Slavery and New Jersey: The Institution that Refused to Die
Slavery and New Jersey: The Institution that Refused to Die
On November 8th, 2007, William Payne and Craig Stanley, state assemblymen representing district 29 and 28 respectively, introduced Resolution No.270 to the 212th Legislature of the State of New Jersey. The bill addressed the institution of slavery, one of the most sensitive issues in American history. It called for the state of New Jersey to declare its “profound regret for its role in slavery.” The bill went even further, requesting that New Jersey apologize for any and all of the wrongdoings that ever occurred or resulted in the state with regards to slavery. Payne argued that this simply stated New Jersey is “sorry about its shameful past.” Fellow congressman, Richard A. Merkt, voted against the bill, believing that this would be the first step towards paying reparations to the descendents of slaves.
Two months later, New Jersey officially joined North Carolina and Alabama in formally apologizing for slavery when the bill was passed through the State Assembly with a vote of 59-8, and through the Senate 22-2. Opponents of the bill argued that this was nothing more than a “meaningless gesture.” Other states, including Maryland and Arkansas, issued statements expressing regret for slavery, but stopped short of a formal apology. In February of 2007 Virginia’s lawmakers put forth an apology for slavery but only officially approved a statement of regret.
The apologetic actions taken by the New Jersey’ Legislature, extending beyond what most well-known slaves states have offered, and do not comply with the popular notion of slavery in America. As historians such as Ellen Swartz have observed, slavery is presented through a “master script” to the general public. This script arises most notably within popular culture and high school history textbooks. Some of its main characteristics involve presenting slavery as a necessary evil and also an institution found only in the Southern United States.
The accepted understanding of slavery for most Americans exclusively involves the events of the Civil War, with the belief that an entirely free North defeated the confederate slaveholding South and thus purged the country of the evil institution forever. Any deviation from that script causes confusion. This confusion can best be exemplified with Douglas F. Job’s recent editorial to The Record, a North Jersey newspaper. In the editorial, he stated that New Jersey originated simply as “a colony in an empire that allowed slavery,” and that many people in New Jersey risked “life and limb” to abolish slavery. He finishes his editorial arguing that New Jersey should not apologize but instead be commended for its position on slavery and for the “blood shed” emancipating African Americans. What is most surprising is that Job is a college student studying American history.
At the heart of Job’s editorial, and the entire debate concerning Resolution No. 270 is the question of what specifically New Jersey has to apologize for. Is New Jersey solely responsible for how slavery developed in the colony (and later state) or should other outside forces share responsibility? Lastly, to what extent was slavery prevalent in New Jersey and how and when was it abolished? The answers to these questions are complex issues and raise even more problems than they solve. When looking at the historical relationship between New Jersey and slavery, a unique environment unfolds that can be found nowhere else in the entire country.
New Jersey was, by far, the most conservative and slowest moving state with regard to abolition. Of all the northern states, New Jersey was last to enact any meaningful legislature on gradual abolition, which was not even presented until 1804. At the time this lass was passed, only a third of the state’s African American population was considered free, with slaves totaling over 12,000. New Jersey had the largest percentage of slaves of any northern state, and in the year gradual emancipation passed through the state assembly, slaves still totaled roughly six percent of the total population. Furthermore, the final version of the abolition act that made it through the state legislature was so vague that an illegal slave trade soon sprung up within the state. Lastly, the wording of the abolition act, and subsequent laws, allowed some form of slavery to persist within the state, until the ratification of the 13th amendment in 1866. The year 1866 may seem a bit odd considering that the 13th amendment became a federal law a year before, with the conclusion of the Civil War. New Jersey’s legislature rejected the amendment the first time the bill was proposed in March of 1865. Thus, in 1866, along with all of the confederate slaveholding states, New Jersey finally abolished slavery, freeing the 12 remaining slaves left within the state.
The evidence that slavery lasted in New Jersey much longer than any other northern state cannot be argued. What can be debated are answers to why slavery lasted so long, especially when compared with neighboring states. Historians have asked this question and found different answers. Simon Moss, writing in 1950, argued in his article, “The Persistence of Slavery and Involuntary Servitude in a Free State,” that the reason slavery lasted as long can be directly related to the plantation economy that developed within the state. The plantation economy in New Jersey kept slavery in existence. Arthur Zilversmit, in his book, The First Emancipation, asserts that New Jersey’s abolition movement was much slower to develop because of hostilities faced in the northern part of the state where slavery was dominant. Zilversmit also argued that New Jersey’s lack of metropolitan center posed a challenge for abolitionists to centralize and meet, making them ineffective organizers. Ira Berlin argues that New Jersey’s “emboldened slaveholders” fought to keep their slaves, oftentimes blocking progressive legislature.
All of these theories presented by historians have posed valuable insight into New Jersey’s long struggle to abolition but fall short of presenting the full picture. While the economics that developed in New Jersey certainly play a major role in the acceptance of slaves in the state, that answer does not adequately justify why slavery developed where it did and why the institution lingered for so long after the gradual abolition law. Economics is merely the beginning of the answer. While historians have looked within the state, it is also important to look outside of its borders at the external circumstances placed on New Jersey by its neighbors, particularly New York and Pennsylvania. Both states were home to huge economic centers within the nation New York City and Philadelphia, which drained resources and manpower away from New Jersey. This is one part reason the economic situation developed as it did in New Jersey; as farm-oriented, slavery was initially an appealing way to keep and retain workers in the state.
