Campbell, William R. (William Richard), 1857-

Though the first Africans arrived at Jamestown in 1619, most of the labor force in the seventeenth century was comprised of European indentured servants. After 1680, the rates of immigration of European laborers dropped abruptly, and the number of people taken into slavery rose to meet the new demand. The second Constitutional Congress passed a resolution banning the importation of slaves, and many states passed their own bans on the practice, as well. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, advocates of the slave trade won a 20 year prohibition against Congress outlawing the trade. The increase in business in this twenty year period suggests that most people expected Congress to ban the slave trade as soon as possible. Legislation passed by Congress in 1807, and enacted in 1808, ended the practice of abducting Africans to bring to America. Some Northern states had already passed laws banning slavery, while others took a gradual approach, such as the New York law of 1799 that ruled boys born in the future would be freed at age twenty-eight, and girls at twenty-five. In 1787, the passage of the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. By the 1840's, slavery was almost, though not entirely, confined to the Southern states. On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all slaves in rebel states were free. Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which banned all slavery in the United States, in January of 1865, and in December it was ratified by the states.

Information from "American Slavery 1619-1877" by Peter Kolchin.

From the guide to the Slave Bill of Sale, 1856, (University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Special Collections Dept.)