Blanche K. Bruce is born in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. A graduate of Oberlin College, Bruce becomes the second African American elected to the U.S. Senate and the first to finish a full term.

The slaves that revolted and took control of the slave ship Amistad under the leadership of Joseph Cinque are acquitted by the United States Supreme Court. Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams defended them.

Orator, writer, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass makes a speech for the Abolition Society in Natucket, Massachusetts.

Slaves on board the Creole bound from Hampton, Virginia to New Orleans, Louisiana, revolt and force the ship to land at Nassau in the Bahamas. A British magistrate frees them and they are granted asylum.