How Pennsylvania and New York ended slavery also play a major role in how slavery was affected in New Jersey. Counties closest to New York City had the largest number of slaves, despite having less farmland. The counties closest to Pennsylvania had more free blacks than anywhere else within the state. This can be attributed to the Quaker influence from Pennsylvania and the Quaker’s early stance on anti-slavery issues. New Jersey had a window of opportunity to put stronger laws in place that would have ended slavery in roughly the same time frame as the rest of the North, but those laws never materialized. That time frame started with the year 1780, the year gradual abolition in Pennsylvania was enacted, and ended with a law passed in 1820, which made manumission an easier process but also solidified pre-existing slave laws. During these critical years, slavery could have been fully abolished within the state. Surrounding states were enacting strong abolition laws, the republican ideals of the revolutionary era were being applied to slavery, and manumission within the southern part of the state was at an all time high. Despite all of this, New Jersey did not pass any law to end slavery. This again can be attributed to the state’s close proximity to major cities outside its borders that it needed to compete with or depend upon economically.
Lastly, the gradual abolition act of 1804 did more to preserve rather than end the institution of slavery through the civil war. Every petition that came from within the state called for gradual, not immediate, abolition. When the weak abolition bill passed the state legislature and became law, many of the organizations seemed content with reaching their goal and stopped their protest against slavery. This allowed for proslavery lobbyists to overturn legislature and preserve slavery with more restrictive laws. The act of 1804 was ambiguous and, in some cases, unenforceable, allowing slaves to be smuggled into the state and then down south where they could be sold for high prices.
From 1820 until the Civil War, New Jersey was left in a paranoid and paradoxical existence in which slavery became both accepted and rejected. This existence did not come to an end until the conclusion of the Civil War, yet it was a direct result of how circumstances unraveled between 1780 and 1820.
Other Northern States
The distinctive slow abolition process in New Jersey is best highlighted against the background of how and when slavery began and ended in the entire United States, with particular emphasis on other Northern States abolition movements. While this paper largely deals with New Jersey, some brief and basic knowledge of slavery must be discussed along with an individual examination of each state.
The first successful British settlement in North America, Jamestown, survived twelve years before a small shipment of slaves arrived in 1619. Thus began the South’s costly relationship with African bondage. In 1641, eleven years after the arrival of the Puritans in Massachusetts, the “Body of Liberties” lawfully allowed human bondage in the colony. Although geography had a major role as to how slavery became defined in the British colonies, one thing is certain: every colony at one point made it legal to own slaves. In the South slavery became an integral part of society. The economy, labor, and farm production depended on slavery due to high intensity crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice. In the North, such as New England, slaves were employed on family farms, which did not produce labor intensive and high yielding cash crops. This fact alone drastically limited the number of slaves employed in the North. The South would go on to embrace slavery right up through the Civil War.
In contrast to the popular understand of slavery, the North did not wholeheartedly welcome freedom for African-Americans with open arms. In Massachusetts slavery persisted until about the year 1783. Prior to that, petitions and lawsuits regarding the legality of slavery had been presented to the courts of Massachusetts with little success. Much of the movement to abolish slavery derived from the “spirit of the revolution.” Opponents of slavery (both black and white) argued that the slave population was undergoing the same persecution that the colonies were subjected to under British rule. A combination of trials, starting with the Quok Walker trial in April of 1873, showed the courts in favor of abolition and, as a result, slavery was successfully contested in Massachusetts. In 1790, when the first official federal census was taken, no slaves were reported to reside within the state.
Slavery in New Hampshire died in much the same way as Massachusetts but ended in mystery and confusion. Historian Arthur Zilversmit has stated that New Hampshire’s bill of rights could be legally understood to imply that slavery was unconstitutional. He used a widely cited letter from Jeremy Belknap to Ebenezer Hazard in 1788 that states, “the Negroes…are all free, by the first article in the declaration of rights.” In that same year, New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Simeon Olcott wrote to a fellow judge that slavery was indeed still legal in the state and even used a court case in 1786 as evidence. Zilversmit and Joanne Melish both agree that the 1790 federal census for New Hampshire listed 157 slaves. Adding to the confusion, after 1790, no mention of New Hampshire’s slave population is listed in any official source. Ira Berlin admits that slavery in New Hampshire ended in such obscurity that, “historians continue to puzzle over slavery’s demise.” A bill calling for immediate abolition was passed in in the state in1857, but by that time it is unclear if any slaves were left in the state. This could simply be considered a symbolic gesture.
Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut ended slavery early on in their statehood years but took very different approaches. The state of Vermont abolished slavery in their constitution in 1777, one year into the revolutionary war. In contrast, Rhode Island employed gradual abolition in 1784. The local towns took on financial responsibility for the free children born to slaves. To speed the process along, masters could free a healthy slave without taking on the burden of educating the slave. This last clause was later repealed, returning the financial burden to the slave masters. Connecticut, the last of the New England states, attempted a gradual emancipation bill in 1779 but never produced enough votes to pass it through. The bill for gradual emancipation in Connecticut was finally passed in 1784 with the clause that all children born after March 1st of that year would serve their master until the age of 25. By the year 1810, roughly 310 slaves were left in the state.
