1500 – 1879

Atlantic Slave Trade & Early Colonial Contact

The transatlantic slave trade, the rise of the African diaspora in the Americas, and the earliest European trading posts and incursions along the African coast.

Ottoman forces under Selim I decisively defeated the Cairo-based Mamluk Sultanate at the Battle of Marj Dab… (1516)
The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeated the Mamluk Sultanate at the Battle of Ridaniya, bringing Egypt un… (1517)
During the Ethiopian–Adal War, the Adal Sultanate seized control of southern Ethiopia. (1531)
Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti, Berber scholar and jurist of Timbuktu who authored more than 40 works, was born. (1556)
Portuguese navigator Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda, which grew into the capital of Angola and one of… (1575)
Moroccan forces defeated a Portuguese invasion at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, killing King Sebastian of P… (1578)
At the Battle of Tondibi, invading Moroccan forces armed with firearms defeated the much larger Songhai Emp… (1591)
Susenyos I defeated his rivals at the Battle of Gol in Gojjam, securing his position as Emperor of Ethiopia. (1607)
Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch colonial administrator who founded the settlement that became Cape Town, was bo… (1619)
Portuguese forces defeated the Kingdom of Kongo at the Battle of Mbumbi in what is now Angola. (1622)
Barbary corsairs from North Africa raided the Irish village of Baltimore, capturing most of its inhabitants… (1631)
Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck established a resupply camp at the Cape of Good Hope for the Dutch East India… (1652)
Portuguese forces defeated the Kingdom of Kongo at the Battle of Mbwila and beheaded King António I, a turn… (1665)
The four cornerstones of the Castle of Good Hope were laid at the Cape, beginning construction of what is t… (1666)
Dandara, a leader of the runaway-slave community of Quilombo dos Palmares in Brazil, is captured and takes… (1694)
Iyasu I, Emperor of Ethiopia remembered as 'Iyasu the Great' for his military campaigns and administrative… (1706)
Jupiter Hammon, who became the first African-American writer to be published in the American colonies, was… (1711)
A smallpox epidemic strikes the Cape after arriving via contaminated ship linen, devastating the indigenous… (1713)
The 1716 Algiers earthquake strikes Algeria, killing an estimated 20,000 people. (1716)
Benjamin Banneker, the African-American mathematician, astronomer, and almanac author who helped survey the… (1731)
The Berbice slave uprising begins in Guyana, becoming the first major slave revolt in South America. (1763)
Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman military commander who became the founder of modern Egypt, was born. (1769)
Ali Bey al-Kabir, the Mamluk leader who ruled Egypt as a virtually independent sultan, died. (1773)
An anonymous essay, 'African Slavery in America,' thought to be written by Thomas Paine, was published, bec… (1775)
The crew of the British slave ship Zong murdered more than 130 enslaved Africans by throwing them overboard… (1781)
Captain Thomas Shirley opens his expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa, in… (1781)
Phillis Wheatley, who was born in West Africa and enslaved as a child before becoming a celebrated American… (1784)
An earthquake devastated the Algerian coastal city of Oran, killing an estimated 3,000 people and triggerin… (1790)
Self-taught Black mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker sent Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson a… (1791)
Enslaved people in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) rose up on the night of August 21 in a mass uprising… (1791)
Black insurgents won the Battle of Croix-des-Bouquets, an early victory of the Haitian Revolution. (1792)
Upper Canada passed the Act Against Slavery, banning the importation of enslaved people and beginning the g… (1793)
French Republican troops and Black insurgents captured Cap-Français during the Haitian Revolution, a turnin… (1793)
The French National Convention decrees the abolition of slavery throughout the French First Republic and it… (1794)
British troops landed at Muizenberg and drove off the Dutch garrison, beginning the British occupation of t… (1795)
Britain seized the Dutch Cape Colony in southern Africa to prevent it falling under French-allied control. (1795)
Olaudah Equiano, formerly enslaved Nigerian-born writer whose autobiography became a landmark of abolitioni… (1797)
Napoleon's forces defeated an Ottoman-Mamluk army near Cairo at the Battle of the Pyramids. (1798)
The Battle of the Nile began at Aboukir Bay, Egypt, as a British fleet under Horatio Nelson engaged and dec… (1798)
The Battle of the Nile concluded in a decisive British naval victory over Napoleon's fleet at Aboukir Bay,… (1798)
Napoleon Bonaparte's expeditionary force set sail from France to invade Egypt. (1798)
The Rosetta Stone was discovered in the Egyptian town of Rosetta by French soldiers during Napoleon's Egypt… (1799)
Napoleon Bonaparte secretly left Egypt for France, abandoning the army he had led there, en route to seizin… (1799)
Nat Turner, who later led an 1831 rebellion of enslaved people in Virginia, was born into slavery. (1800)
At the Battle of Abukir, a British force landed in Egypt aiming to end the French occupation begun under Na… (1801)
The pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States by cutting down the flagstaff of the American consul… (1801)
Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery in French colonies, reversing its abolition during the French Revolut… (1802)
Rather than surrender to Napoleon's troops sent to restore slavery, hundreds of rebels led by Louis Delgres… (1802)
Five French warships attempting to break the British naval blockade of Saint-Domingue were seized, effectiv… (1803)
Haiti declared independence from France following the Haitian Revolution, becoming the world's first black-… (1804)
In the First Barbary War, a mercenary force led by U.S. Marines under William Eaton captured the city of De… (1805)
Muhammad Ali became Wali (governor) of Egypt, founding a dynasty that would rule the country for the next c… (1805)
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, leader of the Haitian Revolution and first ruler of independent Haiti, was assassi… (1806)
Following the Battle of Blaauwberg, the Dutch Cape Colony in southern Africa passed into British hands, bec… (1806)
Norbert Rillieux, African-American inventor and chemical engineer who revolutionized sugar refining, was born. (1806)
The Slave Trade Act received royal assent in Britain, abolishing the transatlantic slave trade across the B… (1807)
The Slave Trade Act 1807 took effect, abolishing the slave trade throughout the British Empire, a landmark… (1807)
Emir Abdelkader, the religious and military leader who founded the Algerian state and led 17 years of resis… (1808)
Joseph Jenkins Roberts, American-born statesman who became the first President of Liberia, was born. (1809)
Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali ordered the massacre of Mamluk leaders at the Cairo Citadel, ending centuries o… (1811)