One of the most notorious Episcopal enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey was Middlesex County Judge, and long-serving church warden of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Spotswood, Jacob Van Wickle. Culminating in 1818, he orchestrated an illegal slave-trading ring that resulted in the fraudulent removal out-of-state of well over one hundred enslaved African Americans, some of whom had formerly been free and had been kidnapped by the agents of the ring. Many scholars and public history projects have sought to document his actions,[1] and documentation of his Episcopal affiliation and leadership has been made previously on the DNJRJR, including the efforts of fellow church leaders to deny any illegal behavior.[2] On March 10, 1818 the first ship carrying individuals trafficked by the ring set sail from Sandy Hook, New Jersey.[3]
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| Figure 1: Sandy Hook, NJ from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski |
The ship manifest of the Mary Ann documents[4] the names and ages of those thirty-nine individuals kidnapped or trafficked under false pretenses and sold south into permanent slavery:
Peter, age 15; Simon (age unknown, a free person); Margaret Coven (age unknown, a free person); Sarah, age 21; Dianna, age 7 months; Rachel, age 22; Regina, age 6 weeks; Hager, age 29; Roda, age 14; Mary, age 2; Augustus, age 4; Flora, age 23; Susan, age 7 months; Harry, age 14; James, age 21; Elmirah, age 14; George, age 16; Susan Watt, age 35; Moses, age 16; Lydia, age 18; Betty, age 22; Patty, age 22; Bass, age 19; Christeen, age 27; Diannah, age 9; Dorcas, age 1; Claresse, age 22; Hercules, age 2; Lidia, age 22; Harriett Jane, age 3; Bob (no age given); Rosanna (no age given); Claus (no age given); Ann (no age given); Rosino, a child; Jenette (no age given); Charles, a child; Elias, a child; Robert, a child.
Van Wickle was never indicted for his actions.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] Some excellent documentation of primary sources related to Van Wickle and the slave ring are available through the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center which hosts New Jersey slavery records. See “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” at https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/item/1284, accessed September 26, 2023. See also Francis Pingeon, “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818,” New Jersey History 109.3 (1991): 15-35; James J. Gigantino, II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77.3 (2010): 281-302; Calvin Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 69-80; Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 79; and Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 157-160. See also the presentation from the Lost Souls Memorial Project (“Inside the Van Wickle’s Slave Ring: ‘Exposing a Scene of Villany’” at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org/wp-content/uploads/Inside-Van-Wickles-Slave-Ring.pdf, accessed September 25, 2023); the material published by the East Brunswick Historical Society (“Van Wickle and Morgan Slave Ring Leaders East Brunswick, NJ (1818)” at https://purehistory.org/van-wickle-and-morgan-slave-ring-leaders-east-brunswick-new-jersey-1818/, accessed September 26, 2023); “The 1619 Project” article by Anne C. Bailey, “They Sold Human Beings Here,” New York Times, February 12, 2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/12/magazine/1619-project-slave-auction-sites.html, accessed September 26, 2023; the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center article “Removal to Louisiana: The Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/archive/exhibits/show/hub-city/removal-to-louisiana, accessed September 26, 2023); Regina Fitzpatrick “New Jersey State Archives Van Wickle Slave Ring Free Digital Collection,” at https://www.njstatelib.org/news/vanwickleslaveringcollection/, accessed September 26, 2023; and the State of New Jersey, “Documents at the New Jersey State Archives relating to the Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/VanWickleTableOfContents.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.
[3] Sandy Hook can be viewed from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook in Atlantic Highlands, NJ: www.monmouthcountyparks.com. Take Rte. 36 / Ocean Ave east to jug-handle signs for “Red Bank / Scenic Road.” Follow signs for the park.
[4] Also to be found at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.
