Timeline of Events
1725 –1st record of Blacks in Concord (some freed before the 1780 law)1765 — Concord begins to oppose slavery
1775 – Concord men gather for the Revolution – Battle at the Old North Bridge (war 1775-1783)
1780 – Mass. Constitution with Bill of Rights – Slaves freed
Post Revolution – Concord’s agrarian period
1830 – MCASS (1st quarterly mtg. In 1835 UU)
1831 –1837 CFASS
1844 – 1st Time Emerson speaks in public about slavery.
1850 – Fugitive Slave Law – establishing Concord’s role in the underground railroad
1861 – Civil War (to 1865)
1862 – DC Compensated Emancipation Act paid out $1M to 3,100 slaves over 9 months (& supplemental act)
1863 – Emancipation Proclamation (applying only to states seceded from the union) –didn’t immediately free any slave –changed the character of the war…
1864 – Mary Rice letter to and from Lincoln (petition from 350 students to free slave children)