INTRODUCTION
Several years ago, I taught U.S. History my local community college. The textbook I was required to use had two serious flaws. First, every chapter delivered at least one “progressive” political message. Occasionally this was done by with false information. However, it was usually done by leaving out important and relevant true information.
Also, as a standardized national textbook, it could not and did not mention important local events or personalities that related to the national historical narrative.
Last year, Liberty and Prosperity published and distributed a “Teaching Calendar” that provided of this missing history. It was very well received. This booklet goes one step further. It tells 42 stories that systematically supplement and correct historical facts that are most often missing or distorted in high school and college textbooks today.
This booklet tells only half the story. It begins with the Ice Age and continues to New Jerseys second State Constitution of 1844. I hope to continue with a second booklet that tells the rest.
I am a retired attorney. I am not a professional historian and I lack the resources of one. I am certain that I have left out important stories and details. I invite you to contact me to suggest any additions or corrections that would make this work more complete and accurate. Thank you.
SETH GROSSMAN, Atlantic City, New Jersey
April 17, 2025
- ICE AGE AND LANDBRIDGE. NOMADS FROM SIBERIA MIGRATE TO NORTH AMERICA.
About 20,000 years ago, there was global cooling. In northern North America, Europe, and Asia (and in southern South America), snow that fell during the winter did not melt in the summer. For thousands of years, that snow piled up, compressed, and covered those areas with thick sheets of moving ice called glaciers. The ice over what is now Chicago was roughly 3,000 feet thick. All of New Jersey north of what is now New Brunswick was covered with ice.
So much water was contained in those giant glaciers that sea levels were 400 feet below what they are today. What is now Atlantic City was 30 to 50 miles away from the ocean. Dry land connected eastern Asia and western North America.
Nomadic tribes from what is now Mongolia or Siberia either walked across that landbridge or came by boats along the shore to settle in North America. Their descendants were later known as American Indians or Native Americans.
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Mapped: What Did the World Look Like in the Last Ice Age? – Full Size
Thickness of the Ice Sheets of Last Glaciation Compared to Modern Skylines
2. EARTH WARMS, ICE SHEETS MELT INTO LAKES, LENNI-LENAPE SETTLE BY DELAWARE BAY
About 13,000 years ago, the world’s climate changed again. The earth got warmer and the giant glaciers melted. Their water filled thousands of lakes throughout Canada and the northern United States. Among them were Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey and the Great Lakes. Water from the melting ice also flowed into the oceans. Sea levels rose to their current levels.
During this time, groups of American Indians moved into those areas. Tribes speaking an “Algonkian” language moved to the north and east. They included the Powhatan in Virginia, the Mohegan (Mohicans) in Connecticut, the Shawnee in Ohio, and the Algonquian of Quebec and Ontario in Canada.
The Algonkians who settled in and around Eastern Pennsylvania called themselves the Lenni-Lenape. That means “real people”. According to their legends, all the Algonkian nations branched out from their tribe.
It was also said that other tribes often asked the Lenni-Lenape to mediate disputes and prevent or end wars between them.
Many Lenni-Lenape were later called the Delaware. That is because they lived near the Delaware River and Bay. The English named these bodies of water after Lord De La Warr. He was their Governor and Captain General of Virginia in 1610.
3. MANY LENNI-LENAPE SPEND SUMMERS BY BEACHES AND “LITTLE WATERS” OF SOUTH JERSEY.
EARLY-IMAGES-OF-LENAPE-PEOPLE-2.pdf
Many Lenni-Lenape who lived near the Delaware River left their villages after planting their spring crops. They set up summer homes near the creeks and back bays of South Jersey. There they hunted, fished, and gathered clams and oysters. They called one back bay “Absegami”, which means “Little Water”. Today it is called Absecon Bay. A nearby town in Atlantic County is now known as Absecon. The island on the other side of that bay where Atlantic City is located is Absecon Island.
At the end of each summer, the Lenni-Lenapi returned to their villages across the Delaware River. There they harvested their crops and spent their winters.
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Lenni-Lenape | Atlantic County, NJ
4. THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY, ITALIAN MERCHANTS TRADE WITH CHINA. OTTOMAN TURKS BUILD AN EMPIRE.
In the year 1281, a Turkish warrior chief named Osman took control of Bursa. It was a small, little-known kingdom near what is now the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Bursa was more than 5,000 miles away from the lands of the Lenni-Lenape in America. However, what happened in Bursa started a chain of events that brought Europeans to America.
Istanbul was then known as Constantinople. It was the largest city in Europe. It was a center of world commerce. It had been the center of Roman, Greek and Christian culture for nearly a thousand years.
Ships from the Mediterranean Sea passed by Constantinople on their way to busy port cities on the Black Sea. From there, caravans took their goods to China. Those goods included wheat, honey, olive oil, leather, wine, knives and swords. Those ships and caravans brought back to Europe silk, tea, ceramics from China and spices from the Spice Islands (now Indonesia).
Italian merchants from Venice, Genoa, Florence and Milan owned and sailed most of those ships. One of them wrote a famous book about his travels throughout the East. His name was Marco Polo.
Osman and his successors ended that.
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5. OTTOMAN TURKS PUSH ITALY’S SHIPS AND MERCHANTS INTO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
At first, Osman was known as a ghazi. That was a Muslim raider who attacked and robbed towns and caravans of kafirs (nonbelievers) during jihads (religious wars).
However, Osman and his successors soon did what ghazis rarely did before. They held and occupied the cities and towns they attacked. They quickly turned their small kingdom of Bursa into a powerful Empire. They recruited, organized and equipped large professional armies and navies. They ruled and taxed the people they conquered with ruthless efficiency.
Osman’s name was also pronounced “Ottoman”. The empire that Osman and his descendants created became known as The Ottoman Empire.
By the late 1300s, the Ottomans had conquered most of present-day Turkey, Greece and Southeastern Europe. They also seized most of the islands and port cities used by Italian merchant ships. In 1453, the Ottomans seized Constantinople.
Ottoman warships and those of their “Barbary” allies in North Africa attacked and robbed the ships and coastal towns of kafirs who failed to submit and pay tribute. This made most of the Mediterranean Sea dangerous and unprofitable for Italian merchants and their ships. The Italians looked for new trade routes in the Atlantic Ocean.
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6. RICHES IN AMERICA AND NEW TRADE ROUTES TO CHINA AND THE SPICE ISLANDS MAKE SPAIN RICH AND POWERFUL.
In 1317, an Italian sea captain named Emanuele Pessagno left his home port of Genoa to work for Portugal. As Manuel Pessanha, he established new trade routes in the Atlantic Ocean for his new country. Giovanni Caboto also left Genoa and changed his name. He explored the Atlantic for England as John Cabot. In 1497, he landed in Newfoundland and other parts of Canada while looking for a sea route to China.
Giovanni da Verrazano left Florence in Italy and went to France. From there he crossed the Atlantic Ocean hoping to reach China. In 1524, he sailed to what is now South Carolina. He then sailed up the coast to Newfoundland in Canada. He explored rivers and bays he passed along the way hoping to find a passage to China. They included the waters between what are now Sandy Hook, New Jersey and Staten Island, New York.
