Evolution of a White Settler-State in North America, Historical Time Line—1492-2000

A District 7 Roundtable Presentation
Roxbury 2005 (rev.)

Slavery

1492-1538 – First Africans in the New World arrive with the early expeditions of France and Spain as explorers, servants or slaves

1619 – First shipment of 20 captured Africans arrive at England’s Jamestown VA col-ony

1641-1750 – Slave Codes legalize African bondage in perpetuity: Massachusetts was first in 1641, followed by Connecticut in 1650; Virginia 1661; Maryland 1663; New York and New Jersey 1664; South Carolina 1682; Rhode Island and Pennsylvania 1715; and Georgia 1750; an amended Virginia code (1705) barred freed blacks from residing the territory

1777-1804 – Abolition of slavery in Vermont 1777; Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania 1780; Connecticut and Rhode Island 1784; New York 1799; and New Jersey 1804

1787 – US Constitution avoids explicit mention of slavery,^* but institutes a series of protections for Southern slave owners including: the Electoral College guaranteeing the election of southern presidents; the Enumeration Clause, or “3-fifths rule” (art.1, ss.2); barring Congres-sional action against slave importation until 1808 (art.1, ss.9); and a Fugitive Slave Clause re-solving the matter of extradition for runaways residing in “free states” (art.4, ss.2)

1804 – Haiti proclaims independence, becoming the first free black state in the Western Hemisphere and prompting the sale of French holdings in North America to the US (the Louisi-ana Purchase)

1807 – Congress bans trans-Atlantic slave trade

1833-1863 – Slavery banned in colonial territories of Spain 1820, Great Britain 1833, France 1843, and Holland 1863; however, slavery continued in Puerto Rico until 1873 and 1880 in Cuba

1850 – Fugitive Slave Act extends previous Constitutional provisions safeguarding the ownership of humans as property by requiring cooperation of civil authorities in the Northern “free-states” to aid in the return of runaway slaves; act facilitates a rash of kidnappings of freed-men subsequently “sold South” into bondage

1863, 1865 – Emancipation Proclamation “frees” slaves in the 11 warring states of the Confederacy; the 13th Amendment (1865) finally ends 248 years of African bondage in the US^**

Immigration

1790 – Congress enacts first Immigration & Naturalization act; citizenship restricted to “white persons”; “racial” requirement remained in effect for the next 142 years (1952)

1880-1965 – Congress passes a series of Chinese exclusion acts: the Act of 1882 sus-pended immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years, later expanded to include all Chinese in 1884; in 1917, Congress creates “an Asiatic barred zone,” excluding all people of Chinese, Fili-pino, Japanese or Samoan descent

1910-1970 – In two waves of internal migration straddling the World Wars, African Americans fleeing southern Jim Crow discrimination and violence in pursuit of civil rights and employment opportunity; from 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million black people made the move from the rural South into the cities of the North and the Midwest. The Great Migration was a grass-roots, leaderless movement and differed from previous migrations in that it was a movement directly from the rural South to the urban North. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, more black people moved back to the South than left becoming part of a general population shift to the Sunbelt.

1924 – National Origins Act establishes a quota system strongly favoring immigrants from western or northern Europe

1929- 1950s – Despite absence of explicit laws, federal government approved periodic roundups and mass deportations of Mexicans—immigrants and citizens alike; 500-thousand Mexicans forcibly “repatriated” during the Depression years; in 1954, over one million citizens and non-citizens of Mexican descent deported under “Operation Wetback”

1942-1964 - California created the infamous “Bracero Program,” a migrant labor program that allowed California agricultural employers to temporarily contract with approximately two million Mexican nationals for their labor in the fields. Between 1939 and 1954, the INS deported three million undocumented and documented Mexican immigrants, and U.S. citizens through an anti-Mexican campaign known as “Operation Wetback.”

1952 – McCarren-Walter Act finally repeals the whites-only provision for naturaliza-tion; however, did little to adjust the bias of a quota system skewing two-thirds of annual immi-gration slots toward Great Britain, Ireland and Germany.

1965-1980 – Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments (1965) lifted all restrictions on Asian immigration; the Indochinese Refugee Act (1975) and the Refugee Act 1980 allowed over 300,000 Vietnamese and Southeast Asians fleeing political turmoil in Laos and Cambodia to enter the United States as refugees.

