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

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...

. After England took control of the colony in 1664, its colonists continued the importation of slaves from Africa. They also imported "seasoned" slaves from their colonies in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Grea ...

and enslaved Native Americans from the

Carolinas The Carolinas are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina, considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia to the southwest. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east. Combining Nor ...

. Most

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People ...

and English immigrants entered the colony as

indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment ...

s, who worked for a fixed number of years to repay their passage. As conditions in England improved and the number of indentured laborers declined, New Jersey's colonists trafficked more Africans for needed labor. To promote increasing the number of laborers and settlers in order to develop the colony, the colonial government awarded settlers

headrights A headright refers to a legal grant of land given to settlers during the period of European colonization in the Americas. Headrights are most notable for their role in the expansion of the Thirteen Colonies; the Virginia Company gave headrights to ...

of of land for each person transported to the colony. In 1704, after

East Jersey The Province of East Jersey, along with the Province of West Jersey, between 1674 and 1702 in accordance with the Quintipartite Deed, were two distinct political divisions of the Province of New Jersey, which became the U.S. state of New Jersey. ...

and

West Jersey West Jersey and East Jersey were two distinct parts of the Province of New Jersey. The political division existed for 28 years, between 1674 and 1702. Determination of an exact location for a border between West Jersey and East Jersey was ofte ...

unified, the

Province of New Jersey The Province of New Jersey was one of the Middle Colonies of Colonial America and became the U.S. state of New Jersey in 1783. The province had originally been settled by Europeans as part of New Netherland but came under English rule after the ...

passed a slave code prohibiting slaves and free blacks from owning property, further restricting African-Americans in the state. During the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, enslaved Africans fought on each side. The British Crown promised freedom to slaves who would leave their rebel masters and fight for the British. The number of Blacks in Manhattan increased to 10,000, as thousands of enslaved Africans escaped to the British for the promise of freedom. The British refused to return the former enslaved to the Americans and they evacuated many Black Loyalists together with their troops and other Loyalists; they resettled more than 3,000 freedmen in their colony of

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native E ...

. Others were transported to England and the West Indies.

Bergen County Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.gradual emancipation similar to that of New York. But, in New Jersey, some Africans were enslaved as late as 1865. (In

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * ...

, they were all freed by 1827.) The law made these Africans free at birth, but it required children born to enslaved mothers to serve lengthy

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

s as a type of

until early adulthood for the masters of their mothers kept in bondage. New Jersey was the last of the Northern states to abolish slavery completely. The 1860 census listed 16 people in New Jersey as slaves — almost certainly an underestimate, given that slaves were not meant to be recorded on regular census schedules. (Dedicated slave schedules, as recorded throughout the South in the 1850 and 1860 censuses, were not used in New Jersey.) However many enslaved people remained in New Jersey in December 1865 were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment."Interview: James Oliver Horton: Exhibit Reveals History of Slavery in New York City"
PBS Newshour, 25 January 2007, accessed 11 February 2012 The

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...

had several routes crossing the state, four of which ended in

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New ...

. New Brunswick, 'Hub City', was a main location where runaways would travel during the days of the Underground Railroad. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, African Americans served in several all-black Union Army regiments from New Jersey. In 2008, the legislature of New Jersey passed a resolution of official apology for slavery, becoming the third state to do so. Rutgers, the State University moved to rectify its past wrongs and connections to slavery during its 250th anniversary celebration in 2016.

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, the oldest college in the state of New Jersey, released the findings of it
Princeton & Slavery Project
in 2017. In 2019, th
Durand-Hedden House & Garden
in Maplewood, NJ, created an extensive exhibit on the history of slavery in New Jersey. That exhibit was then developed into the book ''Slavery in New Jersey: A Troubled History'', authored by Gail R. Safian, who is currently president of the Durand-Hedden House & Garden Association. The book was awarded the first-place Kevin M. Hale Publications Award by the League of Historical Societies of New Jersey and was chosen by The New Jersey State Bar Foundation as the basis of its curriculum section on slavery in New Jersey, part of a larger curriculum it developed for middle and high school students on African American history.

Colonial period

The

Dutch West India Company The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ...

introduced slavery in 1625 with the trafficking of eleven African slaves to

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...

, capital of the nascent province of

. They worked as farmers,

fur traders The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mo ...

, and builders. It later expanded across the

North River (Hudson River) North River is an alternative name for the southernmost portion of the Hudson River in the vicinity of New York City and northeastern New Jersey in the United States. The entire watercourse was known as the North River by the Dutch in the earl ...

to Pavonia and

Communipaw Communipaw is a neighborhood in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It is located west of Liberty State Park and east of Bergen Hill, and the site of one of the earliest European settlements in North America. It gives its na ...

, eventually becoming

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula ...