Columbus left Genoa to sail the Atlantic for Portugal in 1476. After ten years he left to sail for Spain. In 1492, Columbus crossed the Atlantic also hoping to reach China. He reached America instead. Later Spanish explorers found sea routes to China. They also found gold, silver, and other riches in Mexico and South America. Spain quickly became the richest and most powerful nation in Europe.
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7. WARS OF RELIGION DEVASTATE MUCH OF EUROPE. CATHOLIC SPAIN FAILS TO CONQUER PROTESTANT ENGLAND.
In 1519, Austria, Holland, and most of Germany and Italy were part of the Holy Roman Empire. That year, they elected the King of Spain to be their Emperor.
This increased Spain’s power and influence even more. However, it also put Spain in the middle of deadly and destructive “Wars of Religion” between Catholics and Protestants.
Catholics were Christians who wanted the Pope in Rome to run their churches as he had done for centuries. They wanted the Pope to appoint their priests and decide disagreements over Christian doctrines and worship services.
In 1410, Jan Hus, a Czech priest in Bohemia, publicly disagreed with the Pope and his doctrines. Catholic authorities arrested and burned Hus alive in 1415. In 1517, Martin Luther, a German priest also publicly opposed the Pope and top officials of the Catholic Church. Luther claimed that every Christian could understand God’s laws by reading the Bible. His slogan was “Every Christian a priest”. Christians who agreed with this idea were called Protestants. They wanted local officials or congregations to choose their priests and run their churches.
Spain helped Catholics suppress and persecute Protestants all over Europe. Protestants armed themselves and fought back.
By the 1530s, King Henry VIII, like most Christians in England, were Protestants. They supported and defended Protestants in Holland and elsewhere.
In 1588, Spain sent an “Armada” to invade England. Its goal was to remove Elizabeth, its new Protestant ruler and restore the authority of the Catholic Church. The Spanish Armada was a massive force of 137 ships, 10,000 sailors, 52,000 soldiers, and 2,500 cannons. It was defeated and destroyed by bad weather and a much smaller English navy.
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8. ENGLISH COMPANIES “PLANT” COLONIES IN AMERICA AND LOOK FOR NEW TRADE ROUTES TO CHINA.
Even before being threatened by Spain, England wanted its own colonies in America and trade routes to the East. It granted charters to privately owned companies formed to profit from creating and finding them.
These royal charters protected investors by limiting their losses if their companies failed. They also gave exclusive licenses to keep out competitors.
In 1566, Queen Elizabeth and Parliament chartered the Muscovy Company to “seek a new, northern trade route to “Cathay” (China)and the Spice Islands (now known as Indonesia). At first it explored the seas north of Russia with permission of the Czar in Moscow.
Later, an sea captain named Henry Hudson believed long summer days melted the ice around the North Pole. In 1607, Hudson tried to reach China by sailing directly north for the Muscovy Company. However, he was blocked by ice. In 1609, Hudson sailed west and reached Cape Fear in what is now North Carolina. Like Verrazano before him, Hudson then sailed north along the coast to Newfoundland in Canada looking for a passage to China. In 1610, Hudson sailed to Hudson Bay in Canada looking for a “northwest passage” to China. He died there that winter.
In 1606, the British government chartered The Virginia Company of London to “plant” settlers in North America. In 1607, it established its first “plantation” Jamestown, Virginia with 104 men and boys. It later brought others. Those first settlers spent much of their time searching for gold. They did not find any. They also failed to grow enough food. Most died from hunger during “The Starving Time” winter of 1609-1610.
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9. LAND AND LIBERTY BRING SUCCESS TO ENGLAND’S JAMESTOWN COLONY.
After The Starving Time, the Virginia Company of London completely changed the way it ran Jamestown.
First, it gave its settlers their own land. Until then, the Company owned almost all land in the colony. All harvests were put into the company storehouse. There was no connection between what settlers produce and what they received.
Almost everyone who worked Company owned land was either an employee or an indentured servant. Indentured servants were people who sold their freedom for seven years to pay off their debts. During those years, indentured servants received only food, clothing and shelter from the owners of their contracts.
In 1613, the Company gave a 3-acre plot of land to each family and enough time off to work it. In 1616, the Company gave each family 50 acres. In 1618, it gave 100 acres.
Then in 1619, the Company changed its charter to let these new landowners run their colony. They elected representatives to a 22-member House of Burgesses. Burgess was an old English word for freeholder or landowner. “These representatives now made all laws and approved all taxes for the colony instead of Company officials 4,000 miles away in London.
These changes dramatically increase farm production. When working for themselves, men, women and children all worked long hours during the growing season to clear land and plant, feed, fertilize and harvest their crops.
The Jamestown settlers soon produced much more food than they needed. They also grew tobacco and other cash crops. They traded or sold what they did not consume for other goods. Jamestown soon became prosperous and self-sufficient.
This was also good for the Company. Its land became far more valuable. Liberty brought prosperity to everyone. Source: How Colonists Acquired Title to Land in Virginia
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10. 1619: DUTCH “PRIVATEERS” SEIZE 20 SLAVES FROM A PORTUGUESE SHIP AND SELL THEM IN JAMESTOWN.
Between 1598 and 1663, Protestant Holland fought a long war against Catholic Spain and Portugal. At home, Holland fought for independence from Spanish rule. Overseas, Holland fought to take Portugal’s rich trading posts and spice-producing colonies in Asia and Africa. The war was often called The Spice War.
Holland fought much of that war with privately owned warships called “privateers”. It gave captains of those ships “Letters of Marque”. They were licenses to attack and rob Portuguese ships and coastal towns. In return, the privateers gave the Dutch government a share of what they took.
Without those letters, privateers would be pirates. When captured, pirates were executed immediately as criminals. However, privateers were usually treated as soldiers and held as prisoners of war.
In 1619, English privateers with Letters of Marque from Holland attacked and captured a Portuguese ship sailing from Angola in Africa to the Spanish colony of Mexico. Its cargo was oughly 200 captured Africans who were to be sold as slaves.
The privateers took 20 slaves and brought them to Jamestown. There they traded them for needed victuals (food and supplies).
At the time, Jamestown had no laws permitting people to be bought, sold, or owned as slaves. The Africans became indentured servants who were later set free.
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11. CHRISTIANS ENDED SLAVERY IN EUROPE WHILE MUSLIMS EXPANDED IT IN AFRICA.
In 1619, slaves and slavery were common throughout the world. People were captured, sold and owned as slaves in India, China, and all Islamic countries. This was also done in America long before Europeans arrived.
However, slavery did not exist in Jamestown. Christianity had ended slavery in most of Europe roughly 600 years before.
Many of the first Christians were slaves. Christians believed that they were all part of one church and one family. Early Christians also knew and followed the Ten Commandments and other Old Testament Bible laws. Some of them, like the law of the Jubilee required slaves to be free after a number of years.
In 313, Emperor Constantine made Christianity an official religion of the Roman Empire. In 873, Pope John VII declared the enslavement of Christians to be a sin. Most Christian countries in Europe ended slavery by the 1100s.
However, in 610, Muhammad proclaimed a new religion Arabia that encouraged slavery. It was called Islam. It called for jihad (religious war) against all kafirs (non-believers). Muslims had the right to enslave kafirs they captured.
Between 629 and 732, followers of Muhammad and his new religion conquered half of the Roman Empire. They also conquered Persia (Iran) and much of what is now India and Pakistan. During these years, there was an abundance of slave labor in the Islamic world.
