History of slavery in New Jersey

Slavery in New Jersey began in the early 17th century, when the Dutch trafficked African slaves for labor to develop the colony of New Netherland.

Most Dutch and English settlers entered the colony as indentured servants, who worked for a fixed number of years to repay their passage.

[11] Rutgers, the State University moved to rectify its past wrongs and connections to slavery during its 250th anniversary celebration in 2016.

That exhibit was then developed into the book Slavery in New Jersey: A Troubled History,[14] authored by Gail R. Safian, who is currently president of the Durand-Hedden House & Garden Association.

The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the trafficking of eleven African slaves to New Amsterdam, capital of the nascent province of New Netherland.

[19] When this act expired in 1721, however, Governor William Burnet countered attempts to renew it, since the slave trade had become a lucrative enterprise.

[20] According to one researcher, Oak Ridge Park in Union County may contain New Jersey's only known ruins of slave dwellings.

[23] "Barracks of considerable size once stood in Perth Amboy, near the junction of Smith and Water streets, in which the slaves were [kept confined] as imported.

The number of blacks in New York rose to 10,000 as slaves escaped there from both northern and southern masters after the British occupied the city.

The British kept their promise and evacuated thousands of freedmen from New York, resettling 3,500 Black Loyalists in its colony of Nova Scotia and others in the Caribbean islands.

[26] Colonel Tye, also known as Titus Cornelius (c. 1753–1780),[27][28] was a slave of African descent who achieved notability during the war by his leadership and fighting skills, and was one of the most effective guerrilla leaders opposing the American rebel forces in Central Jersey.

[27][28] Following the Revolutionary War in the 1780s, New Jersey initially resisted the urge to free slaves due to a desire to re-build their devastated economy.

[31] In the decades before the Revolution, slaves were numerous near Perth Amboy, the primary point of entry for New Jersey, and in the eastern counties.

Slaves were generally used for agricultural labor, but they also filled skilled artisan jobs in shipyards and industry in coastal cities.

Following the Revolutionary War, New Jersey banned the importation of slaves in 1788, but at the same time forbade free blacks from elsewhere from settling in the state.

[33] Led by western New Jersey Quakers, the New Jersey Society for the Abolition of Slavery was founded in 1786, and abolitionist sentiment, such as through acts of manumission and the importation ban did significantly decrease the population in slavery, although in-state, public slave sales continued to 1804, and slave-owning remained a powerful, if sometimes contested, political interest.

[33] In the first two decades after the war many northern states made moves towards abolishing slavery, and some slaveholders independently manumitted their slaves.

According to historian James Gigantino (University of Arkansas), during the early nineteenth century in New Jersey, there were more female than male slaves.

After the passage of the Act of Gradual Abolition in New Jersey in 1804, a greater number of advertisements in the state for the full-title sale of female slaves of child-bearing age were published.

[38] In more urban areas of the state, like New Brunswick, there were frequent advertisements for the sale of female slaves, both before and after passage of the 1804 Act of Gradual Abolition.

This was because female slaves were more highly favored for domestic work, which was in greater demand in urban spaces like New Brunswick.

[41] Communities of free negros and freedmen formed at Dunkerhook in Paramus[42][43] and at the New York state line at Skunk Hollow, also called The Mountain.

[55] In 1875, "Jack" Jackson, described in a newspaper as "the last slave in New Jersey",[56] died at the age of 87 on the Smith family farm at Secaucus.

Abel Smith had manumitted his slaves in 1820, but Jackson "refused to accept his liberty" and remained on the family estate until his death.