, where these men worked the company

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

. Settlers to the area later enslaved men privately, often using them as domestic servants and laborers. Although enslaved, the Africans had a few basic rights and families were usually kept intact. They were admitted to the

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family a ...

and married by its ministers, who also baptized their children. While enslaved Africans could be admitted to the Church, the church itself did not prohibit their enslavement. In fact, the Church did not even find that enslavement sinful. The enslaved could testify in court, sign legal documents, and bring civil actions against whites. Some were permitted to work after hours, when they earned wages equal to those paid to white workers. When the colony fell, the company relinquished enslavement, establishing early on a nucleus of free negros. English traders continued to traffic African slaves after they took over the colony from the Dutch in 1664 and established a proprietorship. Eager to attract more settlers and laborers to develop the colony, the proprietorship encouraged the trafficking of slaves for labor by offering settlers headrights, an award of allocations of land based on the number of workers, slaves or indentured servants, trafficked to the colony. The first African slaves to appear in English records were owned by Colonel

Lewis Morris Lewis Morris (April 8, 1726 – January 22, 1798) was an American Founding Father, landowner, and developer from Morrisania, New York, presently part of Bronx County. He signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a delegate to the Continen ...

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Shr ...

. In an early attempt to encourage European settlement, the New Jersey legislature enacted a prohibitive tariff against trafficked slaves to encourage European indentured servitude. When this act expired in 1721, however, the British Government and New Jersey's royal governor, countered attempts to renew it. The slave trade was a royal monopoly and had become a lucrative enterprise. The liberties of the enslaved peoples of New Jersey were formally curtailed under a law passed in 1704, a so-called 'slave code'. This code prohibited the owning of property by slaves and by free African Americans as well. In addition, it made certain actions illegal for African Americans, like staying out past curfew, that were not illegal for European Americans. Camden was a center for the importation of slaves, its ferry docks on the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, before e ...

across from

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sin ...

acting as auction sites for the plantations in the

Delaware Valley The Delaware Valley is a metropolitan region on the East Coast of the United States that comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the nation and 68th largest city in the world as of 2020. The toponym Delaware Vall ...

, of which Pomona Hall was one. In 2016

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

published a report ''Scarlet and Black'' recording the university's relationship with slavery. In 2017

made public the findings of th
Princeton & Slavery Project
which is ongoing.

Post-American Revolution

African-American slaves fought on both sides in the War for Independence. The British Crown promised slaves freedom for leaving their rebel masters to join their cause. 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 A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...

from New York, resettling 3,500

Black Loyalists Black Loyalists were people of African descent who sided with the Loyalists during the American Revolutionary War. In particular, the term refers to men who escaped enslavement by Patriot masters and served on the Loyalist side because of the Cr ...

in its colony of Nova Scotia and others in the Caribbean islands.Nancy Shakir, "Slavery in New Jersey"
, Slavery in America, Accessed 24 January 2007

Colonel Tye Titus Cornelius, also known as Titus, Tye, and famously as Colonel Tye ( – 1780), was a slave of African descent in the Province of New Jersey who escaped from his master and fought as a Black Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War; ...

, also known as Titus Cornelius (c. 1753–1780),"Colonel Tye"
''Africans in America'', PBSJonathan D. Sutherland, ''African Americans at War''
ABC-CLIO, 2003, accessed 4 May 2010 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 Central Jersey is the central region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The designation of Central New Jersey is a distinct administrative toponym. Geographic area and descriptions While the State of New Jersey is often divided into North and ...

. 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. According to the American historian Giles Wright, by 1790 New Jersey's enslaved population numbered approximately 14,000. They were virtually all of African descent. The 1790 federal census, however, recorded 11,423 slaves, 6.2 percent of the total population of 184,139. In the decades before the Revolution, slaves were numerous near

Perth Amboy Perth Amboy is a city (New Jersey), city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, New Jersey. Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 55,4 ...

, 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.

Abolition of slavery

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.Slavery in the North
Accessed 28 December 2007 In the first two decades after the war many northern states made moves towards abolishing slavery, and some slaveholders independently manumitted their slaves. Some people of color left the areas where they had been enslaved and moved to more frontier areas. Since slaves were widely used in agriculture, as well as the ports, the

New Jersey state legislature The New Jersey Legislature is the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, as defined by the New Jersey Constitution of 1947, the Legislature consists of two houses: the General Assembly and th ...

was the last in the North to abolish slavery, passing a law in 1804 for its gradual abolition. The 1804 statute and subsequent laws freed children born after the law was passed. African Americans born to slave mothers after July 4, 1804, had to serve lengthy

s to the owners of their mothers. Women were freed at 21, but men were not emancipated until the age of 25. Slaves who had been born before these laws were passed were considered, after 1846, as

indentured servants Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repaymen ...

who were "apprenticed for life.""An Act to Abolish Slavery"
(18 April 1846), electronically transcribed text of act of the New Jersey State Legislature published by the New Jersey Digital Legal Library (hosted by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey).Accessed 21 February 2012. Although at first New Jersey allowed

free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...

