The Rev. John Holbrooke was a missionary priest assigned to Salem County, New Jersey in the late 1720’s. In a letter[1] written to the Secretary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) updating the Society on his work, Holbrooke describes the population of the region in some detail. In so doing, he produced what may be understood as perhaps the earliest precise Anglican slavery audit of a parish in New Jersey. The first relevant portion of the letter[2] (section 3) details the general population of Salem County:
By a computation lately made by the Governor’s order, it appears that there are about 4000 Inhabitants in this County, from which deducting 500 of the [Swedish] [Settlers], and 250 that up and down the County profess themselves members of the Church of England, the remainder are Dissenters of different Denominations, viz., Quakers, Independents, Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Seventh Day men, etc. There is but one Baptist family in the County.[3]
_-_Geographicus_-_NewEnglandNewYork-moll-1729%20-%20cropped.jpg) |
| Detail of "Salham" (Salem) region from the 1729 "Moll Map." Herman Moll artist QS:P170,Q1610319 http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/cartographers/moll.txt, 1729 Moll Map of New York, New England, and Pennsylvania (First Postal Map of New England) - Geographicus - NewEnglandNewYork-moll-1729, Cropped by Jolyon Pruszinski, CC0 1.0 |
The second pertinent section of the letter (section 6) describes the enslaved Black population of the County and the prevalence of slave ownership among Anglicans in the parish:
The number of [Negro] and other Slaves in the County lately given in to the Sherriff was 150, of which twelve belong to six people of my Congregation. I have baptized one [Negro] Woman lately, as for the rest I have [endeavored] what I could to procure their Baptism, but what through the remissness of their masters and what through the stupid unconcernedness of the Negroes it is yet unaffected. The People in these Countries take little or no care to instruct either their children or Negroes. Such a Strong Spirit of [fanaticism] and Giddiness reigns here that I must confess I see but little hopes of gaining over many to a Sober Sense of Religion; and the practices of the People are generally as bad as their principles, among whom the [Hypocrisy], [Cousinage], and oppression, not to mention other vices, are Common. The men that act with great [Candor] and Integrity are, I think, those that join with us, but among those there are some I fear that are only nominal Brethren.
From this account we can determine many things, among them that Holbrooke did not have a high opinion of Blacks in his parish, but he seems not to have had a very high view of the inhabitants of his parish generally. He viewed the proper responsibility for religious influence upon enslaved Blacks as lying with their enslavers, and further, viewed said responsibility as largely neglected. And whatever his efforts may have been toward potential Black parishioners, he did not view these efforts as terribly successful at this time.
As to the demographic data presented, it appears that the enslaved (mostly Blacks) made up approximately 3.75 percent of the population of the County (150/4000). Anglicans made up 6.25 percent (250/4000). Holbrooke states that his parishioners account for the enslavement of twelve of these, that is, eight percent of those enslaved in the County. These twelve he claimed were owned by only six Anglicans. The six mentioned here are probably not individuals but households, so we cannot take this data to mean that the rate of slave ownership among Anglicans in the county was only 2.4 percent (6/250) but probably much higher, as households, especially of the wealthy who owned slaves were typically much larger. The figure of 2.4 percent should be understood as an unlikely absolute minimum. The actual rate would appear to have been several times higher (perhaps 7-12 percent), a reality shown by the fact that though Anglicans made up only 6.25 percent of the population, they accounted for enslavement of 8 percent of the total enslaved Blacks in the County. Not only so, but official figures for slaveholding were often lower than the reality since enslavers had an incentive for tax purposes to undercount.[4] In later letters Holbrooke suggests that eventually his congregation at St. John’s Church, Salem began to grow modestly in part as the result of what he called “imported servants” but this is likely a euphemism for enslaved Blacks.[5]
These data suggest that while ownership of slaves was mostly a phenomenon prevalent among the wealthy, Holbrooke’s descriptions of his parishioners as “poor” does not preclude the prevalence of slavery among the Anglicans to whom he ministered. While it is unclear whether Holbrooke himself enslaved any Blacks at this time, after 1732 he left Salem to take a parish in Virginia that would enable a more lucrative income, including income from participation in the plantation economy. By the time he passed away in Virginia in 1747 he had accumulated a large plantation estate and enslaved at least thirteen Blacks.[6]
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] The letter is dated to November 17, 1727.
[2] Courtesy of the British Online Archives, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.) Correspondence Collection: “American in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1635-1928” A Series Letter Book Vol. 20, pages 193-198. Manuscript copy scans at:
https://microform.digital/boa/collections/11/volumes/37/the-a-series-letter-books-1702-1737.
[3] Transcription edited for clarity according to modern language conventions. Alterations to the original text (spelling) made for the sake of clarity appear in [brackets]. Punctuation changes, expansions of abbreviations, and updated archaisms (e.g. substitutions of “you” for “thee” or “thou”) are not noted.
[4]
[5] Nelson R. Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), 146.
[6] See “John Holbrook, Will, Northampton County, Virginia – 1746,” in Winnie Tallant, Migration of Holbrooks from England to America and Forsyth County, Georgia (Cumming, GA: W. Tallant, 1983), 3.