Unlike New England, the Mid-Atlantic States were more densely populated and were home to more slaves. In 1750, New York and Pennsylvania combined were home to a total of 13,836 slaves. In 1780, a gradual abolition law was enacted in Pennsylvania that freed slaves at the age of 28. For being a surprisingly conservative law, slavery in the state died out fairly quickly, with the entire state being “highly instrumental” in defeating slavery elsewhere. New York followed a similar pattern, attempting to enact a gradual abolition law in 1785, but not succeeding until 1799.
With just a brief analysis of the Northern states the commonly understood master script of slavery in the United States begins to crumble. Although not as prominent in the North, slavery was still an accepted practice in every state at least up until the signing of the U.S. Constitution. In some northern states such as the Mid-Atlantic region, slavery persisted even longer, with New Jersey being the shining example.
Slavery in New Jersey Prior to 1780
The first law to reference slavery in New Jersey was issued by the royal government in 1675. It forbid individuals from harboring and transporting servants, apprentices, and slaves. The next year, New Jersey split into two different colonies, East Jersey and West Jersey. Even though the split only lasted 26 years, it would come to define many aspects of life in the state, including slavery. The split in the colony was a political issue, yet religious and cultural differences also formulated along the boundary line. East Jersey, influenced by the Puritans in the north and Dutch settlers, became increasingly dependent on New York City for settlers and commerce. The Quakers of Pennsylvania came to dominate and influence West Jersey. This faction also influenced how slavery developed in the colony. East Jersey, like contemporary New York, had more slaves than West Jersey, which accounted for 12 percent of the population. Colonel Lewis Morris owned and operated an Iron works and plantation in Shewsbury, East Jersey. In 1680, he owned sixty slaves, which accounted for half of all the known slaves in the colony. Ten years later, almost every farm in East Jersey owned at least one slave. In West Jersey, where Quakers of the time were indifferent to slavery, Africans slaves totaled four percent. Quakers would later collectively disown slavery in both Pennsylvania and West Jersey. This difference would later shape slavery patterns in the state during the critical years an century later.
In 1702, the residents of East and West Jersey reluctantly merged back together to form one entity and undertake some of the problems plaguing the colony. A labor shortage is an occurring theme in all of the British colonies, but in New Jersey it became especially crippling. Queen Anne, writing to the Royal Governor Lord Cornbury, in 1702, laid out detailed instructions on how to keep and retain workers within the colony. Her solution entailed a “Sufficient supply of merchantable Negroes at moderate rates in money.” The impact of this policy can be seen in Monmouth County, which had been part of East Jersey, which by the 1750s, contained more slaves then white laborers. North of Monmouth in Middlesex County the situation was more severe, with 281 slaves and only 81 working whites, making the ratio more then 3 to 1 in favor of slave labor. At the top of the colony and deep into the East Jersey side of the colony, Bergen County boasted 306 slaves and only eight free wage laborers.
To stem the tide of this increase in black workers, the royal governor of New Jersey enacted a 10-pound duty on slaves coming into the colony to spur farmers to hire white indentured servants. He cited evidence of a similar law that had been put in place in Pennsylvania, which had curbed the African population. The law went into effect in 1714 and only lasted seven years. In 1721, the British crown, disapproving of this law, allowed the act to expire. Coincidently, that same year the sloop George landed in New Jersey bringing 50 African slaves fresh from Barbados. Another bill levying import duties on slaves was proposed in 1744 but rejected by the Council of New Jersey. The bill called for a 10-pound duty on all slaves from the West Indies and a 5-pound duty on slaves directly from Africa. The Council cited three reasons for their veto, including lack of labor in the province, recent immigration shortages from Ireland, and lastly war in Europe that was impeding immigration. They concluded that it was “in the interest of the people” to encourage black slavery.
It was not until 1761 that a law was proposed to end the duty-free practice of importing slaves in New Jersey. The new Royal Governor, Josiah Hardy, disapproved of the bill at the instructions of Great Britain. The law was finally passed in 1769, but only with heavy compromise. Prior to this law, New Jersey had become a “dumping ground” for slave traders to unload slave cargos without paying any duty. Those slaves were smuggled into New York or Pennsylvania, where the duty on imported slaves was 2 pounds and 10 pounds respectively. The final bill that was passed in New Jersey took this into account. New Jersey became the only colony wherein imported slaves in the northern part of state reflected the same prices of New York and imported slaves in the south matched those of Pennsylvania.
A recurring theme in the political arena of slavery and New Jersey occurred between the British government and citizens of the colony. The repeated proposal of bills levied a duty on slavery show a general willingness of the inhabitants to curb the use of slaves within the state. Prior to the revolutionary war, their reasons for doing so were varied from helping the poor whites, to a growing resistance to slavery by Quakers. Although New Jersey was not under the guidance of any particular business or industry, the British government still looked at the colony as an investment. Their easy solution to fixing the labor shortage hinged upon increasing slavery as much as possible, with no room for compromise. Royal governors of the colony had the power to veto any legislation that passed their desk, and this is where most bills limiting slavery stopped. In the rare occasion that a Royal governor agreed with slavery duty laws, they, too, were met with opposition from the British government. The expiration of the 1714 act is an example of British opposition.
