Items

• Allen Reynolds

  Allen Reynolds was an enslaver who resided in Palmyra, Mississippi (present-day Davis Island). Removal certificates issued in Middlesex County, New Jersey, show that his associate Lewis Compton intended to bring a group of enslaved people from New Jersey to Allen Reynolds as part of a slave trading operation assisted by the legal machinations of Judge Jacob Van Wickle.
• Charles Morgan (1775-1848)

  Charles Morgan was a slave trader and owner of a substantial sugar plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. He was originally from South Amboy, New Jersey, the son of Revolutionary War veteran Captain James Morgan Sr. (1734-1784). The area where he grew up later broke off from South Amboy and is now known as Sayreville. He went to Louisiana when he was in his 20s to establish a sugar plantation. By 1809, he had 28 enslaved people on his plantation. He also served as the sheriff of Pointe Coupee Parish. In 1818, Charles Morgan came to South Amboy with $45,000 that he wanted to invest in an interstate slave trading operation. He knew that he could buy enslaved men, women, and children at cheap prices in New Jersey and sell them for huge profits in Louisiana. He organized an illegal slave trading ring together with his brother-in-law Jacob Van Wickle (the husband of Morgan's sister Sarah) and nephew Nicholas Van Wickle. Jacob Van Wickle exploited his position as Middlesex County Judge of Common Pleas and falsified legal documents to facilitate the shipment of enslaved people from Perth Amboy to Louisiana. The slave trading ring sent over a hundred enslaved people from New Jersey to the Deep South. Charles Morgan's plantation was known as the Morganza Plantation, and the village of Morganza in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, still carries this name today. By the end of Morgan's life, there were over a hundred enslaved people working on the Morganza plantation.
• David F. Labaw

  David F. Labaw was an enslaver associated with Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
• Garret Story

  Garret Story was an enslaver associated with West Windsor and East Windsor area in Middlesex County, New Jersey, in the early 19th century. He manumitted two enslaved people. His name also appears on an 1818 removal certificate related to Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring.
• Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)

  Jacob Van Wickle was a corrupt Judge of Common Pleas in Middlesex County who took advantage of his position to establish a slave trading ring. Jacob Van Wickle's son Nicholas Van Wickle and brother-in-law Charles Morgan were also involved in his scheme to buy groups of enslaved people in New Jersey at cheap prices and send them to the Deep South to make huge profits. The Lost Souls Memorial Project, which seeks to memorialize the the individuals whose freedom was stolen by Van Wickle's slave trading ring, has documented over a hundred victims who were taken away from their communities in New Jersey. New Jersey law stipulated that, before any enslaved person could be taken away (or "removed") from the state, the enslaved individual had to appear in court and give their consent to relocate with their enslaver. If the enslaved person consented, then the Judges of the Common Pleas would issue a removal certificate authorizing this relocation. In 1818, Jacob Van Wickle signed 77 removal certificates authorizing his own son, brother-in-law, and other associates who were part of the scheme to remove Black men, women, and children from New Jersey to Louisiana and Mississippi. But these Black people did not actually give their consent and were instead coerced to leave New Jersey with the slave traders or else left the state under false pretenses after being lied to about their destination. Newspaper accounts of the Van Wickle operation note that Van Wickle assembled and imprisoned groups of Black people under armed guard at his house on the South River, which newspapers dubbed the "South River Establishment." Researchers affiliated with the Lost Souls Memorial Project identify present-day East Brunswick as the location of Van Wickle's "South River Establishment."
• James Brown

  James Brown, son of William Brown, was an enslaver associated with Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
• James Morgan (1756-1822)

  James Morgan was an enslaver who resided in South Amboy, Middlesex County, New Jersey, in the area that is now Sayreville. He served as a U.S. Congressman from New Jersey in 1811-1813. He was the brother of Charles Morgan and brother-in-law of Judge Jacob Van Wickle (via Van Wickle's marriage to James Morgan's sister Sarah Morgan), who were the leaders of a notorious slave trading ring that facilitated human trafficking from New Jersey to Louisiana and Mississippi. James Morgan was connected with the slave trading ring as well. A Black man named Simon, who was enslaved by James Morgan, became one of the victims of the slave trading ring. Morgan obtained a manumission certificate for Simon in February 1818, then immediately allowed his brother Charles Morgan to take Simon to Louisiana to toil in bondage there.
• John Outcalt (1770-1853)

  John Outcalt was a judge in Middlesex County, New Jersey, in the early 19th century. In his official capacity as the Justice of the Peace for the county, he issued manumission certificates for residents of North Brunswick whose enslavers agreed to set them free. In his role as the Judge of Common Pleas for the county, he was also responsible for approving removal certificates to authorize the movement of enslaved people out of New Jersey to other states. In 1818, he colluded with the notorious slave trading ring organized by Judge Jacob Van Wickle in Middlesex County. Judge Outcalt signed many falsified removal certificates that helped Van Wickle sell Black New Jerseyans into slavery in the Deep South.
• John Smith (Judge of Common Pleas)

  John Smith was a Judge of Common Pleas for Middlesex County, New Jersey, in the early 19th century. In this role he was responsible for approving removal certificates to authorize the movement of enslaved people out of New Jersey to other states. In 1818, he colluded with the corrupt Judge Jacob Van Wickle and his associates who were engaged in a notorious slave trading operation in Middlesex County. Judge Smith signed about a dozen removal certificates that helped Van Wickle and his associates send Black New Jerseyans to the Deep South. --- See also a potentially related record for a man named John Smith [Identifier NJS-PER-00116], who was the Overseer of the Poor of East Windsor in the early 19th century. It is possible that this is the same man. The relationship between these records has not been confirmed.
• Lewis Abrams

  Lewis Abrams was an enslaver associated with Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
• Lewis Compton

  Lewis Compton was an enslaver associated with Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
• Nicholas Van Wickle (1796-1865)

  Nicholas Van Wickle was the son of Judge Jacob Van Wickle, and was involved in his father's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey. In 1818, Nicholas Van Wickle helped his father and his uncle Charles Morgan buy up groups of enslaved people in New Jersey and then falsify legal documents to facilitate the shipment of these enslaved people to the Deep South where they could be sold for a huge profit.
• Peter F. Hendry

  Peter F. Hendry was an enslaver associated with Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey. An article in the May 22, 1818, issue of the Philadelphia newspaper Franklin Gazette implicated him in kidnapping and selling Black people into slavery and listed his residence as West Windsor, NJ. The article printed his name as "Peter Ferron Henry." Middlesex County records refer to him as Peter F. Hendry.
• Samuel Gordon

  Samuel Gordon was an enslaver associated with Judge Jacob Van Wickle's notorious slave trading ring in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
• William Lee

  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.
• William Stone

  William Stone was an enslaver who moved from New York City to New Iberia, Louisiana, where he set up a sugar plantation in 1818. Removal certificates issued in Middlesex County, New Jersey, show that his associate Lewis Compton intended to bring a group of enslaved people from New Jersey to William Stone as part of a slave trading operation assisted by the legal machinations of Judge Jacob Van Wickle.