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Slavery in New Jersey began in the early 17th century, when Dutch colonists imported African slaves for labor to develop their colony of New Netherland. After England took control the colony in 1664, its colonists continued the importation of slaves from Africa. They also imported "seasoned" slaves from their colonies in the West Indies and enslaved Native Americans from the Carolinas. Most Dutch and English immigrants entered the colony as indentured servants, who worked for a fixed number of years to repay their passage. As conditions in England improved and the number of indentured laborers declined, New Jersey's colonists imported more Africans for needed labor. To promote increasing the number of laborers and settlers in order to develop the colony, the colonial government awarded settlers headrights of of land for each person transported to the colony. During the American Revolution, enslaved African Americans fought on each side. The British Crown promised freedom to slaves who would leave their rebel masters and fight for the British. The number of blacks in Manhattan increased to 10,000, as thousands of slaves escape to the British for the promise of freedom. The British refused to return former slaves to the Americans and they evacuated many Black Loyalists together with their troops and other Loyalists; they resettled more than 3,000 freedmen in their colony of Nova Scotia. Others were transported to England and the West Indies. Bergen County developed as the largest slaveholding county in the state,〔("Bergen County Slavery" ), Bergen County, accessed 13 July 2012〕 in part because many slaves were used as laborers in its ports and cities. After the Revolutionary War, many northern states rapidly passed laws to abolish slavery, but New Jersey did not abolish it until 1804, and then in a process of gradual emancipation similar to that of New York. But, in New Jersey, some slaves were held as late as 1865. (In New York, they were all freed by 1827.) The law made African Americans free at birth, but it required children (born to slave mothers), to serve lengthy apprenticeships as a type of indentured servant until early adulthood for the masters of their slave mothers. New Jersey was the last of the Northern states to abolish slavery completely. The last 16 slaves in New Jersey were freed in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment.〔("Interview: James Oliver Horton: Exhibit Reveals History of Slavery in New York City" ), PBS Newshour, 25 January 2007, accessed 11 February 2012〕 The Underground Railroad had several routes crossing the state, four of which ended in Jersey City, where fugitive slaves could cross the Hudson River. During the American Civil War, African Americans served in several all-black Union Army regiments from New Jersey. In 2008, the legislature of New Jersey passed a resolution of official apology for slavery, becoming the third state to do so. ==Colonial period== The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the importation of eleven black slaves to New Amsterdam, capital of the nascent province of New Netherland. They worked as farmers, fur traders, and builders. It later expanded across the North River (Hudson River) to Pavonia and Communipaw, eventually becoming Bergen, where slaves worked the company plantation.〔 Settlers to the area later held slaves privately, often using them as domestic servants and laborers.〔〔 Although enslaved, the Africans had a few basic rights and families were usually kept intact. They were admitted to the Dutch Reformed Church and married by its ministers, who also baptized their children. Slaves could testify in court, sign legal documents, and bring civil actions against whites. Some were permitted to work after hours, when they earned wages equal to those paid to white workers. When the colony fell, the company freed all its slaves, establishing early on a nucleus of free negros.〔 English traders continued to import African slaves after they took over the colony from the Dutch in 1664 and established a proprietorship. Eager to attract more settlers and laborers to develop the colony, the proprietorship encouraged the importation of slaves for labor by offering settlers headrights, an award of allocations of land based on the number of workers, slaves or indentured servants, imported to the colony. The first African slaves to appear in English records were owned by Colonel Lewis Morris in Shrewsbury. In an early attempt to encourage European settlement, the New Jersey legislature enacted a prohibitive tariff against imported slaves to encourage European indentured servitude.〔 〕 When this act expired in 1721, however, the British Government and New Jersey's royal governor, countered attempts to renew it. The slave trade was a royal monopoly and had become a lucrative enterprise.〔 Camden was a center for the importation of slaves, its ferry docks on the Delaware River across from Philadelphia acting as auction sites for the plantations in the Delaware Valley, of which Pomona Hall was one.〔http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews136.shtml〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of slavery in New Jersey」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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