What caused the British to take a pro-slavery stance in regard to New Jersey has more to do with the economic situation imposed on the colony by Philadelphia and New York City than any other factor. Both New York and Philadelphia had prosperous and growing ports that helped fuel their colony’s economy. Despite being geographically close to both cities, New Jersey had no equivalent. The three official ports of New Jersey were Perth Amboy, Burlington, and Salem. While ports in other colonies engaged in trades of all kind, even New Jersey’s biggest ports where only shipping substance farming material into the region.
The only noticeable differences between the shipping ports were the amount of slaves being imported. Perth Amboy received noticeably more slaves than the west side of the colony, ports such as Burlington or Salem. However, this does not mean that slaves being imported were uncommon in West Jersey. A quick look at some of the newspaper advertisements in Pennsylvania show slaves arriving steadily, even when duty laws were being debated in the colonial assembly. In August of 1761, a “Cargo of likely Negroes” had just sailed from the coast of Guinea looking to unload their human capital. Three additional ships carrying Africans for sale landed that same year. The next year, an advertisement appeared boasting about recently arrived Gambia slaves. The ad highlighted how weather resistant the slaves of Gambia proved to be in the northern climate. This ad, although brief, gives evidence of a mortally rate of slaves in New Jersey due to the colder climate.
What was being exported from New Jersey is not as important as where they were being shipped. Lewis Morris, royal governor in 1732, remarked “The product in [New Jersey] yields is chiefly sent to New York and Pennsylvania in return for goods they are supplied with from those places.” Governor Jonathan Belcher would say virtually the same thing in 1754. While the population in New Jersey rose slowly during the colonial period, Burlington’s port trade came to a grinding halt and Perth Amboy’s declined as well. With this decline, no merchant class every developed in the region, and New Jersey remained a market only for farmers. James Levitt proposed that the rise in slave importation is a direct result of the inadequacy of New Jersey’s ports to meet the needs of the colonists.
On the eve of the Revolutionary war, the first mass petitions opposing and promoting slavery appeared in the colony. In 1773, the counties of Burlington, Cumberland, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Hunterdon all submitted anti-slavery petitions to the legislature of New Jersey. The next year, Perth Amboy sent a petition to the legislature defending slavery in response to growing anti-slavery sentiment. This petition claimed Negroes were “dangerous people,” and “in-human.” The document warned that if slaves are set free they would be free to plan an invasion of the colony. The petition garnered a total of 77 signatures. This was the last major petition before the onset of war.
All discussion of the issue of slavery was stunned by the war, which was extremely hard on New Jersey, destroying infrastructure, morale, and entire towns. Ebenzer Hazard, a surveyor for the post office, commented that Princeton had been burned to the ground. The towns of Kingston, Rocky hill, Grigg’s Town, and Somerset didn’t have a single fence left standing. Slavery had been pushed to the side. If anything, during wartime slaves were more valuable than ever. While some who fought would later gain their freedom during the critical years, at the time many were invaluable servants that families relied on to survive. During the war only one slave was manumitted in the state of New Jersey.
From New Jersey’s inception to the war for independence, slavery existed and thrived. The split into East and West Jersey, coupled with the affects of Pennsylvania and New York on both economic and cultural fronts have their roots in the colonial period. Starting in 1780, New Jersey’s slavery debate would intensify and would come to be more influenced by the surrounding states. The abolition of slavery in New Jersey’s two bordering states is what helped to make the years from 1780 to 1820 such a volatile and critical time period.
Slavery in New York and Pennsylvania
Northern states that neighbored (right word?) one another ended slavery in roughly the same fashion and time frame. This warrants a more in-depth look at the demise of slavery in states bordering New Jersey as well, to seek answers for why slavery seemed to remain within its own borders. With New Jersey there is even more compelling evidence to look outside the state at New York and Pennsylvania due to the well-documented influence already proven to have existed early in the early colonial years.
Pennsylvania was the most progressive states in abolishing slavery and bringing relief to slaves in need of help. Even early on in the colony’s history, Pennsylvania had a very liberal stance on manumission. A master, with the purchase of a 30-pound government bond, could manumit any slave, in any condition healthy or sick, educated or illiterate. The bond insured that any sort of the trouble or welfare the slave caused or needed would be covered. In New Jersey, in that same year, to manumit a slave took a 200-pound government bond. Another progressive move related to land ownership. Free blacks in Pennsylvania could own land, while in New Jersey and New York they could not. Of the three mid-Atlantic colonies, Pennsylvania became the first state to enact gradual abolition in 1780. When the law passed the legislature, 6,855 slaves resided within the state. At the time this was roughly 2.1 percent of the population. In 1800, a mere twenty years later, the state only had 1,706 slaves left, equaling a mere .03 percent of the total population.
The reasons behind Pennsylvania’s progressive stance had a lot to do with the Quakers and their ideological belief that slavery was incompatible with human nature. In 1729, Quakers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey became the first group to officially censure the importation of slaves. While they had disliked slavery for some time, this was the first political action taken by the group. Throughout the colony’s history, multiple volumes of pamphlets, essays, newspaper articles, and written petitions had circulated condemning slavery both at home at abroad. Much of this Quaker influence filtered through to West Jersey, which was also populated with Quakers. Evidence of this can be seen in Appendix A, where the map shows free blacks located close to the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border.
