On this day, Massachusetts became the first English colony in North America to give statutory recognition to slavery with the passage of the Body of Liberties. This legal code permitted slavery under certain conditions, particularly for captives taken in war or those “willingly” sold. It laid the foundation for institutionalized slavery in what would become the United States.

Other colonies soon followed suit:

• Connecticut – 1650

• Virginia – 1661

• Maryland – 1663

• New York & New Jersey – 1664

• South Carolina – 1682

• Rhode Island & Pennsylvania – 1700

• North Carolina – 1715

• Georgia – 1750

This timeline marks the legal entrenchment of slavery in colonial America, with lasting consequences that shaped centuries of Black life and resistance in the U.S.