The Declaration's First Travels
July 4, 1776
The Declaration of Independence is signed.
...these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, free and independent states…
Declaration of IndependenceJuly 6, 1776
The Pennsylvania Evening Post publishes the first newspaper printing of the Declaration of Independence. By the end of August 1776, the Declaration has been reprinted in at least 29 newspapers and 14 broadsides.
July 19, 1776
The last paragraph of the Declaration is incorporated into the first paragraph of the Treaty of Watertown, which recognized the sovereignty of the United States and the Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq tribes. This is the first acknowledgement of the independent United States by a foreign power.
July 28, 1776
Jonas Phillips, a Jewish merchant in Philadelphia, mails a broadside of the Declaration printed by John Dunlap to a relative and business associate in Amsterdam, along with a letter in Judeo-German (Yiddish) and a bill of exchange for £10 for his mother. All three documents are captured by the British before they could reach their destination.
ca. 1776
On the title page of his anti-slavery essay, “Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping,” soldier, minister, and abolitionist Lemuel Haynes quotes the Declaration of Independence.
January 1777
Mary Katherine Goddard publishes broadsides of the Declaration, the first to include the names of the men who signed it. She commits to the cause by also printing her own name.
The essential and direct End of the present defensive alliance is to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence absolute and unlimited of the said united States…
Treaty of Alliance with France, February 6, 17781781
Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved woman in Massachusetts, successfully sues for her freedom. Her claim is based on the Massachusetts Constitution, which paraphrases the Declaration.
The Declaration in the Age of Revolutions
Every man is born with inalienable rights ...the right of property, the care of his honor and of his life, the entire disposition of his person, of his industry, of all his faculties, the pursuit of well-being, and resistance to oppression.
Marquis de Lafayette’s Draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, July 17891789
The French Revolution begins. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen borrows from the United States Declaration, but it is not a declaration of independence. Rather, it is an effort to take power from the ruling elites and give it to the people.
1794
Tadeusz Kościuszko, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, leads the Polish Army in an uprising against Russian and Prussian power. He issues the Proclamation of Połaniec that pushes for peasants’ rights, but within a few months, he is captured by Russian forces and the uprising fails.
January 1, 1804
Haiti declares independence from France. The first draft of the document announcing Haitian independence is believed to have closely resembled the United States Declaration. Learn more about Haitian independence.
July 5, 1811
The Venezuelan Congress declares independence from Spain. Their declaration states: “like all the other nations of the world, we are free, and authorized not to depend on any other authority than our own, and to take amongst the powers of the earth the place of equality.”
February 13, 1812
Camilo Henríquez publishes the first issue of the revolutionary newspaper, Aurora de Chile, using a printing press sent by supporters in the United States. Learn more about Chilean independence.
1816
The Provinces of the Río de la Plata (now Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and part of Bolivia) declare independence from Spain.
September 28, 1821
The Mexican Empire declares independence from Spain. The Mexican declaration of independence ensures the unalienable rights of the Mexican people to liberty and happiness.
1822
Greece declares independence from the Ottoman Empire.
1836
White settlers in Texas declare independence from Mexico. After Mexico adopts a new constitution in 1835, white settlers in Texas fought for the reinstatement of the old one, which granted certain rights, including the right to own enslaved laborers.
1838
Lower Canada declares independence from the United Kingdom.
1847
Liberia declares independence from the United States.
1849
Hungary declares independence from the Hapsburg Empire.
A Divided Declaration
1831
William Lloyd Garrison begins to publish the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. Like many others, Garrison bases his anti-slavery arguments on the Declaration of Independence.
We appeal to the magnanimity of the American Congress for justice, and the protection of the rights, liberties, and lives of the Cherokee people… we expect it from them under that memorable declaration, ‘that all men are created equal…’
Cherokee Delegation, April 16, 18241833
The Mashpee tribe petitions Massachusetts’ governor, citing the Declaration of Independence. The Mashpee declaration is a groundbreaking document for Native American rights. Learn more about Native American rights and the Declaration through the 20th century.
1845
American abolitionist and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, an autobiography which recounts the horrors of his time enslaved.
1848
The Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, is signed in Seneca Falls, New York. The Declaration of Sentiments highlights the legal, social, and political restrictions on women in the United States.
1858
Abraham Lincoln challenged Stephen A. Douglas for a chance to represent Illinois in the United States Senate. Their speeches, widely reported in newspapers, demonstrated two different interpretations of the Declaration of Independence, for and against slavery.
What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?
