Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More

A second Fugitive Slave Act is passed.

Date: 1850

BH
SLA
LLP
RES

Widespread resistance to the 1793 law leads to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which adds more provisions regarding runaway enslaved African people and levies even harsher punishments for interfering in their capture. The Underground Railroad strengthens in response.