However, in 732, a Muslim army was defeated at Tours in France. Muslims were later pushed back in Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere in Europe. Arabs and local Muslim converts then raided Africa to capture slaves. They captured and sold so many Africans as slaves that Arabic word abd for slave also meant black African.
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12. PORTUGUESE DISCOVERY SLAVERY IN AFRICA AND BRING IT TO AMERICA.
In 1419, Portugal began sending explorers south in the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Africa. They were trying to reach China and The Spice Islands (Indonesia) in the East. In 1498 one of them, Vasgo da Gama, reached India. In 1511, another reached Malacca in the Spice Islands. Portuguese merchants then sailed along the coast of Africa on a regular basis.
The Portuguese often stopped at towns and villages along the way to trade their goods for needed supplies. In what is now known as Angola, the Portuguese traded with two warlike and aggressive tribes. They were known as the Imbagala and the Mbundu. Both often captured members of weaker tribes and sold them as slaves.
Beginning in the 1500s, the Portuguese began buying slaves from these tribes and selling them guns in return. Unlike most Europeans, the Portuguese had a tradition of slavery. They had been occupied by Muslims and fought constant wars with them for 800 years. During those wars, both the Muslims and Portuguese routinely enslaved the people they captured.
The Portuguese took most of the slaves they bought in Angola to their South American colony of Brazil. They used those slaves to clear jungles and plant, harvest and process sugar cane. The Portuguese then earned enormous profits from the molasses and rum they produced and sold.
Fortune seekers from Spain, France, England and Holland then rushed to also buy slave in Africa and set up sugar colonies throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands.
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13. JAMESTOWN EMBRACES SLAVERY AFTER 1619. HOWEVER, THE 1619 PROJECT IS WRONG. SLAVERY DID NOT ENRICH AMERICA.
The first 20 Africans sold as slaves in Virginia were treated as white indentured servants. They were set free after a number of years. However, captured Africans who later arrived on other ships were sold as slaves.
In 1661, the House of Burgesses made new laws allowing blacks from Africa to be legally owned, bought and sold as property. It also made the child of any slave the property of the mother’s owner.
These laws were copied from laws already in place in the Portuguese, French, British and Dutch colonies in the Caribbean Islands and Central and South America.
In 2019, the New York Times Magazine published a series of articles and teaching materials called The 1619 Project. It claimed that America’s “exceptional” wealth and prosperity was created by the unpaid labor of black slaves that began in Jamestown in 1619. It suggests that every white American today has a moral and legal obligation to now pay “reparations” to every black American.
Those claims and suggestions are false. The 1619 Project completely ignores these three key facts:
- Nations with widespread slavery became the poorest in the world. They included India, China, and most nations in the Islamic world before the discovery of oil there. Until recently, Portugal, the European nation that used the most slave labor, was one of the poorest nations in Europe.
- Almost every person who wrote about conditions in both free and slave states in America between 1619 and the end of slavery in 1865 reported far lower living standards among whites, including many slave-owning whites and blacks in slave states than among free whites and blacks in free states.
- Whatever wealth was created by slavery in America was destroyed during the four years of the Civil War between 1861 and 1865. 298 words
14. FREDERICK DOUGLASS: “I WAS SURPRISED TO SEE WEALTH, COMFORT, TASTE, AND REFINEMENT IN THE FREE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS THAT I HAD NEVER SEEN IN ANY PART OF SLAVEHOLDING MARYLAND.”
This first-hand account by Frederick Douglass is typical of most comparisons made between slave states and free states before the Civil War.
Douglass was born as a slave in Maryland. When he was 20 years old, he escaped and fled to Massachusetts. In 1845, he wrote and published his autobiography. It was called Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass
“I had very strangely supposed, while in slavery, that few of the comforts, and scarcely any of the luxuries, of life were enjoyed at the north, compared with what were enjoyed by the slaveholders of the south. I probably came to this conclusion from the fact that northern people owned no slaves. I supposed that they were about upon a level with the non-slaveholding population of the south. I knew they were exceedingly poor, and I had been accustomed to regard their poverty as the necessary consequence of their being non-slaveholders. . .
“Upon coming to the north, I expected to meet with a rough, hard-handed, and uncultivated population, living in the most Spartan-like simplicity, knowing nothing of the ease, luxury, pomp, and grandeur of southern slaveholders.
“Such being my conjectures, anyone acquainted with the appearance of New Bedford (Massachusetts) may very readily infer how palpably I must have seen my mistake.
“In the afternoon of the day when I reached New Bedford, I visited the wharves, to take a view of the shipping. Here I found myself surrounded with the strongest proofs of wealth. Lying at the wharves, and riding in the stream, I saw many ships of the finest model, in the best order, and of the largest size. Upon the right and left, I was walled in by granite warehouses of the widest dimensions, stowed to their utmost capacity with the necessaries and comforts of life. Added to this, almost everybody seemed to be at work, but noiselessly so, compared with what I had been accustomed to in Baltimore.
There were no loud songs heard from those engaged in loading and unloading ships. I heard no deep oaths or horrid curses on the laborer. I saw no whipping of men; but all seemed to go smoothly on. Every man appeared to understand his work, and went at it with a sober, yet cheerful earnestness, which betokened the deep interest which he felt in what he was doing, as well as a sense of his own dignity as a man. To me this looked exceedingly strange. From the wharves I strolled around and over the town, gazing with wonder and admiration at the splendid churches, beautiful dwellings, and finely-cultivated gardens; evincing an amount of wealth, comfort, taste, and refinement, such as I had never seen in any part of slaveholding Maryland.
“Everything looked clean, new, and beautiful. I saw few or no dilapidated houses, with poverty-stricken inmates; no half-naked children and barefooted women, such as I had been accustomed to see in Hillsborough, Easton, St. Michael’s, and Baltimore (in the slave state of Maryland). The people (in free Massachusetts) looked more able, stronger, healthier, and happier, than those of Maryland. I was for once made glad by a view of extreme wealth, without being saddened by seeing extreme poverty. “
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15. ALL WEALTH CREATED BY SLAVERY IN AMERICA WAS DESTROYED BY THE CIVIL WAR THAT ENDED IT.
As the Civil War ended in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural Address:
Yet, if God wills that it (this war) continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Four years of Civil War killed more than 600,000 American men, roughly 2% of the nation’s 1860 population. It also cost Americans roughly $7 billion of 1860 dollars in economic losses. That comes to roughly $266 billion in today’s dollars. It represented roughly two full years of the nation’s GDP or Gross Domestic Product in 1860.
Most scholars today accept the research published by Claudia Goldin and Frank Lewis of Harvard University in 1975. Their paper, The Economic Cost of the American Civil War: Estimates and Implications itemized those costs as follows:
Government War Spending by North and South: $3.3 billion
Lost Earning Caused by War Deaths, Injuries and Military Service: $2.2 billion
Value of Destroyed Property: $1.5 billion
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16. PROTESTANT “SEPARATISTS” AND “PURITANS” SEEK RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN PROTESTANT ENGLAND.
In 1534, British King Henry VIII and Parliament took control of all Catholic churches in England. They established the Church of England to run them as Protestant churches. The King and Parliament appointed, paid and supervised all priests instead of the Pope.
