You may be surprised to learn that slavery existed in West Windsor. Until the 1860s, generations of local Black residents suffered under this institution. The following article, published by the all-volunteer community nonprofit Historical Society of West Windsor, explores local slavery during this period.
Please note that research is still developing on this subject, so there may be significant gaps in our documentation. If you have additional resources to add to our historical knowledge, please email us: westwindsorhistory@gmail.com.
For more, visit: www.WestWindsorHistory.com/Slavery
Origins
Slavery in New Jersey is as old as its earliest colonial roots. In the early 1600s, Dutch colonists trafficked African captives to the province of New Netherland, centered on its capital, New Amsterdam (southern Manhattan). These captives were bound into “chattel slavery” – wherein they were considered property to be sold and used. Under this system, children frequently inherited enslaved status from their parents.
The colonial government promoted slavery so much that New Amsterdam was at one point considered the most important “slave port” in North America where people were offloaded like cargo, sold on auction blocks, and often separated from their families forever. After the English annexed New Netherland in 1664, and renamed the territory “New Jersey,” slavery remained promoted for centuries.
Enslaved people often fought back against their captors, including via various several “slave revolts” over the generations. However, they were often brutally suppressed. Moreover, over the years, restrictions and oppression grew. One 1694 law forbade enslaved people from carrying guns, owning property, and lodging in homes without their enslavers’ consent.
The following year, procedures were established to prosecute and punish those accused of committing felonies or murder. Abuses could be horrendous – from being whipped to being dragged behind a cart to having limbs cut off to being hanged and more. Conditions only worsened with the passage of a 1704 “Slave Code” which prohibited any sale of property by or to free and enslaved Black people and enforced a curfew as well.
Early Area Landowners
In the 1690s, powerful individuals like William Penn – famed Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania – began to acquire vast swaths of land in the West Windsor area, some thousands of acres each. Most of these people were enslavers, although most did not live here and were instead absentee land speculators. Penn himself kept 12 enslaved individuals on his estate in Pennsbury, north of Philadelphia. One of his contemporaries, David Lyell (who, like Penn, is memorialized in the naming of “Penn Lyle Road”) enslaved others as well – including a man named Tom, was executed after his involvement in the New York Slave Revolt of 1712.
Slavery in Windsor Twp.
Although a handful of colonists started moving here in the 1690s, it was not until the 1730s that settlement surged when various families—primarily of Dutch and English descent— established many of our town’s oldest communities, and immense farms stretching across the entire landscape. Some of them saw slavery as a convenient source of labor in the “Garden State.” At the time, West Windsor Township did not exist; instead, we were part of a larger municipality called “Windsor Township” (formed in 1730/31 and dissolved in 1797).
Tax rolls from 1778 reveal 34 individuals were enslaved in town, and a census from the year 1790 shows a dramatic rise, to 190 (out of about 2,800 residents overall). Even some local soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War – itself predicated on the concept of independence – promoted the institution. One such soldier, John B. Bergen (1739-1808), wrote into his will that upon his death, those enslaved under him would receive an awful “privilege:” that they “be allowed the privilege of choosing their own Masters at a reasonable price.”
Slavery in West Windsor
Windsor Township split into East Windsor and West Windsor in 1797. Still, slavery persisted, as shown in numerous newspaper ads, records of sale, manumission (freedom) documents, and more. Over time, slavery gradually dwindled in West Windsor. The 1830 census lists 21 enslaved individuals. By 1840, three were enslaved in town. And the 1860 census records one: a woman named Diana Updike. Her enslavers were the Fisher family, who owned a series of farms off Southfield Road, including the present-day Schenck Farmstead/West Windsor History Museum. The Historical Society is working on various initiatives to highlight her story and local slavery in general, including new interpretive signage to be installed later this year. Diana herself is also notable as being one of the last few dozen enslaved individuals in the state prior to ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Gradual Abolition
The road to freedom was long and hard-fought. In 1786, New Jersey passed legislation providing for regular manumission (freedom) of those between the ages of 21 and 35 on the condition that that they be brought before certain Township officials. It also forbade any freed Black person from another state from traveling to or remaining in New Jersey for an extended period and prohibited those who were freed within New Jersey from leaving the state without a certificate from several Township authorities.
However, this legislation was repealed in 1798, and manumission requirements made more restrictive. In 1804, the State Legislature passed an act requiring the registration of those born into slavery after July 4 of that year and declared them “free.” However, this law still bound these children as servants until they were in their twenties. Moreover, it did not account for those born before July 4, 1804.
For over the next four decades, a few other laws ostensibly addressed slavery but were toothless at best. In fact, slavery was so rampant throughout the state that by 1830, two-thirds of enslaved people still living in the North were reputedly held by slaveowners in the state. Also during the early to mid-1800s, tens of thousands escaped the southern states to freedom via the “Underground Railroad,” which likely passed through the West Windsor area.
In 1846, New Jersey formally abolished slavery, but with glaring loopholes, including that those born after the 1804 Act were simply reclassified as “apprenticed for life.” As previously mentioned, this was evidenced in the fact that, in West Windsor, Diana Updike remained listed as a “slave servant” in the 1860s, as did Sarah Cox, who died enslaved in West Windsor in 1862 at 93 years old.
It was not until New Jersey ratified the 13th Amendment in January 1866 (the last northern state to do so), that slavery was formally abolished in the state, and disappeared from West Windsor. Even then, some continued to work on local farms as paid laborers.
The struggle for freedom from slavery was long and hard-fought and slavery’s repercussions are felt to this day. Let us not forget that even in West Windsor, which so often and so publicly celebrates its diversity, there is a long and dark underbelly to our communal history that also deserves recognition.
To learn more about this history, visit: WestWindsorHistory.com/Slavery.
The Historical Society is an all-volunteer nonprofit; all our volunteers donate their free time to document and promote our Township’s history. There is a lot to preserve and document, but we can’t do it without your support. Please consider volunteering and/or donating to help us grow and expand our impact. To learn more, visit: westwindsorhistory.com.
Paul Ligeti is the president of the Historical Society of West Windsor.
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