Trans-Atlantic

Trans-Atlantic Trans-Atlantic Timeline: Ships, Gold, Sugar and Millions in Bondage. Trans-Atlantic also keeps track of basic U.S. traffic to Europe.

Trans-Atlantic charts major-airline traffic and capacity, and pulls together tourism data from many sources. economic trends, dollar-euro rates and marketing developments, and makes regular projections of U.S.

1838Cherokee ‘Trail of Tears’The forced, final removal of the Cherokee nation from northern Georgia to new Indian Territ...
07/01/2025

1838
Cherokee ‘Trail of Tears’
The forced, final removal of the Cherokee nation from northern Georgia to new Indian Territory—“the Trail of Tears”—is ordered by Pres. Martin van Buren (New York). Of more than 15,000 people following three routes, more than 4,000 Cherokee and 2,000 of their slaves die of winter exposure, lack of food, disease. Survivors settle on new reservations east of present-day Tulsa, OK, founded by Muscogee/Creek Indians who arrived two years earlier.

Also previously, army and state militia enforce expulsion of Choctaw,
Chickasaw and some Seminole bands from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida to the Indian Territory.

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1820U.S. Cotton Takes LeadU.S. surpasses India to become world’s leading cotton producer. This is still mostly long-sta...
07/01/2025

1820
U.S. Cotton Takes Lead

U.S. surpasses India to become world’s leading cotton producer. This is still mostly long-staple cotton grown in Carolina Low Country estuaries. But a Mexican-seed hybrid of short-staple cotton is developed in the 1820s, which proves considerably more productive per plant, per acre and per enslaved picker, and can be grown inland.

In 1833, Dr. Rush Nutt develops the still more-productive Petit Gulf hybrid, combining Mexican seed with an earlier Tennessee green. The new hybrid, named for the Mississippi river bend at Nutt’s Rodney, MS, plantation, is soon generating huge new volumes fed through Mississippi and Alabama cotton gins.

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1804Republic of Haiti DeclaredSaint-Domingue is declared the Republic of Haiti (taking the Taíno name) Jan. 1 by Dessali...
07/01/2025

1804
Republic of Haiti Declared

Saint-Domingue is declared the Republic of Haiti (taking the Taíno
name) Jan. 1 by Dessalines, who soon directs the massacre of most of the remaining whites and any others suspected of aiding the French and abetting slavery. Between 3,000 and 5,000 whites and mixed-race people die; Dessalines declares Haiti an all-black nation. Spared: Polish soldiers who went over to rebels’ side before fighting ended; also, white women who wed black men.
Haiti is second republic in Western Hemisphere, and first independent black state outside Africa. Not recognized as a nation by U.S. (due to opposition of Southern senators) until 1862.

Dessalines is declared Emperor Jacques I, Sept. 2. His attempt to oust French from neighboring Santo Domingo fails, 1805, and they permit return of slavery to eastern Hispaniola. Even if plantations could be quickly rehabilitated, Haiti’s major sugar markets are cut off by embargoes on the part of France and slave-holding U.S., and by long British blockade of Napoleonic Europe. Haiti is never able to compete with the new sugar leaders: Brazil and Cuba. The hated plantations fade in favor of small-farm peasant production of sugar cane. Tension and conflict between descendants of black ex-slaves and descendants of mixed-race elite continue to this day.

Voluminous Death: (Estimated over 13 years of fighting, with a large
percentage of deaths attributed to disease): British, 15,000; French, 75,000; white colonists, 25,000; blacks and free people of color, a staggering 200,000. Many thousands of whites and free people of color flee to U.S., to other Caribbean lands and to Europe.

Thus, population is reduced more than 40% from estimated 1789 total of 556,000 (500,000 black slaves, 32,000 white Europeans and 24,000 free people of color and free blacks). The cost of freedom is very great, much greater than that of the bloody American Revolution, in hard numbers and especially in percent of population. By that measure, Haiti’s revolution far exceeds the bloodiness of even the American Civil War. In the U.S. South, massacres in Haiti are frequently cited as a reason slaves cannot be freed. Abolitionists argue danger posed by trapped people is far greater than that posed by those legally free.

