The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ) has posted video from the sixth of nine public sessions sponsored by the New Jersey Reparations Council, held on September 9, 2024. The content deals with the work of the Democracy subcommittee.
Monday, September 30, 2024
Monday, September 23, 2024
NEWS: New Research at the Anglican Studies Seminar of the American Academy of Religion
Research from the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review will be featured in the upcoming Anglican Studies Seminar at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in San Diego this November. The program will include papers examining “missiological currents within Anglicanism, past and present, that contribute to… Anglican identity formation and the ecclesiologies that arise alongside those identities." The Reparations Commission Research Historian, Dr. Jolyon Pruszinski will present “‘White Flight’ Missiology and Its Result: Racially Segregated Ecclesiology in the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.” From the introduction to his paper:
Functionally speaking, the most recent burst of missionary effort and funding in the Diocese of New Jersey was the period of church planting and growth that occurred aimed at serving the massive suburban growth in the state in the mid-twentieth century. This period of development in the state has been characterized by urban planners as a period of “White flight” during which White families fled urban areas and settled in newly built, and (either formally or informally) racially restricted suburban developments in order to avoid proximity to Black neighbors.
The Diocese of New Jersey fully cooperated with this pattern of development, often funding and building new churches in functionally racially restricted suburban areas. The construction of Christ the King, Levittown is exemplary: land was donated to the diocese by Levitt & Sons; A diocese-wide fundraising campaign ensued, which included the forced liquidation of the historically Black congregation of St. Monica’s, Trenton in order to use proceeds from the sale of property to fund building Christ the King; parishioners of St. Monica’s were instructed to attend other churches in the name of “integration;” only one of the several Trenton-area Episcopal churches offered a formal invitation to them. And while Christ the King began in the mid-20th century as exclusively White, once race-restrictions were overturned and Black neighbors moved in, most White families left the area and the church, and by the 1990s the diocese formally designated it a Black church.
Many urban Episcopal churches in the diocese during this period, such as in Trenton, Atlantic City, Elizabeth, and Camden, closed after being abandoned by White Episcopalians. Other formerly all-White churches in these areas were handed over to Black residents and have become Black churches (not unlike Christ the King). While the pattern of segregation in churches in the diocese partly dates to the Jim Crow era, during which the formation of a few Black churches was allowed rather than letting overt hostility from White Episcopalians “drive [Black people] to schism by cold neglect” (to quote Bishop Scarborough’s 1890 convention address), this pattern was further buttressed and cemented by the cooperation of diocesan authorities with the systemically racist patterns of development that were occurring throughout the state mid-century.
The result today is a significantly functionally segregated diocese, with Black churches located mostly in areas that have experienced decades of economic difficulty and systemic neglect, and White churches mostly located in areas that have been comparatively prosperous and fully supported with infrastructure and services. One of the results of this geographic pattern has been perennial underfunding of Black churches and ministries. Moreover, the relational and communication structure of the diocese has mirrored the physically segregated structure, with Black congregations siloed off from the rest of the diocese in many ways.
These current patterns of ecclesial organization in the diocese (racial segregation, respective location of thriving White churches and ailing Black churches, underfunded Black churches, siloed communication, etc.) appear to be, in part, the result of a long cooperation (on the part of the diocesan administration) with the prevailing patterns of systemic racism that produced the current, functionally segregated makeup of the state of New Jersey.
For more information on the upcoming Seminar see https://papers.aarweb.org/session/anglican-studies-seminar-session-1.
Monday, September 16, 2024
Public History in the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review: Research, Reckoning, Education, and Formation
"The full scope of the diocese’s complicity with slavery needed to be discovered before any other steps were taken. This was the consensus of the newly minted Reparations Commission of the Diocese of New Jersey in the summer of 2022. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, and under the leadership of then diocesan bishop, William H. Stokes, in November 2020, the diocese took up the charge of General Convention Resolution A143 and approved the formation of a year-long Reparations Task Force to begin to investigate its history with slavery and racism. Years of running anti-racism trainings had worked to build diocese-wide support for the effort. This broad support was clear from the rapid affirmation by the diocesan convention of converting the Task Force into a formal Commission following its initial work in 2022. The first members of the Commission considered their first most pressing goal to be establishing how the church had participated in the early days of New Jersey’s development of a slavery economy..."
For the full article go to https://www.jstor.org/stable/27327198 or contact us!
