History: Enslavement at Liberty Hall

The institution of slavery was a part of Liberty Hall’s history from its very beginning. Enslaved people were made to live and work at Liberty Hall from at least 1774, when William Livingston and his family brought several individuals to this house and farm from New York, until 1829 when Susan (Livingston) [Kean] Niemcewicz manumitted Peter and Sarah Van Horne, the last people she enslaved in New Jersey. Even after there were no longer any people enslaved at Liberty Hall, the legacy of slavery continued to impact life on the site, as free and formerly enslaved Black people labored here through 1840.

It is unclear exactly how many people were enslaved here over these fifty-five years, nor do we know for certain exactly how many of Liberty Hall’s white residents claimed ownership over enslaved people. What is known, however, is the fact that over twenty-five enslaved people lived, worked and raised families at Liberty Hall, as they navigated the complexities of institutional slavery in New Jersey.

Black and white print of Liberty Hall as it appeared in 1844. The house is surrounded by trees and the text below the house reads View of the Livingston Mansion, Elizabethtown. — Like many sites that date to the United States’s founding, Liberty Hall embodies the contradictions of a nation that proclaimed the values of liberty and freedom but at the same time denied fundamental human rights a significant portion of the population.

Although a large number of people were enslaved at Liberty Hall in relation to other sites of enslavement in New Jersey, the institution of slavery was widely accepted in much of the colony (and later state),. Many white New Jerseyans, including those who lived at Liberty Hall, profited from the lives and labor of enslaved Africans in a variety of ways. In addition to forcing enslaved people to work in their homes, farms, and businesses, several white New Jerseyans also kidnapped enslaved people from Africa and the Caribbean to sell in the United States and maintained close financial ties to the South. Even without the South’s large-scale plantation system, New Jersey’s landowners embraced the institution of slavery in the colonial period and Early Republic, especially for those in the eastern part of the state, who used forced labor to avoid paying higher wages for free labor after the Revolution.

It is also necessary to look beyond the walls of Liberty Hall to fully understand the role that slavery played within the site’s history. The lives and labor of people enslaved elsewhere built the wealth that allowed the Livingstons and Keans to construct and maintain Liberty Hall. William Livingston’s father grew his fortune by kidnapping and enslaving African people and the Keans’ extensive plantations in South Carolina enriched the family in New Jersey. ALthough these individuals may never have stepped foot in Liberty Hall, their lives and experiences are also central to the site’s history.

A black and white drawing of New York City's harbor in the eighteenth century. A structure along with water with no walls is in the foreground, surrounded by brick buildings and boats. The text reads, "New York Slave Market About 1730." — Phillip Livingston, the father of William Livingston, kidnapped and brought enslaved people into New York from Africa and the Caribbean. Although William Livingston was not personally involved in the trade of enslaved African people, his family’s wealth and privilege (and the opportunities this wealth provided to him) are deeply intertwined with the institution of slavery. *From The* *New York Public Library*.

For those enslaved people who lived and labored here, both individual oppressions and larger political and economic developments influenced their choices, experiences, and ability to seek freedom. At Liberty Hall, some people remained enslaved for their entire lives, while others were manumitted but forced to continue working at Liberty Hall, gained freedom through self-emancipation, or were technically born free but still required to labor here as children and young adults. Some were able to keep their families together, while others were forcibly separated from one another or had their family relationships erased from historical records. While these are the histories of individuals and reflect personal situations, limitations, and difficult choices, the experiences of the people enslaved at Liberty Hall demonstrate some of the paths life could take for people enslaved in New Jersey.

As you scroll through this digital exhibit, you can learn more about these individuals and gain a better understanding of how they made lives within a society that profited from their oppression.

A note on language:

Throughout this digital exhibit, you will notice that Liberty Hall is careful about the ways in which we describe enslaved people. This is because we want to recognize their full humanity, a respect that they did not receive in their lifetimes. Some of the terms that we use include:

An enslaved person instead of a slave
Self- emancipate or self-emancipated person instead of a runaway or fugitive
Enslaver or person who claimed ownership over enslaved people instead of owner or master
Trade in enslaved African people instead of the slave trade

This is not just a change in language, but is one way in which we strive to center the enslaved person instead of their circumstance of being enslaved.

A note on evidence:

A handwritten letter from Susan Niemcewicz to her husband, describing Tom, a man whom she enslaved, and his relationship with free Black people in Elizabethtown. — Susan Ursin Niemcewicz to Julian Ursin Niemcewicz, December 26, 1803. *Liberty Hall Collection*; Special Collections Research Library & University Archive, Kean University, Union, NJ.

Most written evidence about enslaved people’s lives comes from enslavers and other white people, not enslaved people themselves. While some Black people had the opportunity to record their experiences, this was not the case for the majority of enslaved and formerly enslaved people, including those enslaved at Liberty Hall. Because of this, it is necessary to read between the lines of source material and recognize that while sources like letters, diaries, and newspaper articles are essential to understand the past, the authors of these documents had their own biases and motivations and often used offensive and inaccurate language to describe enslaved people. Because of this, we cannot take these documents at face value, but must instead use them to try to understand enslaved people as the unique human beings they were.

Susan Niemcewicz wrote to her husband that Elizabethtown’s free Black population had a negative impact on Tom, a man she enslaved before moving to Liberty Hall. Her description of Black people is offensive and infantilizing, but this letter provides evidence of Elizabethtown’s free Black community and interactions between free and enslaved Black people in the area. When enslavers like Susan Niemcewicz tried to forbid these relationships, social gatherings like those Tom liked to attend functioned as resistance.