Anglican Slavery in New Jersey: An Initial Accounting

As the last northern state to enact gradual abolition laws, New Jersey played a powerful role in keeping slavery alive, and Anglicans and Episcopalians were deeply involved in establishing and maintaining that slave society. Throughout the colonial era, Anglicans were some of the strongest supporters of the institution, and often the most prolific enslavers, while formal church policy encouraged evangelization of the enslaved to ensure their docility. Priests stationed in the colony sought the “more comfortable subsistence” that plantation ownership provided, and many who became the most established in New Jersey succeeded as a result of their reliance on enslaved labor.After the Revolutionary War, White Episcopalians continued to be among those most resistant to changing slavery laws, and the initiatives they supported, such as the American Colonization Society and the “Africa Mission,” were highly racist. Black Episcopalians who stayed with the church during this time were marginalized through segregation and neglect, except when they were the victims of open hostility. In Anglican Slavery in New Jersey, Jolyon Pruszinski tells the neglected history that has shaped today’s church, and invites any who will hear to take up the work of research, reckoning, repentance, and repair. Read more