| July 2, 1776 New Jersey became the first British colony in America to grant partial women’s suffrage. The new constitution (temporary if there were a reconciliation with Great Britain) granted the vote to all those “of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money,” including non-whites and widows; married women were not able to own property under common law. |
| July 2, 1777 Vermont became the first of the United States to abolish slavery. |
| July 2, 1809 Alarmed by the growing encroachment of whites squatting on Native American lands, the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh called on all Indians to unite and resist. By 1810, he had organized the Ohio Valley Confederacy, which united Indians from the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Winnebago, Menominee, Ottawa, and Wyandotte nations. For several years, Tecumseh’s Indian Confederacy successfully delayed further white settlement in the region. ![]() Chief Tecumseh Tecumseh’s efforts |
July 2, 1839![]() Slave ship Early in the morning, captive Africans on the Cuban slave ship Amistad, led by Joseph Cinquè (a Mende from what is now Sierra Leone), mutinied against their captors, killing the captain and the cook, and seized control of the schooner. Jose Ruiz, a Spaniard and planter from Puerto Principe, Cuba, had bought the 49 adult males on the ship, paying $450 each, as slaves for his sugar plantation. More about Amistad ![]() Joseph Cinquè |
July 2, 1964![]() Jobs and Freedom march April 28, 1963, Washington DC U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, thus barring discrimination in public accommodations (restaurants, stores, theatres, etc.), employment, and voting. The law had survived an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate by 21 members from southern states. ![]() “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,” said President Johnson to his press secretary, Bill Moyers later that day. He anticipated a shift in white southern voting from the Democratic to the Republican party in response to the law. Massive demonstrations a year earlier ensured passage of the Act. |
| July 2, 1992 President George H.W. Bush (the elder) announced that the United States had completed the worldwide withdrawals of all its ground- and sea-launched tactical nuclear weapons [see September 27, 1991]. |
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