1850
Chat with our AI personalities
The Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850. This federal law required the return of escaped slaves to their owners, even if they were in a free state.
The first fugitive slave law was passed by Congress in 1793. It allowed slaveowners to reclaim their escaped slaves in any state or territory in the United States.
The United States banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, although illegal smuggling of slaves continued. The British Empire abolished the slave trade in 1807, and slavery itself was outlawed throughout the British Empire in 1833.
The United States Congress could not touch the slave trade until 1808, as stated in the U.S. Constitution's Slave Trade Clause. This clause prohibited Congress from banning the importation of slaves until that year.
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery around 1797 in Swartekill, New York.
The international slave trade was officially banned in 1807, and slavery was abolished in British colonies in 1833. In the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 and the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865, formally abolishing slavery.