However, these Protestant rulers did not allow any disagreement or dissent in their churches. Between 1509 and 1547, King Henry VIII had at least 63 Protestant ministers, scholars and other leaders arrested and executed for heresy. Most were burned alive. Their “crimes” included publishing or sharing unauthorized translations of the Bible, teaching unapproved doctrines and criticizing church leaders or practices.
During the early 1600s, worshippers in the country village of Scrooby refused to let the “rector” appointed by the King and Parliament were run their church. They chose their own ministers and developed their own priests and worship services.
They were called “Separatists” or “Puritans”. Many were harassed and threatened with arrest. In 1609, they fled to the city of Leiden in Holland for religious freedom. However, they wanted to preserve their English language and culture.
In 1620, a new Virginia Company of Plymouth got a royal charter to “plant” a second colony in North America. To attract settlers, if offered religious freedom as well as land and self-government. The “Separatists” or “Puritans” of Leiden returned to England to be part of that new colony. They left on a ship named the Mayflower in 1620.
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17. LAND, LIBERTY AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM BRING PROSPERITY TO MASSACHUSETTS.
Severe storms took the Mayflower to Massachusetts, far north of the territory of the Virginia Company of Plymouth. After much discussion, the settlers decided to land there. Since the Company charter did not apply there, they wrote out an agreement to run the settlement themselves. They called it The Mayflower Compact. Those settlers became known as The Pilgrims.
They found abandoned fields nearby that were already cleared and ready for planting. They belonged to American Indians had died from a terrible plague a few years before. A survivor named Squanto befriended the Pilgrims and explained what had happened. He also taught them how to grow native crops like corn, beans and squash.
However, the Pilgrims failed to grow enough food during their first two years. As in Jamestown, none of the settlers owned their own land. All crops were put in a common storehouse and distributed equally.
During the third year, the Pilgrims gave each family its own plot of land. As in Jamestown, families worked much longer and harder on their own land. The Pilgrims then had “bounteous” harvests. They quickly became prosperous and self-sufficient.
In 1632, England created the colony of Maryland as a refuge for Catholics. In 1636 and 1643 new colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island were established to provide freedom for Christians in Massachusetts who were being persecuted by the Puritan majority!
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18. HOLLAND SETS UP COLONIES BY THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON RIVERS WHILE ENGLAND IS WEAK FROM CIVIL WAR.
During the Religious Wars of the 1500s, Protestants in England and the Netherlands (Holland) often fought together against Catholic Spain and Portugal. During the 1600s, England and Holland fought each other over trade routes and colonies.
Between 1642 and 1660, England was weak and divided. In 1642, King Charles I tried to arrest members of the elected Parliament who tried to limit his power. Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, raised and trained its own “New Model Army” of ordinary citizens to fight back. In 1649, that army defeated the professional soldiers called “Cavaliers” who fought for the King. Parliament captured King Charles I and beheaded him for treason. His sons Charles II and James escaped to France and fought back from exile.
While England was weak, the Dutch established new colonies in North America. They settled New Amsterdam in Manhattan in 1624 and Bergen across the Hudson River in 1660. In 1655, the Dutch took over Swedesboro and other Swedish settlements along the Delaware River.
In 1660, the English ended their Civil War. A new Parliament invited Charles II back from exile and made him King. His younger brother James, the Duke of York, became Lord Admiral of the British Navy.
In 1664, James quickly seized all of the Dutch colonies in America with four British warships and 300 soldiers.
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19. 1664 ENGLISH CHARTERS GUARANTEE LAND, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND SELF-GOVERNMENT IN NEW JERSEY.
After driving the Dutch out of North America, James, the brother of King Charles II, established two new colonies between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. He named them after the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel. During the English Civil War, Jersey was an important stronghold, sanctuary, and symbol of defiance for supporters of the King.
James set up East Jersey around Perth Amboy by the Hudson River. He set up West Jersey around Burlington on the Delaware. He gave both colonies similar charters known as the ”Concessions and Agreements of 1664”. They offered settlers land, self-government, and religious freedom.
Both charters guaranteed each settler “the freedoms and immunities” of the “the laws and customs of England”. The freedom to “peacefully” express religious opinions was specifically protected.
Men who came in the first year with “a good musket”, bullets, powder and “six months provision” were promised 150 acres of land. Others were promised 30 to 100 acres.
All landowners in the Jersey colonies were referred to as “freeholders”. They were given the right to vote, hold public office, and elect representatives to an Assembly. That Assembly was given the power to “make all such laws, acts, and constitutions as shall be necessary for the well government of the Province”.
The Assembly soon divided each Jersey colony into counties. Each county was run by a board of elected “Chosen Freeholders”. They decided what roads, bridges and courthouses were needed in the county and how much money was needed to build and maintain them. .
The Concessions and Agreements of 1664 gave the elected Assembly the power to “lay equal taxes and assessments” in each Jersey colony. Most settlers believed the British government could not tax them unless their Assembly approved. In 1703, the two Jerseys merged into one colony of New Jersey. 302 words
20. QUAKERS BUY LAND FROM LENNI-LENAPI AND SETTLE IN SOUTH JERSEY.
Above Image: Quaker Meeting House in Burlington, NJ Completed In 1687.
The first settlers to West Jersey (now the southern half of New Jersey) were mostly Quakers. Hundreds settled in Salem in 1675. Hundreds more came to Burlington in 1677.
Many Lenni-Lenape lived in villages in and around Burlington. Quaker leaders appointed “commissioners” to make sure that Quakers only bought land from Native Americans who sold voluntarily and who were paid a fair price.
In 1681, King Charles II gave William Penn, a Quaker leader, a charter to establish another colony across the Delaware River from West Jersey. Penn named that colony He named his colony “Pennsylvania”, Latin for “Penn’s Land of Forests”.
William Penn built a new city there that he called “Philadelphia”, Greek for “brotherly love”.
Quakers were members of a Christian movement called “The Religious Society of Friends”. It began in England during the 1650s. Detractors called them “Quakers” because they often appeared emotional and animated at prayer meetings.
Quakers were Protestants. However, they rejected the leadership and certain practices of the Church of England and other Protestant denominations.
Quakers opposed war and slavery. They gave non-traditional and leadership roles to women. They were skillful, energetic, and successful in almost every business, trade and profession. On average, they were wealthier than members of most other communities.
For all these reasons, Quakers were often persecuted, ridiculed and barred from public office. Some were arrested and imprisoned in both England and America. In America, some were even executed!
238 wordsMission work and Quaker settlement in colonial New Jersey
New Jersey Natives: The Lenni-Lenape – SouthJersey.com
History | Borough of Magnolia NJ
21. JOHN TOWNSEND LEAVES LONG ISLAND TO HUNT WHALES NEAR CAPE MAY.
John Townsend was born in Oyster Bay, Long Island on or around 1656. At that time, it was part of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. It is not known whether he and his family were Quakers. However, in 1657, members of his family actively defended Quakers who were being persecuted by Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor. They signed the “Flushing Remonstrance”. It was a petition to Dutch authorities demanding freedom of religion for all Quakers, all Christians, and all non-Christians including Jews. The Dutch threatened, banished, or arrested everyone who signed that petition.
John Townsend left Long Island during the 1690s. He settled in Town Bank near Cape May. From there he launched boats and hunted whales which were then plentiful in Delaware Bay. John Townsend made large profits processing products from whale oil and bone and selling them all over the world.
Later, Townsend donated land to build a Quaker meeting house in Town Bank. Later, he moved to a new home near Townsend’s Inlet between what is now Sea Isle City and Avalon.
