Enslaved Africans in New Jersey Under Dutch and Then English Rule (1660s)

New Jersey (first as part of New Netherland, then as an English proprietary colony after 1664) had enslaved African residents from its earliest colonial period. Under English rule, slavery was formalized: the East Jersey code of 1682 included slave regulations, and New Jersey's enslaved population grew steadily through the late 17th century. Like New York, New Jersey's slavery was largely domestic and agricultural — different in scale from the plantation South but no less brutal in its fundamental violence and denial of freedom.