History of slavery in New Jersey
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| Colonial period | |
| American Revolution | |
| Nineteenth century | |
| Twentieth century | |
| Twenty-first century | |
| Timeline of New Jersey | |
Slavery in New Jersey began in the early 17th century, when Dutch colonists imported African slaves for labor to develop their colony of New Netherland. After England took control 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 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, New Jersey's colonists imported 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 (240,000 m2) of land for each person transported to the colony.
During the American Revolution, enslaved African Americans 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 slaves escaped to the British for the promise of freedom. The British refused to return former slaves 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. Others were transported to England and the West Indies.
Bergen County developed as the largest slaveholding county in the state, in part because many slaves were used as laborers in its ports and cities. 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 slaves were held as late as 1865. (In New York, they were all freed by 1827.) The law made African Americans free at birth, but it required children (born to slave mothers), to serve lengthy apprenticeships as a type of indentured servant until early adulthood for the masters of their slave mothers. New Jersey was the last of the Northern states to abolish slavery completely. The last 16 slaves in New Jersey were freed in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment.
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