History of slavery in New Jersey

History of New Jersey
Colonial period
American Revolution
Nineteenth century
Twentieth century
Twenty-first century
v t e

Part of a series on
Forced labour and slavery
Contemporary Child Labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Involuntary servitude Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Genoese slave trade Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in al-Andalus ‎ Baqt Contract of manumission Bukhara slave trade Crimean slave trade Khazar slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Pazarları Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid imperial harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm al-walad Circassian slave trade Saqaliba Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Volga Bulgarian slave trade 21st century Atlantic slave trade Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Ghilman Mamluk Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Corvée labour Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave market Slave raiding Child soldiers White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labour Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan Brunei China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Indonesia Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Malaysia Maldives Slavery in the Mongol Empire Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe United Kingdom Penal Labour Slavery Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Committee of Experts on Slavery Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman Manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Indentured servitude Forced labour Fugitive slaves laws convention Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery List of slavery-related memorials and museums Slave marriages in the United States Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
v t e

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.^[1][2]: 44 After England took control of the colony in 1664, Britain continued the importation of slaves from Africa. They also imported "seasoned" slaves from their colonies in the West Indies and enslaved Native Americans from the Carolinas.

Most Dutch and English immigrants entered the colony as indentured servants, who worked for a fixed number of years to repay their passage. As conditions in England improved and the number of indentured laborers declined, British companies 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 of 60 acres (24 ha) of land for each person transported to the colony. In 1704, after East Jersey and West Jersey were unified, the royal colony of the province passed a slave code prohibiting slaves and free blacks from owning property, further restricting Africans and African-Americans.^[2]: 44

During the American Revolution, enslaved Africans fought on each side. The Patriot rebels banned the importation of new slaves, as the enslaved were transported to the country on British ships, and the New Jersey Legislature later freed any slave smuggled in after 1776. The British Crown promised freedom to slaves who would leave 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.

Bergen County developed as the largest slaveholding county in the state,^[3] in part because many enslaved Africans were used as laborers in its ports and cities.^[4] At its peak Bergen County enslaved 3,000 Africans in 1800, constituting nearly 20% of its total population.^[5] After the Revolutionary War, many northern states rapidly passed laws to abolish slavery, but New Jersey did not abolish it until 1804, and then in a process of gradual emancipation similar to that of New York. But, in New Jersey, some Africans were enslaved as late as 1865. (In New York, 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 apprenticeships as a type of indentured servant 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 at least 43 people in New Jersey as slaves, the youngest being 11 and oldest being 95. Thirty eight of these people were enslaved for life. This calculation is 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.^[6]

The Underground Railroad had several routes crossing the state,^[7] four of which ended in Jersey City, where fugitive slaves could cross the Hudson River.^[8] New Brunswick, 'Hub City', was a main location where runaways would travel during the days of the Underground Railroad.^[9] During the American Civil War, African Americans served in several all-black Union Army regiments from New Jersey.^[10]

In 2008, the legislature of New Jersey passed a resolution of official apology for slavery, becoming the third state to do so.^[11] Rutgers, the State University moved to rectify its past wrongs and connections to slavery during its 250th anniversary celebration in 2016.^[12] Princeton University, the oldest college in the state of New Jersey, released the findings of its Princeton & Slavery Project in 2017.^[13]

In 2019, the Durand-Hedden House & Garden in Maplewood, New Jersey, 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,^[14] 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.