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1781The Zong IncidentOfficers of Liverpool slaver Zong order more than 130 captives thrown overboard over several days a...
07/01/2025

1781
The Zong Incident

Officers of Liverpool slaver Zong order more than 130 captives thrown overboard over several days after ship overshoots Jamaica, struggles to recover and runs low on water, beginning Nov. 29. Ship was way overloaded with 442 slaves when it departed Accra with stop at São Tomé; only 208 survive. In 1783 trials in London, owners argue they are due insurance on each lost slave. Lord Mansfield, chief justice, rules for insurers. Incident becomes rallying story for British abolition movement, and subject of 1839 Turner painting “The Slave Ship.”

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1627Barbados SettledHenry Powell settles on Barbados, two years after older brother John claims the uninhabited island f...
07/01/2025

1627
Barbados Settled

Henry Powell settles on Barbados, two years after older brother John claims the uninhabited island for England. Henry brings 80 settlers and 10 indentured servants, Feb. 17. This is Britain’s second Caribbean colony after St. Kitts. Sugar cane introduced in 1637 by Dutch merchants from Brazil.

By 1650s, Barbados (167 square miles) has more settlers and indentured servants, 44,000 altogether, than Virginia and New England combined. The indentured include Irish prisoners and refugees fleeing Cromwell. Sugar generates profits and planters turn to African slaves, who number 5,600. Life expectation is short for settlers, shorter for slaves. Rum, first distilled on Barbados from molasses, also dates to 1650s.

By 1700, free whites are down to 18,000, the departees selling land to expanding plantations and moving to Jamaica or the Carolinas. Slaves number 50,000. Slave uprisings in 1675 and 1692 end with ex*****on of leaders.

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1787Story of Pierre ToussaintAs tensions mount in Saint-Domingue, the Bérard family leaves its plantation for New York, ...
06/30/2025

1787
Story of Pierre Toussaint

As tensions mount in Saint-Domingue, the Bérard family leaves its plantation for New York, taking with them a 21-year-old slave, Pierre. He becomes a successful hairdresser, supports the widow Bérard and is ultimately freed by her. In 1811, he takes the name Toussaint after Haiti’s revolutionary hero. Known as a benefactor of Catholic Church and schools for black children in New York, he is declared “venerable” by Pope John Paul II in 1996.

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1802Guadeloupe: Officer Leads RevoltOn Guadeloupe, Louis Delgrès (a free-born, mixed-race officer) vows to fight to deat...
06/30/2025

1802
Guadeloupe: Officer Leads Revolt

On Guadeloupe, Louis Delgrès (a free-born, mixed-race officer) vows to fight to death against returning French and resumption of slavery. Cornered at Matouba, May 28, he and 400 followers detonate gunpowder stores as French troops close in, choosing to die and to kill as many of the latter as possible. A mixed-race maron woman, Solitude, survives bombing. Her hanging, Nov. 29, is delayed only until she gives birth. She remains a symbol of resistance to this day.

Slave imports are supposedly blocked by British occupation in 1810, by
Sweden which takes over for three years, and finally by France when restored to control in 1816. But slavery continues on Guadeloupe itself until 1848.

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1765-1793Boni’s Rebels Hold OutA marron band in Suriname, led by Boni and separate from the Nyduka, carries on raiding a...
06/30/2025

1765-1793
Boni’s Rebels Hold Out

A marron band in Suriname, led by Boni and separate from the Nyduka, carries on raiding and guerrilla war against Dutch plantations and soldiers for 28 years. When the latter finally discover Boni’s fort in 1772, he escapes and forms a new band. Boni is ultimately killed by the chief of the more numerous Ndyuka marrons, February 1793, fulfilling their 1760 agreement to work with Dutch.John Gabriel Stedman, a Dutch officer, publishes an English narrative of the war against Boni in 1796. It is illustrated by William Blake (the hopeful Europe Supported by Africa and America shown here).

