Following the creation of the United States in 1776 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, the legal status of slavery was generally a matter for individual U.S. state legislatures and judiciaries (outside of several historically significant exceptions including the

Northwest Ordinance The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio and also known as the Ordinance of 1787), enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Co ...

of 1787, the 1808

Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest dat ...

, the 1820 Missouri Compromise, the

Fugitive Slave Act A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also know ...

of 1850, the '' Dred Scott v. Sandford'' decision of 1857, et al.) As such, slavery flourished in some states (mostly southern), and withered on the vine in others (mostly northern). On the whole, the former Thirteen Colonies abolished slavery relatively slowly, if at all, with several Northern states using gradual emancipation systems in which freedom would be granted after so many years of life or service. (Vermont and New York had clear and absolute freedom dates; Massachusetts and New Hampshire were ''de facto'' free states with total abolition from the American Revolution forward.) For many years after the establishment of the republic, new states were admitted in pairs, so-called free state–slave state twins, so that some states entered the Union with guaranteed "free soil" while their twin permitted the continuation and expansion of America's peculiar institution. Fifteen states (in order of admission, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas) never sought to end slavery, and thus bondage and the slave trade continued in those places, and there was even a movement to reopen the transatlantic slave trade. With the admission of California, Oregon, and Iowa as free states, and the prospective admission of

Kansas Territory The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Slave and ...

(likely as a free state), with the commensurate increasing political power of free-state legislators in the United States Congress, the political status quo began to disintegrate. This shift convinced the Slave Power's most influential and vocal leaders that secession was the only way to retain long-term control of both their wealth held in slaves and their political power. (Under the Three-Fifths Compromise brokered at the 1787

Constitutional Convention Constitutional convention may refer to: * Constitutional convention (political custom), an informal and uncodified procedural agreement *Constitutional convention (political meeting), a meeting of delegates to adopt a new constitution or revise an e ...

, enslaved people were considered additional population for purposes of

apportionment The legal term apportionment (french: apportionement; Mediaeval Latin: , derived from la, portio, share), also called delimitation, is in general the distribution or allotment of proper shares, though may have different meanings in different c ...

. The prospective end of slavery would have thus deprived slave owners of the disproportionate representation of their interests in the national legislature, relative not just the people they enslaved but to free white male voters in other states.) Ultimately, a massive and devastating four-year-long war resolved the interstate conflict over slavery, and when rebel state governments were finally overwhelmed by force of arms, various civilian and military representatives of the U.S. government emancipated those people who remained legally enslaved. Slavery in the United States was legally abolished nationwide within the 36 newly reunited states under the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, effective December 18, 1865. ''The federal district, which is legally part of no state and under the sole jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress, permitted slavery until the American Civil War. For the history of the abolition of the slave trade in the district and the federal government's one and only compensated emancipation program, see slavery in the District of Columbia.''

Slavery in states admitted after 1865

History of slavery in Alaska The history of slavery in Alaska differs from that of the other states that comprise the United States. Whereas the contiguous United States mostly saw enslavement of Africans originating from across the Atlantic Ocean, in Alaska indigenous people, ...

History of slavery in Colorado The history of slavery in Colorado began centuries before Colorado achieved statehood when Spanish colonists of Santa Fe de Nuevo México (1598–1848) enslaved Native Americans, called Genízaros. Southern Colorado was part of the Spanish territo ...

* History of slavery in Montana * History of slavery in Nebraska *

History of slavery in New Mexico Slavery in New Mexico existed among the Native American (Indian) tribes prior to the arrival of the first Europeans. In 1542, the Spanish king banned the enslavement of the Indians of the Americas in Spanish colonies, but the ban was mostly ineffe ...

* History of slavery in Oklahoma * History of slavery in South Dakota *

History of slavery in Utah Slavery as it occurred in the borders of what is now the state of Utah has a complicated history. Under Spanish and Mexican rule, Utah was a major source of illegal slave raids by Mexican, Ute and Navajo slave traders, particularly on Paiute t ...

Slavery in states admitted after 1865

See also

Explanatory footnotes

References

Further reading