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john townsend whales long island new york quaker cape may – Search
Endangered New Jersey: Whaling in Historic New Jersey
History of Townsends Inlet ⋆ Southern Sea Isle ⋆ The Shore Blog
John Townsend (1658 – 1721) – Genealogy
Historic Town Bank, New Jersey: A Timeline – Cape May Magazine
Whalers: The Link to our Past – High Tide
22. JOHN SOMERS BUILDS A FARM AND RUNS A FERRY IN SOMERS POINT.
During the 1690s, a Quaker named John Somers bought land in what is now Somers Point. Besides clearing and farming his land, he operated a ferry that brought people and goods back and forth across the Egg Harbor River. It connected the Stage Coach Road to New York with the Stage Coach Road to Cape May.
His son, also named John, built the brick house that still stands on the hill near the bridge to Ocean City. It was built between 1703 and 1725. It is a modest house. It has a small kitchen, dining and living area on the first floor, a master bedroom on the second floor, and loft on the third floor where the children slept. However, it was known for years as “The Somers Mansion”.
A nephew, James Somers cleared land and built a farm in what is now Linwood. He also built a dam across the Patcong Creek. Central Avenue runs above the new dam that stands there today.
That dam created Bargaintown Pond. Water running over that dam turned the wheels of two mills. A grist mill was used to grind corn and wheat into flour. A sawmill cut logs into lumber.
For years, ice was harvested from that pond during the winter and used to preserve food during the summer. Part of today’s suburban town of Northfield was then known as the “North Field” of the James Somers farm.
Other Quakers who also established farms and businesses in the area included families named Conover, Leeds, Risley, Scull, Smith, and Steelman.
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23. JERSEY SETTLERS EXTRACT IRON, CUT TREES AND MAKE THEIR OWN SHIPS.
During the early 1700s, blacksmiths found clay and bog iron in and around the marshes and back bays of what are now Atlantic and Burlington Counties in New Jersey. They used the clay to make bricks. They used those bricks to build forges and furnaces to extract bog iron from the mud. They then made iron horseshoes, nails, tools and wrought iron rails. In 1766, they built a large iron forge in Batsto.
By the late 1700s, skilled carpenters were designing ships and using local lumber, nails and tools to build them. George May and Christopher Rape began building ships along the Egg Harbor in and around Mays Landing during the 1780s. At that time, the Van Sant family built ships along the Mullica River in what is now Galloway Township.
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24. NEW JERSEY SETTLERS SET UP SMALL, FRUGAL AND EFFICIENT GOVERNMENTS.
Above Image: All of Atlantic County was part of Gloucester County until 1837.
The first settlers of New Jersey established very small and frugal governments to run their settlements. They had very few laws, rules, officials, and taxes.
In 1670, the colonial government of New Jersey taxed each owner of real estate one half penny per acre each year.
Between 1683 and 1694, New Jersey was divided into nine counties. At that time, Atlantic County was part of Gloucester County.
Most of these counties had five paid officials: They were a county clerk, a judge, a sheriff, a coroner, and a surrogate. The clerk kept a public record of every deed so that everyone would know who owned each parcel of land. The judge ruled on civil and criminal matters and presided over trials. The sheriff enforced laws and judgments. He had the power to summon citizens to serve on juries and to help him enforce the law as his “posse comitatus” (power of the community). The coroner investigated suspicious deaths. The surrogate protected the rights of widows, orphans and others entitled to the property of those who died. These five officials were elected to their positions. They were rarely paid with taxes. They were usually paid with fees they collected from people who used their services.
Each county elected a Board of Chosen Freeholders (Landowners). These officials determined what roads, bridges, jails, courthouses and other things were needed in the county. They were given the power to pay for them by equally assessing and taxing all real estate there.
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25. COLONIAL AMERICA BECOMES WEALTHY BY BEING THE LEAST TAXED COUNTRY IN RECORDED HISTORY.
British Historian Paul Johnson, wrote this description of the 13 British colonies in North America during the 1700s:
“They were the least taxed territories on earth. Indeed, it is probably true to say that colonial America was the least taxed country in recorded history.
“Government was extremely small, limited in its powers, and cheap. Often, it could be paid for from court fines, revenue from loan offices, or sale of lands. New Jersey and Pennsylvania governments collected no statutory taxes at all for several decades.
“One reason why American living standards were so high was that people could dispose of virtually all their income. . . It was the closest the world has ever come to a no-tax society. . .
“By the 1750s, America was unquestionably a success story. It was to a large extent self-governing. It was doubling its population every generation. It was already a rich country and growing richer. Most men and women who lived there enjoyed, by European standards, middle-class incomes once the frugality and struggles of their youth were over.
“The opportunities for the skilled, the enterprising, the energetic, and the commercially imaginative were limitless. . .
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26. THE ONCE PERSECUTED QUAKERS BECAME THE WEALTHIEST PEOPLE IN AMERICA.
“Philadelphia had been founded and shaped by Quakers. But the Quakers themselves had become rich. A tax-list of 1769 shows that they were only one in seven of the town’s inhabitants, but that they made up half of those who paid over L100 in taxes. Of the town’s seventeen richest men, twelve were Quakers.
“Wherever the hard-working, intelligent Quakers sent, they bred material prosperity which raised up others as well as themselves”.
A History of the American People, Paul Johnson, Harper Collins Publishers, New York (1997) Pages 108-109
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27. BRITAIN LEARNS ABOUT AND RESENTS AMERICA’S WEALTH DURING THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR.
Between 1756 and 1763, the British Empire fought the Seven Years War against many countries around the world. That war was called The French And Indian War in North America. That was because here, Britain and its colonies fought France and its Native American allies.
During that war, many British soldiers and government officials traveled to North America for the first time. They were surprised and jealous when they saw how prosperous, proud and self-reliant most “colonials” had become. One British officer put words to a Dutch folk tune called Yankee Doodle”. It mocked Americans for being too uncultured and unsophisticated to handle their wealth.
Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his hat
And called in Macaroni. . .
And there we saw a thousand men
As rich as Squire David
And what they wasted every day
I wish it could be saved.
The word “Yankee” mocked Dutch and German immigrants who often pronounced the name Johnnie that way. The word “doodle” meant a fool. Americans who could not afford a full-sized horse were not too proud to ride a pony instead. “Macaroni” was a slang word for Italian. At that time, the latest fashion trends came from Italy.
The English were taxed heavily to pay for that war. Many resented Americans for not paying their share. 225 words
28. BRITAIN TAXES AMERICANS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. AMERICANS RESIST AND REBEL
After the Seven Years War, the British Parliament imposed new taxes on Americans without the approval of their colonial assemblies. It also enforced old laws to stop Americans from trading with other countries.
In 1773, the British imposed a new tax on tea imported from India. They allowed one company, the British East India Company, to pay that tax without raising its prices. That British company was allowed to cut its costs by shipping tea directly from India to America. American ships could not do this. English laws required all other ships to first unload their goods at British ports before shipping them to America.
Many Americans were afraid that if taxes and preferential treatment like this became normal, they would lose liberty and prosperity they had gotten used to.
On December 16, 1773, Americans in Boston dumped tea from three British East India Company ships into the water. That tea was worth roughly $1.7 million in today’s dollars. There were similar protests in Philadelphia, New York, Annapolis and Charleston.
