12. Vermont granted voting rights to African American males before it became a state
Vermont was neither a state nor an organized separate colony in 1777. Both New York and New Hampshire claimed sovereignty over the territory, which the latter called the Hampshire Grants. Nonetheless, independent-minded Vermonters organized their own legislature and in 1777 abolished slavery within its boundaries. There were slaves in the territory, both Black males and Native Americans held in slavery, and Vermont’s actions did not completely free all of them. But it did specify that free Black males in the colony held the right to vote, as did any other free male.
From 1777 to 1791 Vermont governed itself as the Republic of Vermont. A Chief Magistrate oversaw governing the Republic, who openly negotiated with British Canada about becoming a province. In 1791 it became the first state to join the United States not part of the original 13. During the antebellum era, it became a major route along the Underground Railroad to Canada, with known support of escaping slaves as early as 1843. Vermont also became a hotbed of resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave hunters to roam the Northern states to attempt to capture escaping slaves and return them to the South. Vermont’s admission to the Union (1791) served to counter the admission of Kentucky, a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of senators representing slave and free states in the Senate.