to vote, the legislature disfranchised them in 1807, an exclusion that lasted until 1875. By 1830 two-thirds of the slaves remaining in the North were held by masters in New Jersey, as New York had freed the last of its slaves in 1827 under gradual abolition. It was not until 1846 that New Jersey abolished slavery, but it qualified it by redefining former slaves as apprentices who were "apprenticed for life" to their masters. Slavery did not truly end in the state until it was ended nationally in 1865 after the

and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. 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. Female slaves and their reproductive capabilities were highly valuable because their children would be born as slaves for a term, even after the 1804 Act of Gradual Abolition. However, domestic skills and labor also affected the value and marketability of female slaves. By 1830, African Americans made up 6% of the total population of New Jersey. The city of New Brunswick had a large African American population at an around 11%. This added one of the reasons why New Brunswick was a favorable location for runaways, but it also made the city into a popular site for slave hunters, who wished to enforce the federal fugitive slave laws of 1850. 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. Enslaved women, however, also performed manual labor across the state of New Jersey. Yet the Gradual Abolition Act of 1804 did not guarantee that a slave born after 1804 would gain their freedom. Slaveholders would regularly sell those slaves down south to states like Louisiana before the slaves reached manumission age. By the 1830s, slavery was on the decline in New Jersey. Communities of free negros and

formed at Dunkerhook in

Paramus Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H ''The New York Times'', February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for ...

and at the New York state line at Skunk Hollow, also called The Mountain. A founding African-American settler bought land there in 1806, and later bought more. Other families joined him, and the community continued into the twentieth century. According to the historian David S. Cohen in ''The Ramapo Mountain People'' (1974), free people of color migrated from Manhattan into other parts of the frontier of northeastern New Jersey, where some intermarried and became ancestors of the Ramapo Mountain Indians.Cohen, David Steven (1974), ''The Ramapo Mountain People'', New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 74, 197, (Cohen's findings have been disputed by some scholars, including Albert J. Catalano.) According to Gigantino, one in ten slaves in New Jersey remained enslaved for life. Many slaveholders sold their slaves to Southern slaveholders, and displayed antipathy toward abolition. He stated that about one quarter of New Jersey's African American population was forced into labor during the 1830s. Improper information regarding who was free led to it appearing as though slavery decreased more rapidly than it actually did.

The Civil War

A total of 2,909

United States Colored Troops The United States Colored Troops (USCT) were regiments in the United States Army composed primarily of African-American ( colored) soldiers, although members of other minority groups also served within the units. They were first recruited durin ...

from New Jersey served in the Union Army. Because of the state's long-term apprenticeship requirements, at the close of the

, some African Americans in New Jersey remained in bondage. It was not until the

Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...

was passed in 1865 that the last 16 slaves in the state were freed. In the 1860 census, free colored persons in New Jersey numbered 25,318, about 4% of the state's population of 672,035. By 1870 the number had increased to 30,658, but they constituted a smaller percentage of the total population because of the high rate of European immigration. Overall, New Jersey's population had increased to 906,096, with nearly 200,000 European immigrants. New Jersey was slow to abolish slavery and reluctant to pass the 13th Amendment, which it did in January 1866. Some of its industries, such as shoes and clothing, had strong markets in the South supplying planters for their slaves, which was probably a factor. On March 31, 1870,

Thomas Mundy Peterson Thomas Mundy Peterson (October 6, 1824 – February 4, 1904) of Perth Amboy, New Jersey has been claimed to be the first African-American to vote in an election under the just-enacted provisions of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitu ...

(1824–1904) became the first

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

vote Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect hol ...

in a New Jersey election in 63 years, since the state restricted voting to whites in 1807. By then, hundreds of thousands of African Americans had already voted in southern states under

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

-era state constitutions. In 1875, "Jack" Jackson, described in a newspaper as "the last slave in New Jersey," died at the age of 87 on the Smith family farm at

Secaucus Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,manumitted Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

his slaves in 1820, but Jackson "refused to accept his liberty" and remained on the family estate until his death. By the will of the late Abel Smith, Jackson was interred in the family burial ground.

Percent of population

After 1840 'slaves' were legally apprentices for life. By 1820 there were nearly twice as many free blacks as slaves.

Apology

In 2008, the

New Jersey Legislature The New Jersey Legislature is the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, as defined by the New Jersey Constitution of 1947, the Legislature consists of two houses: the General Assembly and the ...

acknowledged the state's role in the history of slavery in the United States. In 2019, the Legislative Black Caucus initiated efforts to research the role slavery played in the state.

References

External links

Douglas Harper, ''Slavery in the North''
website, 2003
The Law of Slavery in New Jersey
New Jersey Digital Legal Library

Slavery in America {{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Slavery In New Jersey

Slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...

African diaspora history Slavery in the British Empire