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
Friday, August 30, 2024
Marlpit Hall, Middletown: A Site of Memory
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| Figure 1: Marlpit Hall, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski, taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association. |
Marlpit Hall[1] is a well-preserved Middletown, New Jersey colonial-era residence which was owned by Edward Taylor and his descendants. It is now operated as a Museum by the Monmouth County Historical Association. Taylor and his family were Anglican and Episcopal enslavers who were part of the leadership of the Christ Churches of Middletown and Shrewsbury for decades. Interpretive materials at the exhibit state that
“from Edward Taylor’s purchase [of the property] in 1771 until at least 1832, the Taylor family of Marlpit Hall… had an unbroken chain of slave ownership. The men, women, and children who worked on the family’s farm fields, grist mill, and inside the house itself helped to maintain the Taylor family’s lifestyle.”
The exhibit at Marlpit Hall, which is entitled “Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall,” rightly focuses on the experiences of the people enslaved by the Taylors. Among these were at least ten for whom Marlpit itself was their primary residence, including York, Tom, Mary Ann, Elizabeth Van Cleaf, William Van Cleaf, Hannah Van Cleaf, Matilda Leonard, Clarisse Leonard, Ephraim Leonard, and George.
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| Figure 2: Quarters of the enslaved at Marlpit, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski, taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association. |
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| Figure 3: The kitchen at Marlpit, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski, taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association. |
One of the Anglican priests mentioned in the exhibits here at Marlpit Hall is Thomas Thompson, who served in New Jersey for about five years in a number of congregations in Monmouth County. While he did baptize some enslaved Black people (including at least one person he himself enslaved), he also was a staunch defender of slavery, writing a well-known treatise in defense of the trade. He wrote this treatise on the heels of his service as the chaplain to the slave trading company based in Cape Coast Castle off the coast of West Africa, a post he took up immediately following his service in New Jersey.
Another Anglican mentioned in the exhibit is the influential Lewis Morris, who contributed to the founding of multiple churches in New Jersey and would later become governor. He owned the iron works at Tinton Falls, where he enslaved over sixty people. As the exhibit states, “The enslaved labor working at Tinton Manor provided the template for Monmouth County’s budding slave society.”
The exhibit also mentions Morris’ cousin and business partner (also named Lewis Morris) who had been killed in the 1690’s by two enslaved men (Jeremy and Agebee). They were avenging Morris’ un-punished abuse and murder of a Black woman he enslaved.[2] Christ Church, Middletown is built over the site where Jeremy and Agebee were executed.
It is perhaps unsurprising, in light of their treatment by Episcopal enslavers, that enslaved African-Americans often did not ultimately affiliate with the Episcopal church. Rape of enslaved women by White male heads of household (and their sons) was common, and it is not unlikely that Matilda Leonard’s designation as “mulatto” in exhibit documents evidences this reality. She went on to marry Rev. James Simmons of St. James African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Matawan. (Note: the African Methodist Episcopal Church is not part of The Episcopal Church, and was formed in response to mistreatment of African-Americans by the Episcopal Church).
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| Figure 4: Detail of exhibit showing the house where St. James AME Church, Matawan first met, with (probably) Matilda Leonard pictured, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski, taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association. |
The Marpit Hall exhibit provides excellent information about the history of slavery in New Jersey, material evidence of the lived experience of slavery for those who were enslaved at Marlpit, and documentation of the lives of their Anglican and Episcopal enslavers.
As you take the tour, and as you look around the beautiful home, remember the words of U.S. Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen who, in 1824 said “survey... your comfortable habitations, your children rising around you to bless you. Who, under Providence, caused those hills to rejoice and those valleys to smile? ... Remember the toils and tears of black men”[3] and women.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] The address is: 137 Kings Hwy.; Middletown, NJ 07748; Museum is open Fri-Sun 1-4pm. Other times for groups by appointment. See also: https://visitnj.org/marlpit-hall; https://www.journeythroughjersey.com/sites/marlpit-hall/; https://www.app.com/story/news/history/2021/10/20/middletown-marlpit-hall-slavery-exhibit- shackles/8507793002/.
[2] See Weeks, Not for Filthy Lucre’s Sake, 113.
[3] As quoted in Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 189.
Thursday, August 22, 2024
The Dimissory Letter of James C. Ward: First ordained Black Deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey
Not much is known[1] about the canonical residency of the first ordained Black deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey, but diocesan records indicate that the Rev. James C. Ward was indeed canonically resident approximately from 1829 to 1831. He is mentioned as being received into the diocese in the convention journal of 1830, though no assignment or place of service is noted. There are no known records of him officiating or teaching during this time, though he had previously been a school teacher in Pennsylvania, and would go on to teach again in Maryland after his tenure in New Jersey. The diocesan convention journal of 1832 indicates that he had moved to Maryland with the approval of Bishop Croes.
