County Conspiracy although he placed the date of the rebellion somewhere between September 6 and September 13. In 1898, author Mary Johnson released a romantic novel called Prisoners of Hope based on the Gloucester County Conspiracy plot.

The Gloucester County Conspiracy would mark one of the few times that indentured servants and enslaved people plotted together to gain their freedom but numerous servile insurrections would follow in what would become the United States.

The first major conspiracy of people in servitude in colonial America was documented. But the plot of white servants and enslaved Blacks failed as it was betrayed by a servant in Gloucester County, Virginia.

Maryland took the lead in passing laws against the marriage of English women to Black men. The preamble of the statute justified the prohibition of intermarriage because "diverse freeborn English women, forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with Negro slaves," causing, among other things, questions over the status of such Blacks. The law was passed to remove this problem and to deter "such free-born women from such shameful matches."

Lucas Santomee was the first trained Black physician in New Amsterdam to be rewarded for his services. He received a land grant from the colony.

The colony of Massachusetts revised slavery laws established in 1641 to permit the enslavement of a slave's offspring. The law gave children the same status as their mothers.

In 1671 the Virginia colony's 2,000 Blacks made up less than five percent of the colony's population, according to the colony's governor. Virginia's Black population tripled by 1700.

The colony of Virginia passed a law providing a bounty on the heads of Maroons. The Maroons were Black runaways who formed communities in the mountains, swamps, and forests of Southern colonies. The law was passed in response to Maroon attacks on local communities.

Slavery prohibited in West New Jersey.

New York declared that more than four slaves should at no time and at no place meet together away from their owner's service or carry arms.

The General Assembly in Virginia passed "An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections" restraining Blacks from meeting in considerable numbers, walking abroad, bearing arms, carrying clubs, staves or other offensive weapons or instruments.

The General Court of Massachusetts ordered that no ship was to sail from any port or harbor or to entertain on board "any servant or Negro" without a permit from the governor. Violators were charged twenty pounds.

Maria, an enslaved Black was burned alive after having been convicted of burning her enslaver's home and causing the death of a baby in the colony of Massachusetts.

Virginia Slave Code reduced all non-Christian bondservants to permanent slave status, regardless of any later religious conversions.

The charter of the Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania recognized the slavery of Blacks. The enslaved were to be freed after fourteen years of service, upon condition they cultivate land allotted to them, and surrender two-thirds of the produce annually.

The first known escaped enslaved Africans from Carolina came to St. Augustine in October 1687. Governor Diego de Quiroga diligently informed the Spanish government that eight men, two women, and a breastfeeding three-year-old had successfully escaped aboard through a boat. Six of the men were assigned to work towards building the new Castillo de San Marcos, while two others were tasked with helping the blacksmith, which may have indicated that they had prior experience in that field. In the governor's home, the ladies were hired as domestics. All allegedly received payment for their labor. The following fall, an English official came to collect them, but Governor Quiroga refused to free them because they had converted to Catholicism, been married in the community, and had important jobs. As a result, the Florida colony started to implement a fugitive slave rule. The first formal stance on runaways was taken by King Charles II in 1693, who stated that he was "offering liberty to everyone, men as well as the ladies, that by their examples and by my generosity others will do the same."

Quakers at Germantown, Pennsylvania, adopted the first formal anti-slavery resolution in American history. The Society of Friends declared that slavery was in opposition to Christianity and the rights of man. The Quakers continued their anti-slavery protests throughout the seventeenth century.

Colonial Connecticut passed a law that forbade Black and Indian servants from wandering beyond town limits without a ticket or pass from a master or other person in position of authority. Violators were deemed runaways and would be returned to their masters. Ferrymen were fined twenty shillings for providing passage on their ferries for such persons.

According to South Carolina law, enslaved Africans were a freehold property (meaning to have full legal, indefinite ownership) except in payment of the enslaver's debts. The statute provided that enslaved Africans, "as to the payment of debts, shall be deemed and taken as all other goods and chattels and that Negroes shall be accounted as freehold in all other cases, whatsoever, and descent accordingly."

The colony of Virginia outlawed the practice of freeing Blacks unless those freed were to leave the colony within six months.

A Pennsylvania provincial council expressed concern regarding the "tumultuous gatherings of the negroes in the towne of Philadelphia, of the first days of the week."

George Keith and a group of Quakers published "An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes".

Statutes in the colony of South Carolina stated that enslaved persons needed written permission to leave their enslavers' residences. In addition, enslavers were required to make regular searches of slave quarters for weapons, and enslaved persons who ran away or struck their enslavers faced severe penalties, including whipping, branding, slitting of the nose, and emasculation.