One of the major factors that contributed to the quick death of Pennsylvania slavery can be attributed to the rise of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, or PAS. Founded in 1787 as the Relief of Free Negroes, the society comprised mainly lawyers. One of the constituents of the 1780 abolition law required that all slave-owners register their Negro chattel with the local courts, which many proslavery masters refused or neglected to do. The PAS would find these masters and bring them to court. From early on the courts in Pennsylvania sided with the PAS, forcing many slaveholders to lose their slaves early in the gradual abolition process. Undeniably effective, this aggressive behavior by the PAS would put them on a collision course with events that were unfolding in New Jersey during these critical years.
Initially New York and New Jersey had a lot in common in how slavery was treated. Both states had restrictive manumission laws and both states had a large slave population. According to Gary Nash, New York had more slaves than New Jersey during the colonial period. Because New York’s population completely dwarfed New Jersey, these slaves still made up only a small percentage of the actual population in the state. In 1800, New York only had a slave population of 3.5, while New Jersey had almost double that at 6 percent.
Slavery uprisings occurred somewhat frequently in New York’s colonial years. Minor uprisings occurred in 1712 with widespread fear of a slave revolt that never materialized in 1714. The biggest conspiracy of a slave revolt took place in 1741, causing stronger slave code laws to be enacted. In 1800, one year after gradual abolition had been passed, a woman was caught trying to sell her slave south. This caused another small rebellion that again brought on a panic within the state. This fear did not stop at the border of New York. As Pennsylvania Quakers influenced the southern portion of New Jersey, New York instilled fear in other northern states. In 1714, in response to the conspiracy from New York, New Jersey passed stronger slave codes.
The first attempt at abolition in New York came in 1786, shortly after Pennsylvania. The bill never garnered enough support to pass in the state legislature. However, there was some progress for abolition in the wake of the bill’s defeat. For one, the New York Manumission Society, or NYMS, was created while the abolition bill was being drafted. This society was comprised of prominent New York citizens, including Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Melancton Smith, St. John De Crevecoeur, Philip Schuyler, and James Duane. This society took on the same role that the PAS played in Pennsylvania. They were known to circulated petitions, sponsor lectures, and even award prizes to masters who freed their slaves. Exposing laws and violations against slave masters took up most of the society’s time and resources.
One of the common legal issues that the NYMS society faced was extended indentured servitude. To bypass laws in New York, a master would free his slave but impose an unreasonably long indentured servitude contract on the free black. The society’s minutes in June of 1795 reflect such an incident, in which an African was brought in from New Jersey with a 99-year contract. The practice of leasing imported slaves, although only semi-legal, achieved the same result of keeping slavery operational within the state. Again, the NYMS society was active in combating this loophole in the law.
Pennsylvania and New York represent both positive and negative forces influencing New Jersey from the onset of the colonial years to the eve their abolition movements. This influence would only intensify as the years went on.
New Jersey During the Critical Years 1780-1820
In 1780, the time was ripe for abolition movements in New Jersey to take hold and put forth serious progress towards a formal bill to end slavery. Pennsylvania had just enacted abolition legislation, New York was on the verge of enacting theirs, and other contemporary antislavery elements were present within the rest of the north were also prominent in New Jersey.. One of those elements, running congruent in all colonies was the war for independence. In a New Jersey newspaper in 1780, John Cooper addressed a letter to the public. His letter called for citizens of the region to draw the connection between the war for independence and the struggle for liberty by the slaves they held captive within the state. Cooper became one of the only men in New Jersey to propose immediate abolition. He believed that gradual abolition would tell the slaves that whites acknowledged an injustice but refused to do “justice unto you, but [give] justice to your posterity.”
Cooper’s appeal may have been a lone cry for immediate abolition, but the idea of extinguishing slavery gradually had begun to pick up momentum. Throughout the 1780’s and onward, the antislavery movement supported multiple petitions from every county in New Jersey. From the region formally known as West Jersey, Burlington county inhabitants produced a petition with 66 signatures in 1796 calling to end slavery. The petition was sent to the state legislature asking the government to acknowledge that “within the state many thoufands[sic]…are doomed to a life of bondage.” Also mentioned within the petition was a call to recognize the thousands of unborn Africans who will continue to live “the fame wretched exiftence[sic]” unless something is done. The remedy that the people of Burlington proposed was no great sweeping change, yet only to ensure that a foundation be laid so that this problem would eventually be fixed. As evidence to the success of such a measure, the petition also called the legislature to pay attention to the sister states that enacted similar bills.
Neighboring Hunterdon County called for gradual abolition as early as 1792. Unlike the people of Burlington, Hunterdon’s petition argued less for the African slave and more to enact a law that considered the slave master and his property. While they acknowledged the “unfortunate condition of the Negro,” it was equally important to not “violate the private rights” of any citizen. Similar to the Burlington petition, Pennsylvania’s gradual abolition act is mentioned as an excellent model for New Jersey to emulate.
Aside from petitions, as alluded to in John Cooper’s editorial, the aftermath of the revolutionary war caused people to acknowledge the oppressive nature of black enslavement. To help strengthen this cause were slaves who had fought in the Revolutionary war, and were either granted or demanded their freedom. The most well documented and famous case in New Jersey is the struggle of Negro Prime. Absalom Bainbridge, the former master of Prime, sided with the British during the war. When Prime was found in 1778 by the American forces, he was put in the army and served as a wagon driver. In 1784, a man named John Vanhorne claimed to have purchased Prime from his former master. After an intense legal battle, Prime was awarded his freedom by the state of New Jersey. An anonymous petition survives from the case, authored in 1786, telling of Prime’s story and service in the army. The request ended with the author asking for Prime’s freedom on the grounds that he is entitled to the “liberty…which the fields of America have been dyed in blood.”
