Powerful and Righteous: The Transatlantic Survival and Cultural Resistance of an Enslaved African Family in Eighteenth-Century New Jersey

by Kenneth E. Marshall


REVEREND JOHN BODINE THOMPSON made an intriguing remark in his 1894 address commemorating the 175th anniversary of the Reformed Dutch Church of Readington Township in Hunterdon County, New Jersey:

Those [slaves] who came [to New Jersey] from the coast of Guinea [i.e., southern West Africa] were regarded as the most valuable because of their superior endowments, both mental and physical. "Guinea Negroes" brought more on the open market. Among these were a man who had been the chief of his tribe, with his wife, who now shared his slavery as she shared his rule in the land of their fathers. These became the property of Jacob Kline … [Slavery] is bitter at the best, and it is no wonder that these Africans were fearfully homesick. Every endeavor was made to cheer and comfort them — save, of course, that of setting them free, which, probably, was never thought of. The result was, that when all hope was gone, they sought and found together the only freedom possible for them. The spot is still pointed out, on Kline's brook, a mile directly north of this place, where stood the cedar tree upon which, one morning, the master found only the lifeless bodies of those who refused to remain as slaves in a strange land.