New Jersey history and major developments

History / New Jersey

Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North

For the person studying American history that is only familiar with the Civil War in a general way (South vs. North) it is somewhat surprising to learn that a northern state like New Jersey was more than a little "warm" to the Southern cause of continuing with slavery. There are many instances in this book that point towards New Jersey being very supportive of many of the social evils that caused the war to break out in the first place. Southern property rights, whether or not that involved slavery, were supported by the legislature in New Jersey, which clearly gave support to the cause of slavery.

Meanwhile, there is much in Hodges' book that also shows a resistance to slavery and other Southern causes on the part of many individuals and groups in New Jersey; so in many ways, New Jersey may have been fairly typical of states in the north that were not wholeheartedly anti-slavery and yet were also known to have many activists who were indeed very bitterly opposed to slavery.

Moreover, by presenting material on New Jersey and the dynamics within the political and social framework of that northern state, the author is indeed presenting a valuable part of American history that might otherwise be lost in the bloodshed and horror that was the Civil War itself.

New Jersey History of Slavery

The slaves who were brought into New Jersey in the 17th Century were initially put to work "clearing forests or building roads, fortifications and public works," the author explains on page 6. This was the frontier at that time, and the soil had never been tilled before, so putting the slaves to work doing the "arduous" task of breaking the new sod, "tilling stony soil, and raising crops," was an invaluable service to the settlers. It was not only important in the sense that food needed to be grown in the New World, but also because the cost of having provisions shipped from Europe to "New Netherland" (New Jersey) were "onerous," and therefore the settlers could not afford to pay for those shipments. Self-sufficiency was not a luxury for them, but rather an imperative, and indeed the New Amsterdam city council wrote to the director of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, that the "prosperity of [New Netherland] is, for the most part, dependent" upon "Negroes..." (p. 7).

The first slaves brought into New Netherland came from Jamaica, Barbados, Curacao, and Antigua, and the author points out (p. 12) that by 1680, there were 48 slaves in the towns of Shrewsbury and Middletown, out of a combined population of 900 settlers; that means that 5.3% of the population were slaves, compared with 5.9% in New Jersey as a whole. And in the next 100 years, the percentage of slaves in Monmouth grew to 433, a full 9% of the population; by 1737, the percentage of slaves was nearly 10 (362 males slaves and 293 females).

By the 18th Century, the kinds of work performed by slaves in New Jersey included (p. 44) "building shelters, clearing forests, breaking sod," so that the colonists could grow "Indian corn, oats, flax, and buckwheat" for sustenance. The primary duties of black workers on farms in the middle 1700s included "the production and carting of corn, grain, fruit and garden produce." Since the colonists needed cattle, blacks were also obliged to take care of those livestock.

The sales advertisements for male slaves in Monmouth County included a pitch for versatility - and that was because there was a desperate need for men skilled in more than just clearing land and chopping down trees; blacksmiths, carpenters, skilled seamen, men trained in horse management, waiters in homes, and fishermen were needed.

By March 2, 1785, it was clear that New Jersey had begun to try to ban slavery, as the legislature enacted a law banning "foreign slave trade in the state" (p. 115). And in 1786, the New Jersey Society for the Abolition of Slavery was founded, although the citizens of Monmouth "were deeply divided" over whether or not slavery should be banned from the state.

Meantime, during the 1790s, several "gradual emancipation" bills were voted down in the New Jersey legislature, albeit (p. 124) "popular opinion and party newspapers cautiously shifted" towards an anti-slavery position. The citizens were clearly divided on the issue, as the author points out on page 125: Quakers opposed to slavery were accused by proslavery interests of "harboring pro-British attitudes" and were accused of "poisoning the minds of our slaves." Other extremists in the proslavery ranks pushed the notion that the Quakers antislavery movement was just a "plot to give more blacks the vote and control the state..."

The Civil War and New Jersey

The author points out (p. 192) that New Jersey "showed a grudging loyalty to the Union" - and in that context, New Jersey politicians, while indeed supporting the Union, "...remained warm to the Southern cause..." throughout the Civil War. There were motions passed in the New Jersey state legislature that clearly signaled support for slavery: one, a motion passed in "recognition of southern property rights over slaves; another, unqualified support for the "repressive Fugitive Slave Act of 1850," and further, there were laws passed in New Jersey "attempting to hinder any movement of black freed people into the state."

Also on 192 Hodges writes that the very year the Emancipation Proclamation was put into effect, 1863, the powers that be in New Jersey "worried about a massive slave insurrection" in the aftermath of the proclamation, and passed "infamous 'Peace Resolutions' which denied Lincoln's ability to emancipate the slaves by proclamation..."

The history of this time period in New Jersey is made more interesting by the fact that despite how terribly the African slaves had been treated, a number of male slaves enlisted in the Union Army. "At least 156 blacks" from Monmouth, New Jersey, joined the Union Army in the two years between 1863 and 1865. Interestingly, too, some white New Jersey citizens were paid money to locate blacks who were willing to serve, and other whites actually hired blacks to "substitute for them" in the army.