3000 BC Civilization introduces slavery
Slavery arrives as part of the package of civlization, along with armies, public works and social hierarchies

1720 BC First laws concerning slaves
The Code of Hammurabi is the first surviving document to record the law relating to slaves

1700 BC Hebrews captive in Egypt
The biblical account suggests that around this period the Hebrews are a captive tribe in Egypt

722 BC Ten tribes lost
The Assyrians overwhelm the north of Israel and the ten northern tribes vanish from history - the majority of them probably dispersed or sold into slavery

416 BC Athenians kill the men of Melos
The Athenians, capturing Melos, kill all the males of the island and sell the women and children into slavery

700 New town for African slave trade
The African slave trade through the Sahara is so extensive that a new town, Zawila, is established as a trading station

850 Mamelukes employed in Baghdad
The caliphs in Baghdad begin to employ Turkish slaves, or Mamelukes, in their armies

1446 Portugal claims Guinea
Portugal claims ownership of the region of Guinea, subsequently the centre of their slave trade on the west African coast

1466 Slaving monopoly for Portuguese settlers
The Portuguese settlers on the Cape Verde islands are granted a monopoly on the new slave trade

1550 African slaves shipped to America
Africans, bought in the Portuguese trading posts of west Africa, are shipped across the Atlantic as slaves

1655 British in Jamaica
The British, settling in Jamaica, soon turn the island into the major slave market of the West Indies

1657 Dutch in South Africa purchase slaves
The Dutch in South Africa purchase slaves to do domestic and agricultural work

1688 Aphra Behn attacks slave trade
Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko makes an early protest against the inhumanity of the African slave trade

1700 The Selling of Joseph
Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract

1735 Zenger acquitted in landmark trial
John Peter Zenger, editor of the Weekly Journal, is acquitted of libelling the governor of New York on the grounds that what he published was true

1754 On the Keeping of Negroes
Quaker minister John Woolman publishes the first part of Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, an essay denouncing slavery

1770 Growth in Atlantic slave trade
The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the Atlantic as slaves

1787 Londoners aim to abolish slave trade
The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in London, with a strong Quaker influence

1787 Freed slaves in Sierra Leone
A British ship lands a party of freed slaves as the first modern settlers in Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa

1789 Olaudah Equiano
The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave captured as a child in Africa, becomes a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic

1793 Fugitive Slave Laws
The US Congress passes Fugitive Slave Laws, enabling southern slave owners to reclaim escaped slaves in northern states

1807 Slave trade declared illegal
Legislation abolishing the slave trade is passed in both Britain and America

1808 Sierra Leone in fight against slave trade
The British government uses Freetown, in Sierra Leone, as a base in the fight against the slave trade

1813 Turks enslave Belgrade Serbs
The Turks recapture Belgrade and sell thousands of Serb women and children into slavery

1816 American Colonization Society
Robert Finley, a US anti-slavery campaigner, founds the American Colonization Society to settle freed slaves in Africa

1816 British anti-slavery post at Bathurst
The British establish Bathurst (now Banjul) at the mouth of the Gambia as a base against the slave trade

1820 Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise, admitting Maine and Missouri to the union, keeps the balance between 'free' and 'slave' states in the US senate

1821 African territory for freed US slaves
The American Colonization Society buys the area later known as Liberia to settle freed slaves

1822 Freed slaves reach Liberia
The first shipload of freed slaves reaches Cape Mesurado (in the region soon called Liberia) from the USA

1830 Underground Railroad for slaves
A network of undercover abolitionists in the southern states of America help slaves escape to freedom in the north

1831 Nat Turner's Uprising
Nat Turner leads a revolt by fellow slaves in Southampton County, Virginia, killing 59 whites and provoking more repressive legislation

1833 American Anti-Slavery Society
Under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison a society is formed in the USA calling for the immediate abolition of slavery

1836 Grimké sisters join battle
Sarah and Angelina Grimké join the abolitionist crusade, each publishing a powerful anti-slavery pamphlet in the same year

1836 Angolan slave trade ends
The Portuguese ban the shipping of slaves from the coast of Angola

1839 Mutiny on the Amistad
Mutiny by slaves on a Spanish vessel leads two years later to a significant abolitionist victory in the Amistad case

1841 British campaign against slave trade in west Africa
Britain sends four naval ships up the river Niger to make anti-slavery treaties with local kings

1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Escaped slave Frederick Douglass publishes the first of three volumes of autobiograrphy

1848 Anti-slavery measure rejected by US Senate
The Wilmot Proviso is defeated in the US Senate, heightening north-south tensions on the issue of slavery

1850 Livingstone shocked by Afican slave trade
The Scottish missionary David Livingstone is profoundly shocked by what he sees of the slave trade at the heart of Africa

1850 Slave trade banned in Washington
The slave trade, but not slavery itself, is banned in Washington and the district of Columbia

1850 Slave trade outlawed in Brazil
Brazil, historically the world's second largest importer of slaves from Africa, finally bans the slave trade

1850 Compromise of 1850
The US Congress passes the Compromise of 1850, designed to defuse the growing crisis over slavery

1850 Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act, concerned with the arrest of runaway slaves, is the most contentious part of the Compromise of 1850

1850 Harriet Tubman rescues slaves
Escaped slave Harriet Tubman makes the first of many dangerous journeys back into Maryland to bring other slaves into freedom

1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes a massively successful antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, that sells 300,000 copies in its first year

1854 Republican party in USA
An anti-slavery movement, formed in the USA to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act, adopts a resonant name, calling itself the Republican party

1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
The controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act passes into law, enabling citizens of these territories to decide whether or not to allow slavery

1856 Pottawatomie Massacre
Abolitionist John Brown presides over the lynching of five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie in Kansas

1857 Dred Scott case
An ultra-reactionary Supreme Court judgement in the Dred Scott case heightens US tensions over slavery

1858 Lincoln debates with Douglas
Abraham Linclon comes to national prominence through his debates on slavery with Stephen Douglas, his rival for an Illinois seat in the Senate

1859 Attack on Harper's Ferry
John Brown is captured leading a group of abolitionists to seize arms from the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry

1860 Lincoln the Republican candidate
Lincoln becomes the Republican presidential candidate, benefiting from a Democratic party split on the issue of slavery

1861 Lagos a British colony
Lagos, on the coast of Nigeria, is annexed as a British colony when the royal family prove unable or unwilling to end the slave trade

1862 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln declares in his Emancipation Proclamation that all slaves in any state opposing the Union government 'are and henceforward shall be free'

1865 Lincoln feted on visit to Richmond
Lincoln visits the Confederate capital at Richmond and is greeted by a jubilant crowd of freed slaves

1865 13th Amendment to US Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits slavery or any 'involuntary servitude' in the USA

1873 Slave trade ends in Zanzibar
The British consul in Zanzibar persuades the sultan to end the island's notorious slave trade

1875 Portugal bans slavery
Slavery is finally made illegal in the Portuguese empire

1876 Scottish missionaries establish Blantyre
Scottish missionaries establish Blantyre (named after Livingstone's birthplace) as a centre from which to fight slavery

1878 Ten Years' War ends in Cuba
The Ten Years' War ends in Cuba, with Spain promising extensive reforms including the abolition of slavery

1881 College at Tuskegee for former slaves
Booker T. Washington, freed at the end of the Civil War, heads a college in the south, in Tuskegee, Alabama, to educate former slaves

1888 Emperor frees Brazil's slaves
The emperor Pedro II frees all the remaining slaves in Brazil without compensating their owners