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| Figure 1: The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City (Elisa.rolle, Pierpont Morgan Library, CC BY-SA 3.0) |
Though the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City holds the manuscript of the letter dimissory furnished by Croes in 1831 for Ward’s transfer, the letter sheds little light on Ward’s activities in the diocese. It is essentially a form letter, offering little in the way of clues:
The Rev.’ James C. Ward (a coloured man,) a Deacon of this Diocese, having made application to me for a letter dimissory to the Rt. Rev.’ the Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland, I hereby cheerfully grant his request, and do certify, that he has not, so far as I know, been liable to evil report for error in religion or viciousness of life, during the the [sic] three years last past.[2]
It seems most likely that Rev. Ward moved to New Jersey in the hope of teaching for the diocese or a church of the diocese in a segregated school, even though none were then formally or consistently in operation. Apparently no adequate opportunities became available, and he moved to the Diocese of Maryland, where such a teaching position had become available. It was not for decades yet that segregated Episcopal-affiliated schools in New Jersey were taught by Black instructors, and it seems that at the time the Rev. Ward first sought to do so, no White parishes were willing to sponsor him.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] See an initial treatment in Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski “Rev. James C. Ward (1777-1834), the first African American clergyman in the Diocese of New Jersey,” DNJRJR, October 9, 2023.
[2] John Croes to Revd. James C. Ward, July 16, 1831; Record ID 108178, Accession number MA 365.121, courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Perth Amboy Ferry Slip: A Site of Memory
The ferry slip at Perth Amboy hosts a UNESCO port marker as a site of memory associated with the Middle Passage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Perth Amboy served as the primary port of entry for ships bringing enslaved persons from Africa and regularly hosted a slave market.
Figure 1: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (front), photo Jolyon Pruszinski
Figure 2: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (back), photo Jolyon Pruszinski
The text of the marker reads:
Enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic Human Trade:
Near this site enslave Africans disembarked at Perth Amboy, the principal port in eastern New Jersey. During colonial times, numerous slave ships such as the Catherine, William, Africa and Sally were present in Raritan Bay, sending their captives upon the city pier – now the present-day site of the Historic Ferry Slip. In one day alone, the Catherine arrived with 240 enslaved people, leaving 17 dead at sea, and depositing 130 survivors in Perth Amboy.
In Africa, traders captured approximately 24 million children, women and men, half of whom died on the march to coastal prisons or within the prisons awaiting transport across the Atlantic. Chained and tightly packed in dark, filthy, stifling hot cargo holds, 12 million endured ocean crossings that often took months. During these voyages, known as the Middle Passage, 2 million people died from disease, malnutrition, dehydration, abuse and suicide.
African slavery in New Jersey began with the early Dutch settlement named New Netherland. Ideally suited as a maritime port of entry, Perth Amboy, the colonial capital of East Jersey, was an arrival location for ships during the trans-Atlantic human trade. Because the colony of New Jersey imposed no tariff on the importation of captive Africans, many traders disembarked their human cargo at this location, avoiding taxation while supplying buyers in New Jersey and other colonies.
In 1790, New Jersey’s enslaved African population was 11,423. It was the last Northern state to adopt gradual emancipation in 1804. By 1854, the Eagleswood section in Perth Amboy became a major station of the Underground Railroad. Slavery was not completely abolished until 1865[1] by the adoption of the 13thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In 2019, Perth Amboy was designated a “Site of Memory” by the UNESCO Slave Route Project.
Anglicans and Episcopalians were intimately involved in the legal establishment of slavery in New Jersey, in defending the trade, and in profiting from enslavement.
