English 241

Early American Literature

Spring 2003

TRANSATLANTIC TIMELINE (1700 – 1799)

This timeline incorporates course readings together with historical and cultural events in the Americas, Europe and Africa.

1700 Slave trade in the English colonies almost exclusively a Massachusetts enterprise, with Boston as the leading slave port. Also in Boston, Captain Kidd captured. Massachusetts judge Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a major early antislavery text.

1702 In Massachusetts, Cotton Mather publishes Magnalia Christi Americana.

1704 The Boston Newsletter, the first newspaper in the American colonies, is founded.

1705 Virginia institutes a slave code. In New York, a law passes that condemns to death fugitive slaves attempting to reach Canada.

1707 In Massachusetts, John Williams publishes The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion.

1709 Swiss Mennonites arrive in Pennsylvania.

1710 British fail to take Quebec. German immigrants begin to arrive in upstate New York.

1713 Treaty of Utrecht signed, ending the War of Spanish Succession. Under treaty terms settling British-French boundary disputes, the British claim new Indian lands.

1716 First theater in America founded in Williamsburg, Virginia.

1718 Parliament passes the Transportation of Convicts Act. In Virginia, William Teach (Blackbeard) killed by naval forces.

1720 South Sea Bubble causes financial panic in Britain. English navy brings an end to the era of pirates. Massachusetts passes an act to discourage Irish immigration. In Pennsylvania, Lutheran and Reformed immigration begins.

1721 First smallpox vaccinations given in America by Zabdiel Boylston in Boston to his son and two black slaves, at the recommendation of Cotton Mather. Mather’s slave, Oneisimus, has told his master of similar inoculations administered by African tribes. Angry mobs stone both Boylston’s and Mather’s homes when the experiment becomes public knowledge.

1722 The Pennsylvania Assembly condemns the “wicked and scandalous practice of Negroes cohabiting with white people.”

1723 Boston takes extreme precautions against a rumored plan by black slaves to burn the city. Philadelphia petitions the Pennsylvania Assembly to do something “concerning the intermarriages of Negroes and whites.”

1725 Pennsylvania passes a law forbidding racial intermixture.

1727 The Junto Club, later the American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. Club members pledge to oppose slavery and other forms of inhumanity.

1728-29 Famine in Ireland.

1729 In Louisiana, the Natchez people are defeated and dispersed by the French. The first subscription library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, created in Philadelphia.

1730 In the Chesapeake Bay area, a majority of African Americans are now American-born. Major slave conspiracies discovered in Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana and Bermuda. New York passes ‘An Act for the more Effectual Preventing and Punishing the Conspiracy and Insurrection of Negro and other Slaves.’ In Jamaica, the Maroon War begins and lasts until 1740, creating a major threat to British rule.

1733 In New York, British authorities try John Peter Zenger over freedom of the press.

1735 In Georgia, slavery is banned. In Pennsylvania, first Moravians arrive. Boston establishes first public poorhouse in North America. In New York, John van Zandt whips his slave to death for having been picked up by the night watch. The coroner’s jury rules that “correction given by the master was not the cause of death, but that it was by the visitation of God.” Approximately a fifth of New York City’s population is black, and relations are often tense.

1736 Red String Conspiracy in Savannah, Georgia, of Irish workers to overthrow British rule.

1737 In Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards publishes A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.

1738 In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin begins publishing Poor Richard’s Almanac.

1739 The War of Jenkins’ Ear breaks out between England and Spain. In South Carolina, the Stono Rebellion is suppressed; some slaves escape to Spanish FLorida. Methodist minister George Whitefield arrives in America to begin evangelical tour.

1740 In Ireland, the first Great Famine; an estimated 400,000 die. In the Caribbean, the term ‘Americans’ appears for the first time; used by British military officers for colonial American units.

1740s In the American colonies, the first Great Awakening of popular religious fervor.

1741 In New York, African-Irish-Caribbean conspiracy to overthrow British rule; Fort George burned; 13 Africans burned at stake, 21 of mixed races hanged, 76 transported. In South Carolina, indigo cultivation introduced.

1744 In England, half of Liverpool’s trade is in slaves.

1747 Knowles Riot in Boston against British press gangs. John Adams establishes the Independent Advertiser in Boston; he editorializes against press gangs and for a populist equality.

1749 In Georgia, slavery is permitted. Repeal of previous prohibition is due to import of slaves from the Carolinas and disregard of the law.

1750 In Cuba, the system of coartación by which slaves could purchase their freedom at a prearranged price agreed to by their masters, is now common.

1751 In Haiti, there are approximately 3,000 active Maroons. Mackandal, a Maroon leader, conceives a plot to poison the white population. He raids and terrorizes white plantations for six years, until captured.

1754 In Philadelphia, John Woolman publishes an influential antislavery tract, Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes. In New York, King’s College (later Columbia College) established.

1756 The Seven Years War between the British and French begins, a global war between imperial powers.

1757 In Philadelphia, Quakers begin to take action against slave-owning members. Similar disownments occur in New England in 1760 and London in 1761.

1758 In Virginia, the first African Baptist congregation is established. In Lisbon, Manuel Riberro de Rocha publishes The Ethiopian Ransomed, Indentured, Sustained, Corrected, Educated and Liberated, advocating the replacement of African slavery in Brazil with a system of indentured labor.

