Hunters and Hunted in Newark After the Revolution

When teaching about the nature of personal freedom in the Newark of America’s early years (1800-1850), students at Arts High, and just about any high school, typically start out with an inaccurate picture. In their elementary years, New Jersey’s students are taught that before the Civil War, a person was either “free” or “slave.” But a quick glance through the archives of Newark’s earliest publications proves that the human condition, from a legal standpoint, was far more complicated than that. To be blunt, a majority of human beings in Newark during colonial and up to early Republican times were not “free” at all, at least not in the modern sense of the term.

When I ask my wonderful, curious students how they define the concept of “personal freedom,” their responses are almost always similar. Earlier this year, one student defined it as “the right to go where I want to go, make money, and be who I want to be with.” Another student, I feel, hit the concept more directly on the head when she said it meant “people don’t have the right to get into your personal space and grab or hit you whenever they want to.”  Either way, I agree with both definitions. And there were a lot of people in Newark the early 1800’s that wanted to be free, no doubt. We know this for a fact because pursuers of all types not only chased those they claimed to own or control, they took out ads to ask for help. Both the hunters and hunted are found in the advertisement sections of local papers.

Though America had recently fought and won a war for independence against Britain, the local social order had changed little. History tells us that there were several categories of people who were not “free” in any sense of the word during this period, both in Newark and the nation at large. They were: black slaves, indentured servants, married women, anyone under 21 and those who could not afford to pay their debts. All were present in Newark, and (combined) made up the majority of the people living in not only the city but the state as a whole. None of these people had the right to vote, to travel freely or to earn their own money. Free, adult white males were the minority. They could usually vote (if they owned enough property), but Newark was no democracy.

Black slaves were present in the city and state in the early 1800’s, and in large numbers. New Jersey was a northern state, but its complicated and gradual emancipation laws kept slavery alive right up to and including the Civil War years. Under the Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause, slaves who fled their masters for any location in the U.S. would always be slaves from a legal standpoint. And so would their children – even if they were born in so-called “freedom”.

White masters would chase their runaways to the ends of the Earth, and they would put up big money to bring them in. In one 1802 ad appearing in Newark’s so-called Centinel of Freedom, Matthias Denman offered a $20 reward for a runaway. The slave, named Frank, was described in typical bigoted manner as “a short chunky fellow, full faced, big mouth, thick lips, and a flat nose pocked-marked.” Denman went on to say that anyone capturing and imprisoning Frank would not only receive a reward but also any additional money for “reasonable charges.”

That same year the pages of the Newark Centinel told of the efforts some black slaves undertook to keep their families united against a society that was bent on their degradation. In one extensive ad, master Nathaniel Seabury tells of a 25 year old runaway named Bill. The description reveals the brutality of the bondage of the times, as the ad states that Bill had “a large scar on the calf of his leg, occasioned by a cut with a scythe.” For those who don’t know, a scythe is a machete like tool, frequently used by masters and overseers to inflict large gashings on the flesh of uncooperative or resistant laborers. Bill, the ad continued, fled with a woman named Hannah, “who he calls his wife.” Generously, the master offered $20 reward for both, but $10 if only one can be brought in.

Black slavery was not the only form of involuntary servitude in the early 1800’s. There was a form of white slavery too, though it was limited by legal contract, called “Indentured Servitude,” or “Bonded Apprenticeship.”

This strange kind of servitude was for a limited time only (5-7 years), though from an early-American standpoint, it might as well have been for an eternity. Basically there were two ways a white person could become an indentured servant. The most common method was to have a master pay for one’s transatlantic voyage from England or Ireland. In return, the servant pledged to work, wage-free, for a master. Poor parents (or orphanages) could also “sell” their children into this bonded state. But there were stipulations. The master was traditionally and legally required to teach the servant a skill, and provide room and board for him. Indentured servants were not considered property, and they couldn’t be killed or maimed. During the contracted period the servant was “bonded,” in that, he or she could not just get up and leave or find other compensated work. At the end of the duration, the servant became free and equal to his or her master, and was generally given some tools, money, property and an all-important letter of reference.

Both then and now, a five to seven year contract was dangerously long for a young person. This was a time in history when many people died in their 20’s and 30’s. Equally important was that this was an age where a free man would earn high wages for his physical labor, as well as purchase cheap land west of the Delaware River. The temptation to flee was a powerful one, and flee they did.

Masters tried to fight back, again by taking out ads offering rewards for “absconding apprentices” and also warning potential employers that paying these escapees for work was illegal. One master named Jacob Davey offered Newark residents a $10 reward for the return of one Thomas McKenzie. The servant was “bound to learn the Blacksmith’s trade,” and had gone off with permission to visit his parents in New York. But since then had vanished. Davey was particularly worried that the boy was interested in long-distance travel. Knowing Newark was an East Coast port, the master warned that the boy might be interested in boarding an outgoing ship. Smart kid.

We know that debtors fled too. Today, if you don’t pay your bills, you get sued and a bad credit report. In the Newark of 1800, you went to jail, or fled (usually west). The Newark Centinel was filled with ads of “Creditors’ Meetings” where the assets of “absconded” debtors would be divided up in an orderly fashion. It would only be later in the century that the state constitution would ban imprisonment for debt.

And finally, let us not forget the wives. My students are always surprised when I explain to them that when a woman married in the early 1800’s, she became “civically dead.” All of her property, child custodial rights and her very name became that of her husband’s. This very legal practice, called “coverture,” was the norm. Today we see its symbolic legacy continued in the traditions of married women adopting their husband's last names, daughters being “given” away by fathers in wedding ceremonies, etc. But in 1800’s, there were real legal implications for leaving your husband in Newark, New Jersey.

In 1797 we see one furious husband placing an ad in the Centinel. John Liddell tells Newark readers that his wife Sarah had “absconded from my bed and board,” and “in other respects behaved in an unbecoming manner.” Liddell doesn’t so much want her back, as he wants to completely impoverish her. “Therefore, I forbid all persons from trusting her on my account, as I am determined not to pay any debts of her contracting after this date.” In an age when personal reputation commanded one’s level of financial credit, this ad was the equivalent of a financial death warrant.

Newark’s history is America’s history, and when it concerned the never-ending struggle between the controlled and their controllers, this statement could not be truer. One of the most interesting aspects of the American epic is that the concept of “personal freedom” evolved from a limited notion in the years immediately after independence to one of near adult (legal) equality today. But I try to tell my students that this process did not happen automatically. To gain freedom, people – especially in the Newark of the 1800’s - had to run for it, defend it, protect it.