Countless other slaves in New Jersey who served in the revolutionary war were granted freedom. Some masters sent their slaves to fight in their stead; such is the case with Cudjo. Cudjo’s master, Benjamin Coe, granted him freedom and an acre of land on High Street in Newark for his service in the war. Other masters who had sided with the British during the war lost all of their property, including their slaves. When John Heard ran to the British side, his slave Cato became the property of the state. As with Negro Prime, the state granted Cato his freedom in 1784.
Despite positive influence from the Quakers, the spirit of the revolution, the recent abolition legislature in Pennsylvania, and petitions from newly forming abolition societies, this was not enough. The stronghold of slavery did not release its grasp on New Jersey. For every instance in which a slave was manumitted, more evidence can be provided of blacks who remained enslaved. In 1785, a case was brought to the New Jersey Supreme Court in which master Captain Austin Bailey promised a slave named Quamini his freedom. On Bailey’s deathbed he had asked Quamini to take care of his wife until her death. By 1785, Mrs. Bailey had died, and Quamini, now under the ownership of Dr. Samuel Tuthill, demanded his promised freedom. At some point after the Captain’s death, his wife had sold the slave to a new master. While it is unclear if Quamini ever received his freedom, the Tuthills of Morris County listed slaves in their wills at least until the 1830s. This case shows how slaves remained stuck within the confines of the institution regardless of the wishes of some of their former masters.
Just as antislavery petitions became frequent from 1780 onward, so did proslavery sentiment. In 1781, an editorial appeared in the New-Jersey Gazette that divided the slavery issue into two fundamental arguments. One argument explored the legality of owning a slave. The conclusion that the author proposed centered on the Constitution, which he believed guaranteed the fundamental right to property. The other point of the slavery issue, the author argued, was what to do with slaves once they were free. He conceded that while there is “a time for all things,” now was not a good time to enact a gradual abolition law. The author explains,
If the freemen of the country find it difficult to support themselves and families at the present time, is it reasonable to suppose that our slaves, naturally indolent; unaccustomed to self-government; destitute of mechanical knowledge; unacquainted with letters; with a peculiar propensity to spirituous liquors; destitute of property, and without credit, would pay their taxes and provide themselves in the path of integrity, the necessaries and comforts of life?
This excerpt gives us a glimpse, not just at the author’s view, but also at widely accepted beliefs during the time period. Many supporters of slavery had the preconceived notion that slavery was a good institution for inferior blacks. They believed that the structure and care given to blacks by whites helped them to avoid a barbaric and unchristian life. These beliefs aided the proslavery cause, keeping successful manumission relatively low. By 1790, only one fifth of the African population in New Jersey enjoyed freedom.
Unlike the proslavery position and the actual data of slavery numbers, the laws from 1780 onward became more progressive towards abolishing slavery. A huge victory for the abolition movement occurred in 1786 when a law was passed preventing the important of slaves. The law stated that no slave shall be allowed to enter the region from any other country or neighboring state. The law also proposed that all “unnecessary obstruction” would be removed for those masters who desired to free their slaves. If anyone was caught breaking the law, they were to be charged fifty pounds per slave. However, any slave that did not live within the state prior to this law was allowed pass through or reside in the area for up to six months at a time. After an extended stay of six months, the fines would be levied on the master. To manumit a slave the law required a written order by the master and a written certificate signed by two justices of the peace and two overseers of the poor from the township in which the slave resided.
In 1798, another law passed the legislature refining the slave codes. While the language of the law was neither striking nor inspiring, the implications show a general failure of the 1786 importation law. The act reiterated that no person shall bring a slave into the state. New penalties were imposed on those who broke the law, implying that the law was not followed in the previous years. Another clause seems to repeal the ability for slave masters in other states to pass through New Jersey with their property. The law had been changed to state that if any Negro or slave entered the state without a license, they would become wards of the city or county in which they resided. They would also be jailed until someone paid the fines that accumulated. This law most likely is in response to runaway slaves from the South, entering state borders. The law also made it illegal for slaves to testify in court. It also attempted to protect older slaves by making it illegal to sell them to a master who could not “maintain such a slave.”
1804 marks a turning point for slavery in New Jersey. On February 15th, gradual abolition passed the upper house with a 12-1 vote. In the lower house, the bill received 33 “aye” votes and only four “nay” votes. This bill set in law that every child of a slave born within the state after July 4th, 1804 would be free, but that child would have to serve their master until the age of 18 for girls and 21 for boys. This ensured that the master would be compensated for food, clothing, and education as the children were raised. The bill required that every slave child would be registered with the city or county in which they lived. One section that would later be repealed is the abandonment cause. This clause gave the option for masters to abandon the child once they reached the age of 1. The trustee of the poor for that town would then have to take responsibility until the child was 18 or 21.