1759 In Ireland, Whiteboys first organized against English land theft; heavily suppressed from 1761-65.

1760 George III accedes to British throne. Philadelphia becomes the third largest city in the British Empire.In Jamaica, Tacky’s Revolt is suppressed at the cost of several hundred lives of slaves and 60 whites. In London, J. Philmore publishes Two Dialogues on the Man-Trade, an influential early English abolitionist tract. In New York, Jupiter Hammon publishes Salvation by Christ with Pentitential Cries; he is the earliest known African American poet.

1760-77 Slave revolts and insurrectionary plots discovered in Bermuda, Surinam, Jamaica, British Honduras, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Vincent, Tobago, St. Croix, St. Thomas, Virginia, New Jersey, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and elsewhere.

1763 The Peace of Paris ends the Seven Years War (also known in North America as the French and Indian War). England emerges as dominant commercial power. In British colonies, Proclamation of 1763 restricts settlement west of the Appalachians.

1765 In March, Parliament passes the Stamp Act over popular opposition in the American colonies. In May, it passes the Quartering Act. The Virginia Resolves against the Stamp Act pass the House of Burgesses. Riots in August against the Stamp Act, led by the Sons of Liberty. “No taxation without representation” becomes an American slogan.

1766 New York colonial assembly refuses to implement the Quartering Act.

1768 In Massachusetts, the Liberty Riot takes place against press-ganging.

1770 The Boston Massacre takes place; African American sailor Crispus Attucks killed.

1771 Benjamin Franklin writes first version of his Autobiography.

1772 The British customs cutter Gaspee is burnt off the Rhode Island coast as a tax protest. Massachusetts establishes first Committee of Correspondence among the restive colonies. Native American minister Samson Occum preaches A Sermon…at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian. Philip Freneau and Hugh Henry Brackenridge publish A Poem on the Rising Glory of America, and Freneau becomes the ‘poet of the Revolution.’ In Boston, nineteen year-old African American poet Phillis Wheatley advertises her first volume of poetry; it is published in London the following year. In London, abolitionist Granville Sharp wins the Somerset case, enabling slaves who reach England to claim their freedom through habeas corpus.

1773 Virginia establishes a Committee of Correspondence. Boston Tea Party takes place. John Woolman’s Journal published posthumously.

1774 First Continental Congress held. After the discovery of a slave conspiracy in Boston, Abigail Adams writes to her husband John: “I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me – fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.” In England, John Wesley publishes Thoughts Upon Slavery, calling for repentance by slaveholders and deeming slavery a sin.

1775 Battle of Lexington and Concord is fought and War of Independence officially begins; Second Continental Congress is held. In South Carolina, 25,000 of the colony’s 110,000 slaves escape during the course of the Revolution. Tom Paine’s first published article, “African Slavery in America,” appears in a Pennsylvania newspaper and denounces slavery.

1776 Tom Paine publishes Common Sense: Address to the Inhabitants of America; it sells 100,000 copies in three months. American ports opened to all nations, seeking to end British mercantile control of the American economy. New state constitutions authorized. Declaration of Independence is signed.

1781 In Williamsburg, Virginia, slaves set fire to several buildings, including the capitol building.

1782 British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, and surrender playing ‘The World Turned Upside Down’; American independence achieved.

1783 Great Britain and the United States sign the Treaty of Paris, recognizing US sovereignty. Departing British fleet in New York contain over 3,000 escaping slaves; British ships leaving Charlestown carry even more. In Massachusetts, slavery declared illegal under new state constitution. In Buenos Aires, black slaves constitute one-third of the population of 24,000; they are employed in every service and occupation.

1786 Shay’s Rebellion by Massachusetts farmers seeking land rights.

1787 Northwest Ordinance adopted; it opens western lands and prohibits slavery in these territories. Thomas Jefferson publishes Notes on the State of Virginia. The Federalist Papers essays appear first in New York newspapers from October 1787 to May 1788. Royall Tyler writes his popular comedy The Contrast and it opens in New York. In Philsdelphia, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organize the African Church; it becomes the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

1789 French Revolution begins. In England, Olaudah Equiano publishes first bestselling slave narrative, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.

1790 In Rhode Island, Samuel Slater opens the first textile factory in the United States; the New England industrial revolution mobilizes capital and labor in a factory system. Judith Sargent Murray publishes “On the Equality of the Sexes” in Massachusetts Magazine.

1791 Tom Paine publishes The Rights of Man. The Bill of Rights ratified. In Haiti, the Haitian Revolution begins; the only fully successful mass slave revolt in the western hemisphere.

1792 In Boston, African American leader Prince Hall publishes his first Charge, Delivered to the African Lodge, against slavery. In London, Mary Wollstonecraft publishes The Vindication of the Rights of Women.

1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton-gin, making possible the growth of cotton as an export crop and solidifying slavery as an institution in southern states. The Federal Fugitive Law enacted; it provides for return of return of runaway slaves from another state.

1794 Tom Paine publishes The Age of Reason. France declares slavery illegal.

1795 Massive slave revolt in Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana; over 50 slaves killed or executed.

1796 In England, John Spence publishes The Rights of Infants, the first consideration of the human rights of children.

1797 Hannah Foster publishes immensely successful novel, The Coquette.

1798 Irish Rebellion breaks out, aided by French forces. After suppressing the uprising, British hang over 500 Irishmen and sentence 481 to transportation. Theobald Wolfe Tone, leader of the rebel United Irishmen, sentenced to hang but commits suicide in prison.