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Some years ago, I was chatting with a Retropolis reader, a young history student, and I mentioned there were several dozen people enslaved in New Jersey up until the day the 13th Amendment kicked in in December 1865. Y’all. He identified every one of them. njs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/nj...

For those going “New Jersey?!” Yes. Slavery happened in the north too. Most passed gradual emancipation laws post-Revolution. NJ’s was so gradual there were still enslaved people in 1865. Lincoln’s proclamation only applied to the South. The last people to be freed were in NJ, Delaware + Kentucky.

As @erindwyer.bsky.social mentions below, these laws were gradual with the enslaver in mind, to blunt the economic impact of freedom. New York had the most slavery in the North, and it didn’t fully end until 1827! However most enslaved people had self-emancipated and moved to the city by then.

Yup. The truth is closer to “it was worst in the South.” IMO the minimization of northern slavery, northern segregation, implicit “polite” racism etc, holds us all back from real multiracial democracy. It’s like saying second-degree murder is fine because first-degree murder exists!

It’s a misconception I shared until reading a bit more history. You think anti-slavery means anti-racism, and it just doesn’t. Slavery was just so obviously reprehensible, even gutter racists felt queasy about it. Lincoln himself was a white supremacist.

Yeah they wanted to ship people back to Africa as a colony that even Africans were like "Bruh, just let them come home and we'll let them in"

I remember being startled to learn that Massachusetts was the first English colony in North America to formally legalize slavery, which it did in December 1641.

Yuuuup. I learned all about Cotton Mather in school, yet never heard a word about Onesimus, the man he enslaved, who brought the concept of inoculation to the Americas!

Kindly go fuck yourself.

There is nothing in our country, no place, no tradition, no business that is not tainted by slavery. It skewed the finances and social status of everyone who lived here then, their families and most who came after. We are all still wearing it. And I'm not sure it can ever go away.

Hey everyone! Since this thread is making the rounds again, here is an updated link to read Luke Voyles' paper, which you really should. 🙏 njs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/nj...