1565 Establishment of St. Augustine in Florida by Spain. Inhabitants both white and black.

1639 Death of St. Martin de Porres in Lima Peru.

1738 Establishment of free black town of Santa Teresa de Mose in Florida for freed slaves converted to Catholicism.

1781 Settlement of Los Angeles by blacks and indians from Mexico.

1793 Arrival of Haitian refugees at Fells' Point, near Baltimore.

1824 Unsuccessful foundation of a community of black women religious by Charles Nerinckx in Loretto, Kentucky.

1829 Elizabeth Lange, Marie Balas, Rosine Boegue, and Almeide Duchemin Maxis began religious life in Baltimore as the Oblate Sisters of Providence. First Black religious congregation of women in the United States.

1839 Condemnation of the slave trade by Pope Gregory XVI in the bull In Supremo Apostolatus.

1842 Henriette Delille and Juliette Gaudin began the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans.

1843 Formation of the Society of the Holy Family in Baltimore. First known black Catholic society of lay persons.

1853 Death of Pierre Toussaint in New York.

1854 Ordination of James Augustine Healy in Paris. Ordinations of Alexander Sherwood Healy in Rome (1858) and Francis Patrick Healy, S.J., in Li�ge (1864).

1871 Arrival of Mill Hill Fathers (Josephites) in Baltimore

1874 Francis Patrick Healy named president of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

1875 James Augustine Healy consecrated second bishop of Portland, Maine. First black bishop in the States.

1886 Ordination of Augustus Tolton in Rome.

1889 First black Catholic lay congress, in Washington, D.C. Other congresses held in Cincinnati (1890), Philadelphia (1892), Chicago (1893), and Baltimore (1894).

1891 Ordination of Charles Uncles, S.S.J., in Baltimore. First black priest ordained in the United States. Foundation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People by Blessed Katherine Drexel.

1897 Death of Augustus Tolton in Chicago

1908 Lincoln VallŽ opened Catholic mission for the black community in Milwaukee.

1913 Thomas Wyatt Turner organized a committee on behalf of black Catholic servicemen.

1916 Mother Theodore Williams and Father Ignatius Lissner began the Handmaids of Mary in Savannah Georgia.

1920 First seminary for black candidates for the priesthood begun by the Society of the Divine Word in Greenville, Mississippi, later moved to Bay St. Louis (1923).

1924 Founding of the Federated Colored Catholics of the United States.

1934 Organization of the first Catholic Interracial Council in New York City, by John LaFarge, S.J.

1966 Episcopal Ordination of Harold Perry, S.V.D., as the auxiliary bishop of New Orleans. Second black bishop in the history of the United States.

1968 Formation of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus in Detroit, resulted in the subsequent development of the National Black Sisters' Conference (1968) and the National Black Catholic Seminarians Association. Cyprian Davis, O.S.B.

"The History of Black Catholics in the United States" The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1990