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By Frank R. Stockton
Originally published in 1896
But the negroes were not the only slaves in New
Jersey during those early days. Here, as well as in
many of the other Colonies, was a class of white people,
generally from England, who were called "redemptioners."
These were poor people, although often
persons of fairly good station and education, who desired
to emigrate to America, but who could not afford
to pay their passage.
A regular system was then established, by which a
poor person desiring to settle in New Jersey would
be brought over free. When one of these emigrants
took passage on a ship, he signed a contract which
gave the captain of the vessel the right to sell him, as
soon as he arrived in America, for enough money to
pay his passage. This white man was thus bought,
when he reached New Jersey, exactly as if he had been
a negro slave; and he was subject to the same rules as
those which governed other slaves. Of course, he was
made the subject of great imposition; for the captain
would naturally desire to get as large a sum of money
as possible for each redemptioner, and therefore would
be perfectly willing to sell him for a long term.
The people who owned redemptioners could sell
them again if they chose; and it often happened that
some of them passed into the possession of several
families before they finally served out the term for
which they had been sold. All sorts of people became
redemptioners, – mechanics, laborers, and even
professional men. Among the people who sold themselves
into limited slavery there were schoolmasters,
and it is stated that at one time the supply of redemptioner schoolmasters was so great that they became
a drug in the market.
In the days before there were many regular schools
in New Jersey, much of the education must have been
carried on by what we now call private tutors; and a
schoolmaster who could be bought as if he had been
a horse or a cow was often a very convenient piece
of property. If a family should own a teacher who
was able only to instruct small children, it would he
very easy, when these children grew older and able to
undertake more advanced studies, to sell this primary
teacher to some family where there were young pupils,
and buy one capable of teaching higher branches.
It is said that these redemptioners were often treated
much more harshly and cruelly than the negro slaves,
and any one who assisted one of them to escape was
severely punished. There was good reason for this
difference in the treatment of the two classes of slaves;
for a negro was the property of his master as long
as he lived, and it was manifestly the interest of the
owner to keep his slave in good condition. But the
redemptioner could only be held for a certain time,
and, if his master was not a good man, he would be
apt to get out of him all the work that he could during
the time of his service, and to give him no more food
or clothing than was absolutely necessary.
After a time there were laws made to protect the
redemptioners. One of these was, that any person
sold after he was seventeen years old could not serve
for more than four years; and another provided, that,
when a redemptioner's time of service had expired, his
master should give him "two good suits of clothing,
suitable for a servant, one good ax, one good hoe,
and seven bushels of Indian corn."
But although the redemptioner sometimes fared very
badly in the new country, it often happened that he
came out very well in the end. Among the white
people who came here as slaves there were often convicts
and paupers; but even some of these succeeded
in bettering their condition and establishing themselves
is good citizens, and in founding families.
It often happened that some of the Germans who
came to buy land and settle, chose rather to put away
their money, and sell themselves as redemptioners to
English families, so that they might learn the English
language and manner of living. Then, when they had
educated themselves in this practical manner, and their
time of service was over, they could buy land, and
establish themselves on terms of equality with their
English neighbors.
But the trade in redemptioners gradually decreased;
and by the middle of the eighteenth century there
were not many of them left in New Jersey, although
there were a few in the State until after the Revolution.
Negro slavery, however, continued much longer.
It grew and flourished until it became a part of the
New Jersey social system; but it must not be supposed
that all the people of the State continued to
be satisfied with this condition of things.
At first everybody who could afford it owned slaves,
and the Friends or Quakers bought negroes the same
as other people did; but about the end of the seventeenth
century some of these Quakers began to think
that property in human beings was not a righteous
thing, and the Quakers of New Jersey united with
those of Pennsylvania in an agreement recommending
to the members of the Society of Friends that
they should no longer employ negro slaves, or, if they
thought it best to continue to do this, that they should
at least cease to import them.
A strong party among the Quakers of New Jersey
opposed slavery for many years, and the system was
denounced at some of their yearly meetings ; and this
went on until about the middle of the next century,
when a law was made that no person owning slaves
should continue in the Society of Friends.
As years passed on, people other than Quakers
began to consider slavery an injustice and an evil;
and this feeling gradually increased, until in the beginning
of the nineteenth century it became very
strong, and in 1820 an act was passed by the Legislature
for the emancipation of the slaves. They were
not set free all at once, and turned into the world to
take care of themselves; but a system of gradual
emancipation was adopted, by which he young people
obtained their freedom when they came of age, while
the masters were obliged to take care of the old negroes
as long as they lived. By this plan, slavery was very
gradually abolished in New Jersey, so that in 1840
there were still six hundred and seventy-four slaves
in the State; and even in 1860 eighteen slaves remained,
and these must have been very old.
Authorities:
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
"History of New Jersey." T. F. Gordon.
"History of New Jersey." J. C. Raum.
"Historical Collections." Barber and Howe.
"Story of an Old Farm." A. D. Mellick.
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