Shared Bodies: Social Patterns in Rural East Jersey and the Formation of an African American Community

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Using early 19th-century membership records from the Church of Paramus, this study proposes that systems of indirect enslavement used by Dutch descended families in Bergen County, New Jersey, fulfilled their domestic, farm, and possibly construction labor requirements. The investigation includes families from multiple townships who attended the same church; data shows several enslaved African Americans were also attendees of the white-run church. Analysis of the slave’s connection to multiple enslavers and an investigation of the white enslavers’ social and business networks reveals a complex system of shared, rented, or group ownership of enslaved African Americans. This hypothesis and data are framed against more conventional historical documentary sources such as tax records, wills, and case and statute texts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology