“New Jersey is one of the best-kept secrets.” He has pushed for the state to reactivate its Black Arts and Heritage Foundation to preserve black history.
It was not until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 - which New Jersey ratified with some reluctance in January 1866 - that the last 16 slaves in the state were forever freed.Īmong those attending Monday was the businessman Stedman Graham, the boyfriend of Oprah Winfrey and a native of Whitesboro, a small, predominantly African American community near Cape May. According to the Historical Society, New Jersey, which once had as many as 12,000 slaves, adopted gradual abolition in 1804. The ferry services continued until slavery was abolished in the state, the last Northern state to do so. In 1751, the Pennsylvania Gazette advertised the sale of a 26-year-old slave at the Federal Street Ferry, then owned by Daniel Cooper. Beginning in the 1750s, slave traders regularly began ferrying Africans to Camden’s docks. The American Weekly Mercury printed notification of Camden’s first two documented slave auctions in 1727. They cited slave auction advertisements in Philadelphia newspapers.
Many institutions in Camden bear the family name, including Cooper University Hospital.ĭuring what was described as an “Ancestral Remembrance Ceremony” Monday, historians shared information about Camden’s involvement in the Middle Passage. The three ferries used for trade across the river with Philadelphia were owned by the slave-owning Cooper family, which was among the city’s founders. “We can’t forget about history,” said Camden City Councilman Angel Fuentes, who presented a proclamation from the city to mark the event. That is where many of the slaves were transported from Philadelphia to Camden and forced to work on South Jersey farms.
It was unveiled on the waterfront near the Adventure Aquarium, once the site of the Cooper’s Point Ferry. The marker is titled, “Enslaved Africans Once Sold Here.” “We are here to bring pride and dignity to those who regularly experienced deprivation,” said Derek Davis, a member of the Camden County Historical Society, who headed the project that he said was necessary “to set history straight.” His great-great-great grandfather was born a slave in Alabama in 1853. Organizers said they want to make sure this painful part of New Jersey’s history is known. The now-bustling spot just feet from the Delaware River looks a lot different than it did nearly 300 years ago, when enslaved Africans, snatched from their homeland, arrived on crowded ships at the Camden docks and were sold at auctions around the city.Ī cast-iron historical marker was unveiled Monday at one of three former slave auction block sites in Camden, where historians say more than 800 slaves were sold.