During the fall of 1774, a British East India Company ship tried to avoid those cities. It quietly unloaded its tea in the small village of Greenwich in Cumberland County, New Jersey.
However, the New Jersey farmers discovered, removed, and burned the tea. Today, locals pronounce the name of their town as “Green Witch”. In New York, Connecticut and England, towns spelled the same way are pronounced “Grennitch”. It is widely believed that residents of the New Jersey Greenwich did that to show they wanted nothing to do with the English Greenwich.
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29. RICHARD STOCKTON SIGNS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. THEN LOSES EVERYTHING.
Richard Stockton was born in 1730 in Princeton, New Jersey. His parents were Quakers. Like many Quakers, they had become rich by building and expanding large and productive farms there. Stockton increased that wealth by efficiently managing his family’s properties. He took a special interest in breeding choice cattle, horses, hogs and sheep. At age 24, Stockton became a lawyer and active trustee in what is now Princeton University. He also collected art and literature.
Stockton and his family could have lived comfortably with the new laws and taxes imposed by the British after 1763. However, like the citizens of Boston and farmers of Greenwich, Stockton was afraid America would lose its exceptional liberty and prosperity.
In 1766, 36-year-old Richard Stockton traveled throughout Britain. There he explained America’s point of view to King George III and Britain’s top leaders.
After the Boston Tea Party of 1774, Stockton tried to negotiate a settlement with Britain. When he failed, he represented New Jersey in the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. On July 2, 1776, Stockton was one of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. That September, Congress sent him to Fort Ticonderoga in to upstate New York to prepare for a British invasion from Canada.
That November, Stockton was captured by local Tories (Americans loyal to Britain) while returning home. He was put in a cold, crowded and filthy prison cell and given “meager” rations. He was released on parole after George Washington personally protested his treatment.
While he was away, the British had ransacked and plundered Stockton’s home and farms. They destroyed or took away all of his furniture, clothing, books, papers and pictures. His prized horses, cattle, hogs and sheep were killed, taken, or driven off.
Stockton struggled to regain his health and rebuild his life. In 1778, he developed cancer in his lip which spread in spite of extensive surgery. Stockton suffered constant pain until he died in 1781 at age 50. 326 words
30. WAS RICHARD STOCKTON LESS OF A HERO BECAUSE HE OWNED AT LEAST ONE SLAVE?
Stockton University is named after Richard Stockton. It is an undergraduate and graduate university owned and operated by the State of New Jersey. Its main campuses are in Galloway Township and Atlantic City.
In 1978, a bust of Richard Stockton was displayed at the main entrance of the university’s library. However, during the Black Lives Matter riots of 2017, it was moved to a little used reading room. This was because Richard Stockton was said to be a slaveowner. Does that make him unworthy of recognition and praise?
Richard Stockton was the legal owner of at least one Black slave. His name was Marcus Marsh. Marsh was born on Richard Stockton’s farm in 1765. His mother died when Marsh was an infant. Marsh then lived with Richard Stockton and his wife until he was 16 years old when he was set free.
Richard Stockton and his wife raised Marcus Marsh in their home with their six children. They were all given the same food, clothing, and education. When Stockton’s daughter Julia married Dr. Benjamin Rush, George Washington’s personal physician, Marsh studied medicine with him. Marsh then became an apothecary. An apothecary was a pharmacist who compounded medicine and also treated patients.
We do not know if Richard Stockton owned other slaves. If he did, we do not know if they were treated like Marcus Marsh. All of Richard Stockton’s papers were destroyed or stolen when the British ransacked his home in 1776.
We do know that Richard Stockton and his family opposed slavery as did most Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Many bought slaves for the purpose of freeing them. Others bought them on the same terms as white indentured servants who were freed after seven years. Often Blacks who were legally owned by Quakers were safer than freed Blacks who could be falsely accused of being runaways.
In 1821, Robert Stockton, the grandson of Richard Stockton commanded a warship of the U.S. Navy. After the United States and most European nations made it illegal to bring slaves out of Africa, Robert Stockton captured slave ships and freed their slaves. During the 1846 War With Mexico, Robert Stockton sent naval forces inland into California to keep slavery out of that territory.
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Richard Stockton (Continental Congressman) – Wikipedia
31. “LIBERTY AND PROSPERITY” BECOMES THE MOTTO OF NEW JERSEY IN 1776.
On July 2, 1776, New Jersey declared its independence and adopted its own constitution. One month later it adopted the seal and flag it still uses today.
They depict two ancient goddesses from ancient Rome standing side by side.
On the left is Libertas, the goddess of liberty. On the right is either Ceres, the goddess of bountiful harvests, or Abundantia, the goddess of abundance and prosperity,
The goddess of liberty is associated with two symbols. One is a red cap often known as a Phrygian Cap. According to legend, that cap was worn by former slaves in ancient Rome to show that they had gained their freedom.
Libertas was also associated with either a spear or a wooden pole. Both were weapons. They could have reminded Romans that freedom must constantly be defended. They may have also reminded Americans of the wooden pike often used by farmers and tradesmen as a weapon in England and Ireland during the English Civil War and Irish and Scottish rebellions.
Standing next to liberty on the New Jersey flag and seal is a goddess carrying a cornucopia or horn of plenty. In ancient Rome, this was a symbol of abundance and prosperity.
Both goddesses standing together symbolize Liberty and Prosperity. Those words became the motto of New Jersey soon after that seal and flag were adopted.
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32. GEORGE WASHINGTON’S ARMY RETREATS: “THE CONDUCT OF THE JERSEYS HAS BEEN MOST INFAMOUS!”
On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was published in Philadelphia. One month later, a massive British fleet of 300 ships, 10,000 sailors, and 30,000 soldiers arrived in New York Harbor. Some 18,000 of them were Hessians – professional soldiers hired by Britain from Hesse and other states in Germany.
That August and September, the British and Hessian soldiers attacked and defeated George Washington’s army of 28,000 men in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and White Plains, New York.
Washington crossed the Hudson River and retreated to Hackensack, New Jersey with fewer than 3,000 men. He hoped that thousands of men from New Jersey militias would rally to support him. They did not.
In a letter to his brother, Washington wrote: “The conduct of the Jerseys, has been most Infamous—Instead of turning out to defend their Country and affording aid to our Army they are making their Submissions as fast as they can”.
Washington and his men retreated to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Most members of the Continental Congress left Philadelphia and moved to Baltimore. Many Americans believed that their war for independence from England had been lost.
However, George Washington got encouragement from an unlikely source. Quakers in South Jersey.
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Washington’s Retreat Through New Jersey, 1776, Events, Outcome
Battle of Long Island (Aug. 27, 1776) Summary & Facts
The Stony Brook Quakers and the Battle of Princeton Historical Marker
PowerPoint Presentation PowerPoint Presentation
33. “FIGHTING QUAKERS” FROM SOUTH JERSEY HELP SAVE GEORGE WASHINGTON’S ARMY, AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Since the 1650s, most Quakers in England and America were known as pacifists. This “Peace Testimony” was one of their core values:
“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever.”
However, many younger Quakers believed in self-defense. They thought Americans had a right to defend their independence from Britain. They were also angry at British and Hessian soldiers who looted farms, took over homes, and abused Quakers when they occupied much of New Jersey during November and December of 1776.
