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A Study of Slavery in New Jersey.
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woman twenty pounds, the money being raised by a poll tax upon all the slaves in the county above fourteen years of age and under fifty.1 This payment made good to the master a loss of property due to no fault of his. Further, it left him no inducement to transport the slave out of the Province and thus encourage other negroes to crime by allowing the hope that punishment might be escaped. In the case of slaves attempting rape, or assaulting a free Christian, any two justices of the peace were authorized to inflict such corporal punishment, not extending to life or limb, as they might see fit. Slaves stealing under the value of five shillings were to be whipped with thirty stripes ; if above five shillings, with forty stripes.2 A form of execution frequently chosen was burning at the stake. At Perth Amboy, in 1730, a negro was burnt for the murder of an itinerant tailor.3 In Bergen County, in 1735, the slave “ Jack ” was burnt. He had beaten his master, several times had threatened to murder his master and the son of his master and to burn down his master’s house, and when arrested tried to kill himself.4 In Somerset County, in 1739, a negro was burnt for brutally murdering a child, attempting to murder the wife of his overseer, and setting fire to his master’s barn.6 In 1741 two negroes were burnt for 1 Bergen County Quarter Sessions in 1768 ordered that Hendrieck Christian Zabriskie should have thirty pounds for his negro named Harry, lately executed for the murder of Claas Toers. The money was collected from the slave-owners of the county, upon the basis of an assessment of ten pence per head upon all slaves in the county. Bergen Co. Quar. Sess., January 27,1768. 2 In Hackensack in 1769, a slave pleading guilty to the charge of stealing, was whipped at the public whipping-post and before the houses of two prominent citizens, with thirty-nine lashes on each of three days, being taken from place to place tied to a cart’s tail. Bergen Co. Quar. Sess., October 24,1769. 3 Am. Wk. Mercury, Jan. 14-20,1729 (1730) ; (N. J. Ar., XI, 201). 4 Bergen County, “ Liber A, ” p. 36. 5 Boston Wk. News-Letter, Jan. 18-25, 1739 (N. J. Ar., XI, 558). In the same county, five years later, a negro was burnt for ravishing a white child. Pa. Gazette, Dec. 14,1744 (A. J. Ar., XII, 244).