George Wiles

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This person of African descent has 1 related event in the database, listed at the bottom of this page.
Identifier
NJS-PER-01448
Given Name
George
Family Name
Wiles
Sex
Male
Biographical Description
George Wiles was a Black man who lived in East Windsor, Middlesex County (now in Mercer County), New Jersey, in the early 19th century. His date and place of birth is uncertain.

By 1820, he was legally held in bondage by a Black man named Benjamin James (himself a formerly enslaved person who attained freedom from Samuel Eli in 1807). On June 10, 1820, Benjamin James manumitted George Wiles. The manumission certificate listed the enslaver as "Ben James blackman of the township of East Windsor." This is one of two manumissions recorded in Middlesex County where the enslaver performing the manumission is a Black person (see also the manumission of Hannah Allen by her own mother Sarah Ball). It is possible that Benjamin James and George Wiles may have been related. African Americans in the early 19th century sometimes purchased and then manumitted their own family members as a way to secure freedom for their relatives. It is uncertain whether a familial relationship existed between Benjamin James and George Wiles.

George Wiles may possibly be related to other African Americans mentioned in Middlesex County records as residents of East Brunswick: Susan Wiles [Identifier NJS-PER-00538] and Thomas Wildes/Wiles [Identifier NJS-PER-00457] who had been manumitted by Joseph Hutchinson in 1807 and 1802 respectively.
Keywords
African descent person
Places
East Windsor
Enslaved by
Benjamin James (b. 1782)
Record Contributor
Jesse Bayker
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Resource class
Agent