ccount were diminished, and in
course of time they ceased altogether.

A great many slaves must have been brought direct from Africa to New
Jersey, for at Perth Amboy there was established what was then called a
barracks; and in this, negroes who had been brought in the slave ships
were confined until they were sold and sent out into the country.

Not only were there negro slaves in the State, but there were also
Indians who had been enslaved, and were regularly sold and bought. How
these red men happened to be slaves, we do not certainly know; but we
may be very sure that the whites did not make war upon Indian tribes,
and capture prisoners, for the purpose of making slaves of them. It is
far more likely, that, when one tribe of Indians made war upon another,
the conquerors found it a very profitable thing to sell their prisoners
to the whites. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the natives
made war on purpose to capture and sell their fellow-countrymen, as was
the case in Africa.

The early records, however, prove that there were Indian slaves. When
the House of Representatives for the Province met at Burlington in 1704,
an act was brought before that body for the regulating of Indian and
negro slaves.

Negroes were then considered to be such legitimate articles of
merchandise, that English sovereigns thought it very necessary to see to
it that their loyal settlers were sufficiently supplied with slaves, and
at prices not too high. When Queen Anne sent out Lord Cornbury as
governor of the Province, she recommended the Royal African Company to
the especial attention of the governor, that New Jersey might have a
constant and sufficient supply of merchantable negroes at moderate rates
in money or commodities. In consequence of the fostering care of the
Proprietors and the English sovereigns, slaves rapidly increased in New
Jersey.

The English themselves were not at all averse to the ownership of a good
serviceable slave; and about the middle of the eighteenth century a
young gentleman in England wrote to his father in New Jersey, begging
that he might "be favored with a young negro boy to present to the
brother of the then Duke of Grafton, to whom he was under obligations,
as 'a present of that kind would be very acceptable.'"

Of course, the existence of slavery made the state of society in New
Jersey and the other Colonies very different from what it is now; and
this difference is strongly shown by th