One of the most recent instances of Episcopal engagement with the slave trade in Perth Amboy occurred in 1818 in connection with the Van Wickle slave ring. As many have documented elsewhere,[2] Van Wickle was one of the most notorious enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey. As a Middlesex County Judge he facilitated the illegal trafficking out-of-state of well over one hundred African-Americans who were either already free in New Jersey, or who would have become free under gradual abolition. They were permanently enslaved in the south through Van Wickle’s actions. Public outcry shut down the operation of the ring in late 1818, but not before Van Wickle had convinced the other lay leaders of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Spottswood to defend his actions in print.[3] Van Wickle managed to orchestrate the sailing of one last ship of enslaved persons out of Perth Amboy, late in 1818, after public pressure on the ring had already begun to mount. On October 26, 1818 the ring smuggled forty-eight people[4] out of Perth Amboy aboard the Schoharie. These are their names from the shipping manifest:
William M. Clare, 25; John C. Marsh (of New York); John C. March (on board); Jafe Manning, 21; Robert Cook, 17; Ben Morris, 22; Sam Prince, 19; Sam Peter, 30; George Phillips, 18; James Thompson; Edward Gilbert, 22; Dan Francis, 20; James, 15; Charles, 19; Susan Wilcox, 36; Nelly, 18; Betsey Lewis, 28; Jane Clarkson, 23; Eliza Thompson, 21; Jane Cook, 15; Ann Moore, 29; Julian Jackson, 21; Jane Smith, 33; Peggy Boss, 21; Mary Harris, 21; Sally Cross, 20; Rosanna Cooper, 22; Mary Simmons, 18; Hannah Jackson, 18; Hanna Crigier, 18; Harriet Silas, 15; Fanny Thompson, 14; Elizabeth Ann Turner, 16; Susan Jackson, 20; Hanna Johnson, 20; Hannah, 18; Cane, 22; William Stone (New York); Jack, 22; Lewis, 22; Peter 14; Frank, 21; Caleb Groves, 50; John, 21; Collins, 35; Othello, 16; Anthony Fortune, 21; Joseph Henricks, 19; Jane, 23; Susan 21; Lena, 38.
Van Wickle was never even indicted for his crimes.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] This is an inaccuracy in the site marker text. Slavery was not fully abolished by the 13th Amendment because the text of the amendment specifically allowed slavery as a legal punishment for a crime.
[2] See the various primary sources and public history project related to Van Wickle and the slave ring listed in Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.
[4] Documented at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.
Monday, July 8, 2024
The Enslaved in the Parish Register at Christ Church, Shrewsbury
This address and reading were delivered by Christ Church, Shrewsbury historian Jamie Greene and parishioners Bill Cuff, Connie Goddard, and Robert Maber at the Stations of Reparations service of repentance on March 25, 2023 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Freehold.[1]
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| Figure 1: Christ Church, Shrewsbury parishioners at the Stations of Reparations Service, 2023. Screen capture of the St. Peter's, Freehold recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU. |
“As you enter the narthex at Christ Church, Shrewsbury, on the left you’ll see a large plaque commemorating Lewis Morris at whose home in 1702 our first church service was held. On the right you’ll see another plaque with a list of rectors including Samuel Cooke, the sixth rector, who was the driving force behind our current 1769 church building. Both men were slaveholders. Lewis Morris owned scores to work his bog-iron works. Rev. Cooke and his family had multiple slaves. But as slaveholders in Shrewsbury and Christ Church, Shrewsbury they were not alone. Historian Rick Geffken who is with us here today found that there were fifty-seven Shrewsbury slaveholders in 1771. Twenty-five of those worshipped at Christ Church. Rather than focus on the enslavers though, we’d like to remember today some of the fifty-four “negroes” and “mulattos” who were baptized at Christ Church between 1733 and 1775 using the original language found in our parish registers for those years.”
August 5, 1746.
John: Negro servant of Thomas Clayton, resident, Freehold; under sentence of death.
September 18, 1748.
Henry: Negro servant (of Mr. Leonard) whose name was “Fortune.”
June 13, 1749.
Peter: A free negro living with Mrs. Deuill.
September 8, 1749.
Zebulon: Son of a mulatto woman commonly called “Black Robin.”
September 22, 1749.
Anthony: A negro child belonging to Mrs. Jane Forman.
October 28, 1749.
Edith: 8-month-old mulatto, infant daughter of Edith Finemore.
August 19, 1750.
William: A negro servant of Mr. Tunis Dennis, commonly called “Forturian.”
July 24, 1751.
Sarah West: Father (Robin West) is a mulatto.
October 4, 1751.
Elizabeth: A negro woman of Mrs. Morford.
March 30, 1752.
Oliver: A negro child belonging to Samuel Leonard.
August 23, 1752.
Elizabeth: A negro woman belonging to the widow Forman.
August 23, 1752.
Diego: A negro belonging to Mr. Joseph Throckmorton.
May 6, 1756.
Rachel: Adult negro servant of Ms. Isabella Kearny [sister in law of Rev. Samuel Cooke] and the children of Rachel (Mary, Margaret, Robert Johnson, Bella).
[1] Transcript created by Jolyon Pruszinski from the St. Peter’s, Freehold video broadcast of the service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU. Additional documentation is available in the article “Remembering the Enslaved at Christ Church,” hosted on the Christ Church, Shrewsbury homepage: https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/?p=6658. Note: often at this time, a designation of “mulatto” suggests rape as a likely circumstance of conception.
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