Only on the surface was this piece of legislature a victory for the antislavery cause. The bill guaranteed that slavery would exhaust itself, even though it would take a lifetime to accomplish. New Jersey differed from her sister states because no formal opposition to slavery came from within the state again until the year 1840. Most abolitionists, seemingly content with the new laws, ended all protest. Meanwhile, it is after 1804 that the state legislature was bombarded with pro-slavery petitions and literature.
In 1804, both Morris and Bergen County produce petitions against the abolition movement. In 1806, Bergen County sent 10 more identical petitions to the state assembly arguing to overturn the 1804 abolition law. The petitions stated that the law was unconstitutional and undermined their right to protect their property. They argued that it was easy for abolitionists to argue against slavery because they have no vested interest in the institution. The petition referenced earlier laws, which simplified the manumission process. They believed that anyone who wanted to free their slaves could do so easily; this was the only proper method that would not infringe upon the rights of property owners.
Unlike the PAS and NYMS, New Jersey did produce an equivalent organization. No major abolitionist society arose to combat slaveholders or those that chose to break the law. This failing opened the gateway for an illegal slave trade that again affected both Pennsylvania and New York. By now the slave trade had been abolished within the whole country in 1808. The south, still in desperate need of laborers, looked upon slaves in the North. Adding in transportation, smuggling, and bargaining, a northern slave shipped south could sell for roughly 40 pounds worth of profit. Some slaves, who were nearing their required age of freedom in Pennsylvania and New York, were illegally sold to New Jersey. Likewise, Southerners looking for more labor looked upon states like New Jersey as a perfect market. Northerners trying to make a profit off of a losing investment were sometimes eager to sell their slaves. Because of the nature of the crime, it is impossible to tell exactly how many slaves were shipped south. What information we do have comes largely from those that were caught or prosecuted.
One of the organizations that have preserved such documentation is the PAS. Even though they were out of state, their aggressive stance in manumitting slaves sometimes forced the master to get rid of their human captives as quick as possible. A few instances have been recorded in which the PAS attempted to free slaves that are supposedly from Pennsylvania but under the rule of someone living in New Jersey. In the early 1780’s, the PAS went after John Steele, a farmer living outside of Philadelphia. Like many others, Steele had refused to register his female slave. Before the PAS could free her, the slave was sold to a Mr. Levy living in eastern New Jersey. Levy then sold the slave to a Jonas Philips and from there the PAS lost track of the case.
A similar case arose in 1798, when an African-American named Samuel Allen solicited the PAS to help get his son John back into the state. John was a 12-year-old apprentice to a chimneysweeper named Doras Jennings. Towards the end of John’s apprenticeship, Jennings somehow managed to leave the boy in New Jersey without giving him his freedom dues. While in New Jersey, John gets arrested as a homeless person and eventually sold by the sheriff at a public auction to a doctor. For five years the PAS tried to help Sam Allen retrieve his son without making any headway. Then the organization simply stopped recording the mission on their meeting’s minutes. It is most likely the case that John was sold to a passing southerner, as was frequently the fate of small slave children.
Probably the largest instance of slave smuggling occurred in 1818 and 1819. The testimony of James M. Elain, before Judge Nixon retold the story of how Thomas Kay, William Porter, and others were able to sail a brig from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to New Orleans, carrying 36 Negroes with them. In 1819, William Wayne Jr. of Philadelphia testified that at least seven slaves were taken from Perth Amboy and shipped to Alabama to be sold. To shed more light on this illegal smuggling, the citizens of Middlesex County filed a petition against the smuggling of slaves in October of 1818. This petition may have been inspired by more than just the two instances cited. The petitioners argued that the laws of the time were insufficient in protecting blacks who were guaranteed their freedom by gradual abolition.
The legislature of New Jersey took notice of black exportation. A law was passed in November 1818 proclaiming, “No Negro, or other slave, or servant of colour, for life or years, shall hereafter be removed, exported, or carried out of this state.”A final law on the illegal smuggling operation was passed in 1820, making the death penalty a viable punishment for people convicted of the crime. So far no evidence has been uncovered to suggest anyone actually received the death penalty. However this still served as a deterrent for smugglers, considering large cases were uncovered after this law was enacted.
A series of laws were passed from 1818 to 1820 defining and strengthening the abolition law, but all fell short of completely ridding the state of slavery. The last law, the Act of 1820, made it very simple to manumit a slave. While largely successful, the law still did not offer complete freedom. This was the last time that the issue of slavery would be approached by the New Jersey legislature until the 1846, when a law was enacted that changed the name slave to apprentice for life.
Slavery in New Jersey after 1820
James S. Green argued for sending Negroes back to Africa during an American Colonization Society meeting held at Princeton in 1824. As if to prelude what was to come of slavery and blacks over the next 46 years, Green made his case for the controversial re-colonization program by admitting that New Jersey’s laws have kept blacks out of society, and would continue to do so for years to come. He surmised that no one, not even the abolitionists would be comfortable with a black police officer, black judge, black governor, or black son-in-law. He believed that the current trends of abolition would not solve any problems that blacks faced, and he ultimately concluded that the re-colonization of Africa would be the best course of action. While the re-colonization plans of the 1820’s are still heavily debated, Green was right that the future situation of New Jersey’s slavery and racial issues would not go away.
