Person Record Title

William Lee

Identifier

NJS-PER-01296

Given Name

William

Family Name

Lee

Sex

Male

Occupation

Slave Trade

Maritime

Biographical Description

William Lee was a captain involved in the illegal transportation of Black people from New Jersey to Louisiana. He was part of the slave trading ring organized by Middlesex County Judge Jacob Van Wickle, Charles Morgan, and their associates. In the spring of 1818, William Lee sailed the brig Mary Ann from New York City to New Orleans. En route to New Orleans, he dropped anchor between Sandy Hook and Perth Amboy to secretly receive a group of about thirty six captive Black men, women, and children assembled by Van Wickle and Morgan in New Jersey. Captain Lee was indicted upon his arrival in New Orleans because the customs officials there became suspicious that the ship's manifest was forged and fraudulent. He stood trial, but was ultimately acquitted by the jury in New Orleans.

Keywords

white person

enslaver

Van Wickle and associates

Place of Significance

Perth Amboy, NJ

New Orleans, LA

Related Person or Resource

New Jersey Slavery Records > Understanding removal certificates and slave trading

Lost Souls Memorial Project website

Bibliographic Citation

Gigantino, James J., II. "Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade." Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77, no. 3 (2010): 281–302.

Drake, Jarrett. "Off the Record: The Production of Evidence in 19th Century New Jersey." New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1, no. 1 (2015): 104–25.

Pingeon, Frances D. “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818.” New Jersey History 109, no. 3 (1991): 15–35.

Record Contributor

Jesse Bayker