1986 - - The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) focused almost exclusively undocumented aliens by imposing sanctions on employers, legalizing the status of undocumented entrants who had arrived prior to January 1, 1982, and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of national origin or citizenship.

1990 – Immigration Act of 1990 increased the numbers of Asians coming, raising the total quota and reorganizing system of preferences to favor certain professional groups (medicine, high technology, etc.).

1996 - The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was a comprehen-sive law purportedly targeting terrorism and other crimes; however, it expanded the grounds for deportability of immigrants convicted of crimes and narrows previous forms of relief.

Likewise, the Illegal Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA) focuses on the quick re-moval of undocumented immigrants, allowing for an increase in criminal penalties for immigra-tion-related offenses and enhanced enforcement authority—expedited removal processes upon entry, withdrawal of judicial review for certain forms of relief, expansion of the definition of an aggravated felony, benefit limitations for non-citizens, and time limits for filing asylum claims.

Lastly, anti-immigrant sentiment was also a prominent feature of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation (Welfare Reform) Act of 1996.

Citizenship

1790 – Congress passes Census Act, which includes the 3/5ths provision for political representation in the House: US population is estimated as 3,929,214, 19.3% black

1777-1865 – In the South, slavery was a racial dictatorship denying blacks—slave and free—most civil and political rights; even in the north, freed blacks were generally barred from voting, serving on juries or in the state militia, negotiating legal contracts, or testifying against a white man in court

1857 – The US Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision declares blacks—slave or free—were “a subordinate and inferior class of beings” never meant to become citizens of the US

1865-70 – 14th Amendment (1868) extends formal citizenship rights and “equal protec-tion” to ex-slaves, invalidating the ruling in Dred Scott by declaring “all persons born or natu-ralized in the US, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US and of the state wherein they reside”; the 15th Amendment (1870) grants voting rights to freed blacks; the Ku Klux Klan is organized (1867) and launches a campaign of terrorism to block the exercise of black civil rights, forcing the federal government to intervene in defense of black voting rights (1870); southern legislatures enact Black Codes, imposing severe restrictions on the exercise of civil and political rights and new conditions of servitude

1884 - - US Supreme Court finds that Native Americans owed first allegiance to their tribe and did not acquire US citizenship at birth; Congress eventually confers US citizenship to Native Americans in 1924

1896 – US Supreme Court endorses “Jim Crow” segregation, finding that whites had the right to demand “separate” accommodations or amenities—provided that blacks were offered “equal” services; the Court later upheld state laws disenfranchising black voters (1903)

1898 – US Supreme Court rules that native-born children of non-citizens—even Asian groups permanently barred by racial exclusion—were “birthright citizens” of the US; however, “Birthright citizenship” remained contingent on racial group identification until 1940

1943-46 – Laws excluding Chinese, Filipino and Indians (South Asians) from immigra-tion and those barring their naturalization rescinded; however, provisions excluding most other Asian groups (Cambodian, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.) remained in effect until 1965

1952 – McCarren-Walter Act formally eliminates “whiteness” provision from considera-tion in the naturalization process

1955-1964 – NAACP lawyers under Thurgood Marshall convince the US Supreme Court to reverse itself on “Plessy,” discarding the doctrine of “separate-but-equal” in favor of reaffirming 14th Amendment guarantees of “equal protection”; a growing movement for social justice forces the liberal political establishment to support black demand for civil rights, leading to the eventual dismantling of Southern Jim Crow—finally completing what Dr. King would call the “first phase” of the struggle.^***

1965 – Pres. Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act and sends the first contingent of federal poll examiners south to monitor registration and voting procedures.

Notes

^*Africans in bondage were vaguely referred to as: “such persons…held to Service or Labour.” [back to text]

^**The amendment specifically excludes individuals convicted of a felony from the protection against involuntary servitude. Many former slave states would use this loophole to criminalize black unemployment, returning many to a state of semi-permanent bondage through chain gangs and convict-leasing programs. [back to text]

^***MLK (1967) noted that the “second phase,” moving beyond symbolic rights to material equality, was stalled as the mass movement’s white allies “quietly faded away.” [back to text]