When Washington’s army retreated to Pennsylvania, these “Fighting Quakers” formed militias that attacked British and Hessian soldiers throughout South and Central Jersey. They prevented the British and Hessians from getting needed food and supplies.
Richard Somers, a tavern owner from Somers Point, led a militia company of 200 men from Galloway and Egg Harbor Townships, then part of Gloucester County. They and 400 men from militias from Haddonfield and Woodbury marched to Mount Holly. On December 21, they attacked Hessian troops at Petticoat Bridge in what is now Columbus, New Jersey.
During the time, Thomas Paine published a popular pamphlet called “The American Crisis”. It gave Americans new hope in their cause with these famous words, “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”.
This convinced George Washington that New Jersey was not lost. During the days before Christmas of 1776, he made plans to return and attack the Hessians in Trenton. That Christmas night, Washington and 2,500 soldiers crossed the Delaware River. The following morning, they won an overwhelming victory. They killed or captured roughly one thousand Hessian soldiers. Only two Americans died. One week later, the Americans won a second decisive victory against the main body of British troops at Trenton. The Americans then won a third battle at Princeton.
George Washington did far more than regain control of most of New Jersey. News of these three victories instantly revived support for American independence throughout the world.
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34. NEW JERSEY’S FIRST STATE CONSTITUTION OF 1776: PROPERTY DETERMINES WHO VOTES– NOT RACE OR SEX.
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in Philadelphia to declare independence from Britain. On that same day, delegates from all counties in New Jersey voted to approve a new State Constitution in Princeton. It had been written in just five days and was supposed to be temporary. However, it remained in effect for the next 68 years.
New Jersey’s first State Constitution allowed men and women of all races to hold public office and vote. However, there were property requirements.
Each voter had to have property worth “50 Pounds of Proclamation Money” in the county he or she lived in. Members of the state General Assembly had to have property worth 500 pounds. Members of the Legislative Council (Later the State Senate) had to have property worth 1,000 pounds).
When New Jersey was a British colony, being a “freeholder” who owned land was required to vote and hold office. The new state constitution recognized that many business owners and tradesmen in cities in towns owned substantial property other than real estate.
There was an obvious reason for this requirement. The only taxes were property taxes. The framers of New Jersey’s state constitution believed that only people who paid taxes should decide how that money should be spent.
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35. “REPUBLICAN” “ANTI-FEDERALISTS” (NO CONNECTION TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 60 YEARS LATER) ELIMINATE PROPERTY REQUIREMENTS FOR VOTING. BUT THEY DISENFRANCHISE WOMEN AND BLACKS.
During the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson and other supporters of the French Revolution organized political parties throughout America. Their purpose was to control the government by choosing candidates, running propaganda campaigns and getting people to vote to win elections.
They called themselves “Republicans”. Their opponents called them “Anti-Federalists”. (They had no connection to Abraham Lincoln or the Republican Party formed to fight slavery 60 years later.)
These “Republicans” or “Anti-Federalists” appealed to young men and laborers who did not own property. They and their newspapers viciously attacked men like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and even George Washington as “aristocrats”.
Conservative property owners who supported Washington, Adams and Hamilton called themselves “Federalists”. They organized their own political parties.
During the next 20 years, the Federalists and the Republicans attacked each other in speeches, newspapers and even riots.
In 1807, the Republicans defeated the Federalists in New Jersey. They changed the voting laws to eliminate property requirements. At that time, they also barred women and blacks from voting. They did that because those groups tended to vote for Federalists.
Black Americans did not win the right to vote again in New Jersey until the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were adopted after the Civil War in 1868 and 1870. Women could not vote again in New Jersey until the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1920.
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36. RICHARD SOMERS FIGHTS AND DIES BY THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI.
The Somers Point tavern owner who led the Gloucester County militia in 1776 had a son also named Richard Somers.
Young Richard Somers was born in 1778. Like most Americans of his time, Richard Somers completed school at age 15. Like most Americans then, Somers with eight years of education was more proficient in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and knew more about science, history, and literature than most college graduates today.
Somers, like most Americans then, had also mastered a useful trade and was supporting himself by age 16. At that age, Somers was the skipper of merchant ships that sailed along the Atlantic Coast.
At that time, America had no navy. It was disbanded when our War for Independence ended in 1783. Most Americans so no need for a navy when our country was at peace. They were wrong.
For more than a thousand years, Muslim “Barbary” kingdoms in North Africa often declared war on Christian nations in Europe. Their corsairs (French for “privateers”) then attacked and robbed the ships and coastal towns of their enemies as far north as Iceland. The Barbary corsairs held the people they captured for ransom or sold them as slaves.
For years, England, France and Spain fought the Barbary Kingdom with their navies. Later, they found it cheaper to protect their people by making treaties and paying tribute. When America was part of the British Empire, our ships were protected by the tribute paid by Britain. When we won independence in 1783, our ships were attacked and robbed. Everyone on board was held for ransom or sold as slaves.
For years, America paid ransom or tribute to protect our people. However, in 1798, Americans were attacked by French pirates in the Caribbean who also demanded money. Americans refused to pay. “Millions for defense. Not one cent for tribute!” became a popular slogan. America built a new navy. Richard Somers, then 20 years old, was one of the first to join.
In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson sent our navy to North Africa to fight the Barbary Kingdoms. In 1803, Richard Somers was given command of the warship Nautilus with 103 men when he was 24 years old.
The new American navy amazed the world with its success. All but one of the Barbary Kingdoms made peace with us. However, Tripoli continued to fight. On September 4, 1804, Richard Somers and 12 others sailed the Intrepid, a ship packed with explosives, into Tripoli Harbor. Their goal was to win the war by destroying the enemy fleet in one blow. Their mission failed. Their ship exploded too soon and they were all killed. One year later, American marines landed on “the shores of Tripoli”. They ended the war – and attacks on Americans.
458 words Remember the Intrepid: Richard Somers – Key Date Illustrated Chronology
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37. 1826: SLAVERY IS EXPANDING AND NOT ENDING DURING AMERICA’S 50 YEAR JUBILEE.
The U.S. Constitution of 1787 allowed slavery in the United States. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln delivered a carefully researched speech to the Young Men’s Republican Union in New York City. Lincoln electrified that nation when he explained that most Framers of that Constitution intended put slavery “on the path to its ultimate extinction”.
By 1787, nearly half of the states had ended, or were in the process of ending slavery. Earlier that year, Congress had abolished slavery in the Northwest Territories controlled by the federal government. The new Constitution of 1787 allowed Congress to stop bringing new slaves to America in 1808. Congress did that on the first possible day. When the Constitution was adopted in 1787, slavery was becoming unpopular and unprofitable, even in the South.
Sadly, that soon changed. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in America. Then England began building factories with machines that mass-produced cotton fabric. These two events suddenly made the growing of cotton and slavery obscenely profitable in America.
It was said that cotton and slaves “made a poor man rich and a rich man a king”. Instead of disappearing, slavery grew rapidly in the southern states and territories. During this time more Americans in the rest of the country began to openly oppose slavery. That opposition intensified after 1826.
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38. OPPOSITION TO SLAVERY INTENSIFIES AFTER 1826.
In 1826, most Americans were familiar with the Bible. They knew that Chapter 25 of the Old Testament Book of Leviticus called for a “Jubilee” every 50 years. That was when all slaves were to be set free. This inscription on Liberty Bell in Philadelphia was taken from that part of the Bible: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all inhabitants thereof”.
