From slave mines in Monmouth to plantations in Jersey City, report details N.J.s slavery history

Forced labor in iron mines in Monmouth County, plantations in Hudson County and trafficking through Atlantic ports all contributed to New Jerseys role in the devastation created by the Transatlantic Slave Trade, according to a report detailing the roots of one of the most horrific eras in world history.

Though much of the history is never taught in schools, New Jersey and other Mid-Atlantic states were central to slavery as it began to take form in America, according to Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit group focused on racial justice and ending mass incarceration.

The group which recently opened the Legacy Museum in Alabama focused on the history of slavery released a report in October that examines the nations role in the slave trade and its ongoing impact.

Too many people in the North think about slavery as an entirely Southern phenomenon and see themselves as not implicated in the history and legacy of slavery, said Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer.

The legacy of slavery and the animus and bigotry and discrimination that has been directed at Black people was as intense and as rigid and as constructed in the North and Mid-Atlantic as it was in the deep South, said Stevenson, who has been called Americas Mandela since authoring the best-selling memoir, Just Mercy: A Story of Redemption and Justice.

The goal of the study was to engage in a more meaningful conversation about the history of slavery in America, the studys authors said.

More than 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and trafficked through the Transatlantic Slave Trade and transported to the Americas in the 16th to 19th centuries, the report said. Only 10.7 million survived the journey.

Slave trafficking in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the area that became Washington, D.C., started as early as 1626, contributing to the almost 5,000 enslaved Africans that would be trafficked through Atlantic ports.

In New Jersey, it began in 1630 when the Dutch West India Company kidnapped and trafficked 50 African people and enslaved them on a plantation in what is now Jersey City, the report said.

Historical records referred to these enslaved Africans in Hudson County as the first Black residents of New Jersey.

From there, New Jersey began to codify slavery through laws, or slave codes, legalizing it as an institution and making it an essential component to the regions economic development, according to the report.

The first was a law passed in 1664, which granted land to white settlers for every enslaved person they brought into the province of New Jersey, Stevenson said.

Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson speaks to the media at the EJI Legacy Pavilion in Montgomery, Ala.AP

A 1704 law in New Jersey prohibited Black people from entering the colony without written permission from their enslaver and allowed any white person to capture a Black person who was suspected of entering the state without permission, according to the report.

If caught, he, she or they so taken up shall be whipt at the publick Whipping-post, read the law.

Slave codes continued to be passed throughout the 1700s to restrict Black peoples ability to establish economic freedom or a sense of humanity, the report said.

A 1704 New Jersey law stated that if enslaved people were more than 10 miles from their home, they could be captured, whipped and turned in for a reward. Also in New Jersey, a 1713 law prohibited formerly enslaved Black or Native people from purchasing or owning land and a 1751 law gave enslaved Black people a 9 p.m. curfew and made violations punishable by whipping.

These were rigid laws imposed by New Jersey policymakers to restrict the opportunity for freedom for enslaved people, said Stevenson. So, like other states, New Jersey really rejected the idea that Black people could be the equal of white people.

The report also details the forced labor performed by enslaved Black people, which varied by region.

In Monmouth County, there was an iron mine called the Tinton Manor ironworks, which relied heavily on the labor of enslaved people, the report said. The estate was owned by Lewis Morris, who bought slaves from his Barbados sugar plantation to what is now known as Tinton Falls to work at his iron forge in the late-1600s.

An exhibit at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Morris assigned skilled labor to free, white workers and hard, physical labor to Black enslaved workers, establishing a racialized, discriminatory order of rank that would influence similar industrial settings in Monmouth County, according to the report.

New Jersey was part of the effort to racialize slavery and create a narrative of racial hierarchy that has so infected American policy over the last three centuries, said Stevenson.

Regulating and restricting the freedom of Black people in the Mid-Atlantic during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, has had a lasting impact on the region today, according to the report.

New Jersey is one of the most racially diverse states, and is also one of the most segregated in where people live and where they go to school, the report highlights.

The states public school population remains the sixth most segregated in the nation for Black students and the seventh most segregated for Latino students, according to a 2017 analysis by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. Though New Jersey has some highly diverse schools, a large number of New Jersey students go to schools that are overwhelmingly one race, the analysis said.

Stevenson said he hopes the report on the nations slave trade provides facts about the nations past that will help policymakers, communities and individuals reckon with and use the information to build a better future.

Any suggestion that you should not teach American history, that students and people should not know the facts around American history because it might make someone uncomfortable, is a notion that has to be rejected, said Stevenson.

I really do believe that theres something that feels more like freedom and equality and justice in New Jersey waiting for us but we cant get there if were not honest about our history and we recognize the things that we need to address and be mindful of as we move forward, he continued.

The Legacy Museum in Montgomery is built on the site of the Lehman, Durr and Co. cotton warehouse along the Alabama River that was an epicenter of the slave trade by the 1850s.

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Nyah Marshall may be reached at Nmarshall@njadvancemedia.com