Frederick Douglass, July 5, 18521859
Anti-slavery activist John Brown leads an unsuccessful raid on a federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Investigators later find an abolitionist manifesto that is modeled on the Declaration of Independence.
1861
The American Civil War begins. President Abraham Lincoln is inspired by the sentiment that “all men are created equal,” while the Confederacy used the Declaration’s argument that people living under tyranny had the right to rebel.
Our present condition...illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, February 18, 1861Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 18631862
Arkansas governor Henry Massie Rector requests that an enslaved man who has fled to the Cherokee Nation be returned, acknowledging their sovereignty. Abraham Lincoln later issues a proclamation granting amnesty and pardons after some Cherokee ally with the Confederacy, which is translated into the Cherokee language.
January 1, 1863
Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the millions of people enslaved in the Confederacy.
We thought it would be fitting for us to read OUR DECLARATION OF RIGHTS… Ours contained as many counts, and quite as important, as those against King George in 1776.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton1867
The New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association forms in Vineland, New Jersey. Its leader, Lucy Stone, argued that the “consent of the governed” promised in the Declaration of Independence should include women. A year later, Portia Gage organizes a protest of 172 local white and Black women who cast their votes.
July 4, 1876
Suffragist Susan B. Anthony interrupts centennial celebrations at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and reads the Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, written by Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two of the founders of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
1917
Suffragists picket outside the White House and are imprisoned, despite the protests being nonviolent. One of the first protesters to be arrested, Helena Hill Weed, carries a sign that quotes the Declaration. Learn about the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession, which preceded the White House protest.
1920
The 19th amendment is ratified, granting women the right to vote.
The Declaration and the World
June 12, 1898
The Philippines declares independence from Spain and the United States with a document that closely parallels the United States Declaration.
We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people…that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it.
Indian Declaration of Independence (Purna Swaraj), 1930April 24, 1916
Irish revolutionary Patrick Pearse read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic for the first time. This proclamation is ratified by the Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary parliament of Irish Republic, when they adopted a declaration of independence in 1919. Learn more about Ireland's declaration.
'All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ …In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
Declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948July 28, 1917
Thousands of Black Americans silently march down Fifth Avenue in New York City to protest racial violence and discrimination. Some of the participants carry banners that quote the Declaration of Independence.
October 26, 1918
Representatives from Europe signed the Declaration of Common Aims of the Independent Mid-European Nations at Independence Hall. The declaration’s statement of rights begins by paraphrasing the United States Declaration: “First. That all governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed.”
1918
Tomáš Masaryk and Gutzon Borglum, the American sculptor known for Mount Rushmore, drafts a declaration of independence for the provisional Czechoslovakian government. The declaration lists grievances against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and accepts the principles of the United States Declaration of Independence.
1919
In April, the First Korean Congress, presided over by Philip Jaisohn, meets at the Little Theater in Philadelphia. The delegates also visit Independence Hall. Hosting the meeting in Philadelphia ties Korea’s independence efforts to that of the United States.
1930
Indian nationalists, including Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, issue a declaration of independence that borrows from the United States Declaration of Independence and states that when a government deprives people of their unalienable rights, “the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it.” India secures its independence in 1947.
1945
Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the end of French colonial rule and the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. He paraphrases the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
1948
Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the UN passes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, expanding upon previous rights documents like the United States Declaration of Independence and presenting a more inclusive notion of equality.
1956-1977
The dissolution of global empires after the Second World War results in dozens of new independent nations in Africa. Many of their declarations are drafted by the outgoing European powers.
In the Declaration of Independence it is written, ‘All men are created equal and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights…’ You cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence.
Harvey Milk, June 25, 1978March 6, 1957
Ghana gains its independence from the United Kingdom, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to secure independence from European colonial rule.
June 28, 1969
The uprising at the Stonewall Inn leads to the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Learn about the Annual Reminders, an early LGBT+ protest, and how it used the language of the Declaration of Independence.
1970
During the first Earth Week in 1970, protestors in Philadelphia sign a declaration which argues that “all species are interdependent,” and that protecting the environment is essential to humanity’s pursuit of happiness.
During the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, delivers his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. King frequently quoted the Declaration of Independence. Learn more about civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, one of the organizers of the March on Washington.
April 5, 1977
The Section 504 sit-ins begin, demanding civil rights for people with disabilities. These protests argue that disabled people, like others, are created equal and paves the way for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.
1991
The Cold War ends. Many Eastern European countries have two declarations of independence in their history: one issued at the conclusion of the First World War, and one after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
August 24, 1991
Ukraine declares its independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.