After 1820, petitions and laws regarding slavery become infrequent. Probably the best window into the workings of the state came in 1840, when Morris County residents filed a petition against slavery. They proclaimed that all 21,718 colored residents living within the state were still subjected to legal discrimination that was unnecessary and unjust despite slavery having been “abolished.” By this time, blacks still had to carry a legal document proving they were free Negroes, even if they were simply passing through the state. Sons and daughters of slaves still had to serve the master of their parents, yet their educational requirements mandated by the government were not being enforced. Still in place were laws that allowed travelers to pass through or move into the state, bringing as many slaves as they wanted. The petition demanded that all of these laws should be revoked and educational requirements be enforced. When the legislature changed the word slave to “apprentice for life” in 1846, there were still 600 blacks in bondage. The state never produced a law to ensure their educational rights.
Leading up to the Civil War, New Jersey favored a peaceful compromise with the South. Many northerners saw economic advantages in maintaining a connection to the South. As former New Jersey Governor Rodman M. Price argued, “Joining our destiny with the south will be to continue our prosperity, progress, and happiness.” He believed that there was nothing wrong with slavery and quoted the Confederate Constitution in his speeches. Despite the presence of fewer than 200 slaves left in the state by 1862, the New Jersey Democratic Party’s primary objective was to preserve the union and keep slavery in the country. As a response to President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, New Jersey party leaders argued that the president had no power to free the slaves and that in doing so was destroying the private propriety of innocent people.
Slavery officially ended in 1866, when the state ratified the 13th amendment. General Sickles of the Union Army, in a private letter to the Democrat Majority Leader Kilpatrick in 1865, blasted New Jersey for its stance on slavery. He cites better examples of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama where slavery died and “stayed dead.”
To be titled Something
The master script of slavery in the United States holds a powerful grasp on our memory for multiple reasons. The fact is slavery can be twisted into a liner script of ‘North vs. South’ or ‘Right vs. Wrong’ with little effort. When breaking away from this popular notion of history to present a darker side to slavery in the north, some well-established arguments must be addressed.
One of the most common arguments presented is that slavery in the north was not as harsh as its southern counterpart. It is true that slavery took on a different role in the north; with a smaller slave population and sometimes more skilled jobs than the massive numbers of blacks who toiled fields on southern plantations. However, an inappropriate and inaccurate assumption is made that northern slaves were treated better, simply because they sometimes worked side-by-side with their masters in the field. Or because some these slaves became part of the family, they were treated as such. Slaves still ran away from their northern masters on a consistent basis. Advertisements in northern newspapers described the slave’s physical features as having a scarred back from “whipping” as well as missing teeth and toes.
The Northern slave society is often overshadowed and forgotten due to the magnitude of the south, but also because of the general willingness of historians and educators to forget. It is more gratifying to highlight the New Jersey soldiers who fought for the union rather than the slaveholders who campaigned for human bondage. Because slavery was a smaller segment of society in New Jersey, it is often easier to render it unimportant to the state’s history, ignoring or glossing over the depth to which the state was affected.
The purpose of this study serves to add knowledge to the extent at which New Jersey participated in the institution of slavery within the United States. Initially seeking to answer the questions of what New Jersey had to apologize for, it can undeniably be the same sins committed by the southern slave states. The government in New Jersey allowed an institution to exist that created second-class citizens and marginalized the value of human life. The state took a necessary step in the right direction in January of 2008 by formally apologizing for slavery. New Jersey should not share that blame alone. From its inception as a colony, New Jersey faced a well-documented history of British encouragement of the institution of slavery. This is in part due to the initial success of Pennsylvania and New York, and the failure of New Jersey’s economy. Perth Amboy’s harbor deteriorated while New York City and Philadelphia’s flourished. This only further intensified British’s campaign for slavery within the colony.
When the colonies broke free of British control, many in the north enacted some form of gradual abolition. This was New Jersey’s most active time period in which full abolition could have taken place. Positive influences came from the spirit of the revolution and Quakerism in Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. This can be seen through the multiple bills that were passed in the state legislature from 1780 to 1820 that pertained to slaves and slave codes. Despite the gradual abolition bill of 1804, New Jersey would not produce anything strong enough to effectively end slavery comparable to other northern states. Part of the problem depended on New Jersey’s economy and its close location to New York and Philadelphia. With the problem of labor shortage continually plagued the state, the only way to keep workers from leaving for the big cities was to have enslaved ones.
By no means is this the final word on slavery in New Jersey. Taking into account the states of New York and Pennsylvania has opened a new avenue of study with New Jersey slavery, but more questions have also been raised in the process. For starters, the extent to which slaves were funneled out of the border states and into New Jersey should be looked at more closely. It is now it is unclear if there was any organization to this criminal activity or simply individuals acting alone. The PAS and NYMS also need to be looked at more carefully through the lens of New Jersey. How much of their resources were directed at New Jersey, and did they consider it a success just to expel a slaveholder out of their borders? While it appears that both societies took an active interest in freeing a few slaves that had illegally found their way into the state, it is impossible to say if they were exceptions or the norm without a more detailed investigation.
Slavery in the United States did not end all at once and in a grand fashion. Different areas of the country ended slavery by various means, all of which had lasting effects in their respective regions. The story of New Jersey is important because it may be the most contrasted to what happened in the South. The death of slavery in this state was a long process, extending half a century. None of the multiple factors that played a role in this process can be marginalized or ignored to get the complete picture. By understanding the affects of external forces on New Jersey, we are one step closer to that goal.