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1691Freedom Decreed for Marron Village The Palenque de San Basilio, the marron (short for cimarron) village in present-d...
06/30/2025

1691
Freedom Decreed for Marron Village

The Palenque de San Basilio, the marron (short for cimarron) village in present-day Colombia founded in 1605 by Benkos Biohó, is granted a royal charter of freedom by King Charles II of Spain. This ends decades of futile attempts to storm the mountain stronghold, although viceroyalty of Cartagena does not acknowledge palenque’s free status until 1714.

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1620Pilgrims Survive First WinterPilgrims, adventurers and crew depart Plymouth on Mayflower, arriving at Cape Cod 10 st...
06/30/2025

1620
Pilgrims Survive First Winter

Pilgrims, adventurers and crew depart Plymouth on Mayflower, arriving at Cape Cod 10 stormy weeks later, Nov. 11. Because they missed planned destination (present-day New York harbor, claimed by Virginia colony), they draw up Mayflower Compact to govern themselves. Half of the 102 settlers and many of the 30 crew die over the winter; survivors thank Wampanoag people for their aid.
The Wampanoag and neighboring Indians are just beginning to recover from their own catastrophic encounter with diseases that have taken more than half of their people since 1617.

Stephen Hopkins: A non-Pilgrim signer of the compact, he was among survivors of 1609 Sea Venture shipwreck on Bermuda and early desperate days of Jamestown.

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1876Uncle Remus IntroducedUncle Remus of Br’er Rabbit fame first appears in columns written by Joel Chandler Harris for ...
06/27/2025

1876
Uncle Remus Introduced

Uncle Remus of Br’er Rabbit fame first appears in columns written by Joel Chandler Harris for The Atlanta Constitution. Harris later retells scores of folk stories heard from slaves on the Turnwold Plantation near Eatonton, GA. Harris lived there as a teenager during the Civil War, working as a printer’s devil for the plantation owner who also published The Countryman newspaper.

Harris credits real “Uncle George Terrell,” “Old Harbert” and “Aunt Crissy” as the original storytellers after Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings is published in 1881. Various of these tales are later found to echo folk stories of Senegal, Gambia and other regions of Africa.

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1811First Steamboat Descends MississippiNew Orleans, the first Mississippi steamboat, is launched at Pittsburgh and depa...
06/27/2025

1811
First Steamboat Descends Mississippi

New Orleans, the first Mississippi steamboat, is launched at Pittsburgh and departs for New Orleans, Oct. 20. Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston are the designers, and Nicholas Roosevelt is the builder, with most machinery hauled overland from New Jersey.

Enterprise is first steamboat to successfully run upriver from New
Orleans to Louisville, 1815. Zebulan M. Pike is first to go upriver to St. Louis, 1817. Independence is first to navigate Missouri to Chariton river, 1819. Steam power makes it possible to overcome current; previously, most cargo and passengers ran only downriver. Few flatboats ever return upstream for any distance, but their crews can now ride steamboats back. Hindrances include Ohio rapids near Louisville and Des Moines rapids on Mississippi near Keokuk. Virginia is the first steamboat to navigate the latter (at high water) to reach Fort Snelling (St. Paul, MN), 1823.

Development of river towns, including Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis
accelerates. By the 1830s more than 1,200 riverboats are navigating the western rivers and carrying increasing volumes of cotton to New Orleans.
Drawbacks: Riverbank trees are quickly cut down for fuel, undermining
banks; floods and channel migration are thus more frequent. Also, poorly designed and overworked boilers often explode, killing an estimated 7,000 by 1853.

Slaves are brought from the Upper South to Mississippi plantations by steamboat. Many more are carried from the Chesapeake to New Orleans via the Gulf by ship, sold there and taken upriver on steamboats to plantations. Perhaps as many as 4,500 blacks will work on the river boats themselves, 1,500 of them free men.

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