The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775–1865

Abstract

There is a certain in-between-ness to New Jersey’s history with the institution of slavery. Even though we generally think of New Jersey as a “free” state, historians have often reminded us that as late as the census of 1860 the state contained eighteen “apprentices for life,” slaves in all but name. Some historians have suggested, though, that focusing too much on these eighteen individuals risks overstating the persistence and resilience of slavery in the Garden State; we should instead, they argue, focus on the tens of thousands of free blacks counted in that same census. In this thoughtful book, James Gigantino challenges the notion that slavery was peripheral to New Jersey in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Slavery, he argues, endured far longer in the state than it is often believed, and the persistence of slavery continued to shape relationships between white and black residents of New Jersey, even after most black New Jerseyans escaped into the quasi