FACTS RELATED TO NEW JERSEY STATE CLAIMS
103. The State of New Jersey had numerous ports whose major commodity was enslaved Africans.
104. These ports included Camden, Elizabeth, Perth Amboy, Bayonne and Newark. Phillip Carteret, New Jersey's first Governor, encouraged the institution of slavery in New Jersey in that in 1665, additional grants of land were awarded to his fellow voyagers from England, if they arrived with slaves and indentured servants.
105. In 1674, the area that is now New Jersey was divided into two colonies, East and West. East Jersey consisted of the counties now known as Bergen Essex, Middlesex and Monmouth. East New Jersey's financial base came primarily from the trade of enslaved Africans.
106. Moreover, like New York, enslaved Africans' labor built East Jersey. It was rare for white people living in East Jersey to be without enslaved Africans. Colonial New Jersey earned the notorious distinction of importing larger numbers of enslaved Africans than any other northern colony and for its harsher treatment of enslaved Africans than any other colony.
107. On the eve of the Revolution, enslaved Africans were estimated to be 10-12 per cent of East Jersey's population.
108. In fact, New Jersey was the last Northern state to abolish slavery in 1828, years after its other Northern counterparts.
