To help you with what happened before the civil you should look up a timeline about what happened before this is in chronological order
1619
English settlers in Virginia purchase 20 Africans from a Dutch ship. The Africans were sold as indentured servants, not slaves. The distinction being an indentured servant may ultimately become free for working for some number of years. It was not long before all Africans arriving were treated as slaves, bought and sold into a lifetime of slavery for them and their descendents.
1641
Massachusetts Bay Colony legalizes slavery.
1660
Virginia legalizes slavery.
1663
Maryland becomes the first colony to enact laws that recognize slavery for life. Under prior English law slaves who became Christians were granted freedom.
1667
Virginia passes a law revoking the prior English law that allowed for slaves that converted to Christianity to become free.
February 1688
The first organized protest against slavery in the new world was drafted by a group of Quakers in Germantown, PA. Known as the Germantown Protest, it argued that Christians should do as they would want to be done to them, that slavery was essentially theft as you were buying something stolen and that adultery is wrong yet slave traders/owners forced adultery on men and women by breaking up marriages when they resold husbands and wives to different owners. How could as Christians, could such actions be condoned?
September 1739
In the town of Stono, South Carolina a band of slaves starts an insurrection. Previous runaway slaves had made their way to Florida, where they had been given freedom and land. The Spanish had issued a proclamation stating that any slave who deserted to St. Augustine, Florida would be given freedom.
1775
The Pennsylvania Abolition Society is organized to protect the rights of blacks unlawfully held as slaves.
July 1776
The colonies declare independence from English rule with the adoption of The Declaration of Independence. Written largely by Thomas Jefferson, the document declares "all men are created equal." Jefferson and many of the signers of the document are slave holders.
1777
Vermont, an American colony and still not a state, is the first government entity to abolish slavery.
1780
Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish slavery with a laws calling for gradual abolition.
1783
Massachusetts abolishes slavery and grants voting rights to blacks and Native Americans.
1787
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, delegates debated whether Congress should halt importation of slaves. South Carolina and Georgia delegates threatened that their states would not join the new Union being planned and won concessions that the slave trade could could not be restricted for 20 years.
Congress passes the Three-Fifths Clause stating that each slave is to be counted as three-fifths of a person for calculating representation in Congress. This act strengthens the power in the House of Representatives for slave states.
July - Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, preventing slavery from existing in the new federal territories.
1790
The results of the first national census as ordered by Congress show a total population of 3,893,874 including 694,207 slaves or 18% of the population. Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont have no slaves. 43% of the population in South Carolina are slaves and 39% for Virginia and 35% for Georgia.
hope this helps :D