The Declaration of Independence of July 4, of 1776 also called for the end of slavery. One of the truths it held to be “self-evident” was that “all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
The continued existence of slavery during America’s 50 year jubilee troubled many Americans. They saw it as a betrayal of both America’s founding principles and Biblical sin.
In 1829, a Boston newspaper publisher named William Lloyd Garrison in Boston demanded the immediate end to slavery in the United States. In 1833, he and others began the American Anti-Slavery Society near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Within five years it had 1,350 local chapters and more than 250,000 members throughout the northern states of America.
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39. THE “UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” FREES SLAVES AND DAMAGES THE SLAVE ECONOMY. MANY “CONDUCTORS” , “STATION-MASTERS” AND “DEPOTS” ARE IN SOUTH JERSEY.
Helping slaves escape was a direct and effective way to end slavery. During the 1830s, healthy adult slaves sold for $500 to $1,000 each. That would be $17,500 to $35,000 today. Many slave owners borrowed money to buy slaves. Others had them insured. Helping slaves escape damaged the slave economy in the border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.
Opponents of slavery formed an “Underground Railroad”. It was a network of volunteers who smuggled Black slaves out of slave states in the South. They risked arrest and civil and criminal penalties to house them and take them to safe places in northern states and Canada. Many of these volunteers lived in South Jersey.
Stephen Smith was born to an enslaved woman in Pennsylvania in 1797. He bought his freedom in 1818 when he was 21 years old. He made a fortune shipping coal and lumber in Pennsylvania. He spent much of that fortune helping slaves escape from Maryland and become financially independent. In 1845, Smith bought a house in Cape May. From there he worked with others to help slaves escape from Delaware.
In 1849, Harriett Tubman escaped from Dorchester, Maryland and came to Philadelphia. She then worked in both Philadelphia and Cape May to lead more than 300 slaves into freedom. Many were rowed across the Delaware Bay to Cape May. They were often hidden in a hotel that later became the St. Mary by the Sea Retreat House.
Many whites as well as free Blacks were volunteers in the Underground Railroad. Volunteers who guided escaped slaves to their next stop were called “conductors”. They who hid escaped slaves were called “stationmasters”. The homes, churches and Quaker meeting houses where escaped slaves stayed were called “stations” or “depots”. Many were in Somers Point, Egg Harbor City, Swedesboro, Greenwich and Woodbury. 302 words
how many chapters and members did the american anti-slavery society have in 1838? – Search
40. NEW JERSEY’S FIRST STATE CONSTITUTION OF 1776 GIVES ITS STATE GOVERNMENT ALMOST ABSOLUTE POWER.
New Jersey’s first State Constitution of 1776 provided for self-government by a Governor, an Assembly, and a Legislative Council. Voters in each county elected three members to the Assembly and one to the Legislative Council. The Assembly and Legislative Council together chose the Governor. All state officials served one-year terms.
The U.S. Constitution of 1787 carefully defined and greatly limited the power of the federal government. Most Americans greatly feared a national government.
However, New Jersey’s first Constitution put no such limits on the power of state government. This was partly because it was drafted in just five days on the eve of war with Britain. However, Americans then trusted officials they elected to one year terms from their own county.
Before 1790, state governments rarely got involved in business or the economy. Farmers, merchants and ordinary citizens rarely wanted or needed government permits or approvals. Families, investors and merchants routinely bought and cleared land, built improvements and borrowed money on their own or through private agreements with each other.
That changed after 1790. Businesses had to raise large sums of money to get started. Banks were needed to hold and loan money. Corporations with limited liability for investors were needed to raise money from the sale of stock. Banks and corporations needed charters from state government. Each charter required special legislation approved by the Governor and both houses of the Legislature.
Even unhappy married couples needed a special act of the Governor and both houses of the Legislature to get divorced!
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41. ABSOLUTE POWER BY STATE GOVERNMENT BRINGS “SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION” TO NEW JERSEY AND MOST OF AMERICA. AND FINANCIAL COLLAPSE IN 1837.
The need for so many people and businesses to need so many special acts of the Legislature and Governor for so many things created “systematic corruption”. Professor John J. Wallis of the University of Maryland described it in 2006 as follows:
In polities plagued with systematic corruption, a group of politicians deliberately create rents by limiting entry into valuable economic activities, through grants of monopoly, restrictive corporate charters, tariffs, quotas, regulations, and the like. These rents bind the interests of the recipients to the politicians who create them. The purpose is to build a coalition that can dominate the government. Manipulating the economy for political ends is systematic corruption. Systematic corruption occurs when politics corrupts economics.
Michael Lewis described it another way in his book The Big Short in 2008:
“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions—if they can get rich making dumb decisions?”
This happened in New Jersey and most of America between 1790 and 1837. A typical example was the 1831 dam and waterway project of the Trenton Delaware Falls Company. Private investors persuaded a majority of the New Jersey Legislature to issue bonds and borrow public money for their private business. They spent the money to build a dam across the Delaware River and create a lake. They also built canals to run water from that lake over wheels to power 19 privately owned factories that were to be built near Trenton.
However, new technology used steam instead of waterpower and the factories were never built. The corporation never collected money to repay the loans. The bonds issued by the state became worthless. Banks holding those bonds failed. Everyone with accounts at those banks lost their savings.
In 1837, more than 40% of all banks in the Unites States failed. Some failed because state governments borrowed money of ill-conceived projects like the Trenton project. Others failed because of incompetence, fraud or theft. When people lost their savings, businesses closed, prices declined, and there was mass unemployment. Many lost their homes, farms and businesses when they could not pay mortgage loans. Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware reported the greatest stress in their mercantile districts. There was a severe economic depression for the next seven years.
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42. NEW NJ STATE CONSTITUTION BRINGS RECOVERY AND RENEWAL.
In 1844, New Jersey held a State Constitutional Convention to fix this. Dr. Jonathan Pitney, represented Atlantic County in that Convention. (Ten years later, Pitney would work with Samuel Richards to build the railroad and hotel that created the seashore resort of Atlantic City.)
The delegates quickly agreed on a new State Constitution with three basic limits on state government power: 1. State government could not borrow money without the approval of voters in a referendum. 2. State government could not make special laws for special businesses or people. All laws had to apply equally to everyone. 3, State government could not be involved in private business ventures.
Under New Jersey’s new State Constitution of 1844, a special act of the Legislature was no longer needed to form a corporation or obtain a divorce.. Anyone could form a corporation by filling out a simple form and paying a filing fee. Judges granted divorces based on standard laws that applied to everyone.
According to Professor Wallis:
“The state’s (sic) solution the paradox of corruption and economic development was as simple as it was ingenious. First, states eliminated the pressure to create special corporate privileges by enacting constitutional provisions requiring legislatures to pass general incorporation laws allowing unlimited entry into corporate status via an administrative procedure. Second, states passed constitutional provisions requiring that all state borrowing required a bond referendum: mandating that the higher taxes necessary to service the bonds be approved by the voters before the bonds were issued. Third, most states forbade state and local investment in private corporations. . . “
(PDF) The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American Political and Economic History
These basic provisions of New Jersey’s 1844 state constitution were kept in the state’s current State Constitution of 1947. However, various amendments and court decisions since the 1960s weakened or nullified most of them.
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