Acknowledging the History of Enslavement and Liberation of African Americans in Pequannock – October 26, 2024
October 7, 2024
Upcoming Event and Project for African American Public History in Pequannock, NJ Includes NBTS Professor Nathan Jérémie-Brink and Community
A public event to discuss The Acknowledging the History of Enslavement and Liberation of African Americans in Pequannock Project on October 26, 2024 from 1-3 PM will be of great interest to members of the wider NBTS community. The event will be hosted by the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, the Pequannock Historical Society, and the project’s Advisory Council. It will prove an important discussion for those who have a connection to the history of African Americans in northern New Jersey or interest in the ways churches might partner with local organizations to foster public history concerning the history of slavery in New Jersey and among members of the Reformed Churches of the region.
Grant funding from the Henry Luce Foundation-funded Grounded Knowledge Project of the Institute for Diversity & Civic Life, administered by New Brunswick Theological Seminary, has come alongside Rutgers University-supported research and scholarship to further support this work. The Advisory Council, a collaborative, interdisciplinary group, representing diverse individuals and professional backgrounds, has led this community-centered effort to consider the reburial of human remains and to acknowledge and document the legacy of slavery and dispossession within the community of Pequannock. The advisory council has featured participation from alums, students, former trustees of NBTS currently serving in Reformed Churches in the area, and the project featured the leadership of NBTS professor Nathan Jérémie-Brink along with Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan and Carol McCarty of Rutgers University.
Historical Context of the Project at Rutgers University
During a review of the collections at the Rutgers Geology Museum in 2022, researchers determined that Rutgers University-New Brunswick was in possession of human remains and sensitive belongings from multiple cultural and geographical contexts. Some of these remains and objects are subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and Rutgers remains engaged in appropriate management of these remains and objects, in consultation with the National Park Service, in pursuit of compliance with recently updated federal repatriation laws and practices. The museum was also in possession of the remains of at least four individuals whose burials were disinterred during sand mining in Pequannock Township in January 1936, and whose remains were brought to the museum shortly thereafter.
The upcoming event and the involvement of members of the NBTS community has concerned the individuals whose remains were disinterred in Pequannock and brought to the museum in the early 20th century. At the time of disinterment, local residents were consulted about the likely provenance of the remains, which the project’s researchers have been able to substantially corroborate through archival research in deeds, wills, census, birth, death, and marriage records, newspaper articles, and other records that establish evidence for the ownership of land where the remains were found. The exact identities of the individuals represented in the remains disinterred in Pequannock cannot be ascertained without destructive analysis; however, pathological and osteological analysis suggests that the remains had been buried for approximately 80-100 years at the time of disinterment in 1936.
They are believed to be African American, and a living witness at the time indicated they were likely to have been people who were enslaved by the DeMott family. The burials were made on land that was owned by the DeMott family for the majority of the nineteenth century, and the witness reported that several burials of “Negro slaves” were made in the early 1850s at that site. At this location, the DeMotts enslaved dozens of people, many of whom lived and worked at this site, including individuals named York, Dinah, Andrew, Isaac, Amzi, Frank, Jude, Phebe, Manus, Harry, Jack, Charles, Bill, and Mercy. Several other enslaved people whose names were not recorded in the surviving written records, who were described in dehumanizing terms as “negro wench” and “black boy,” also lived and worked at this site.
This project aims to honor the ancestors whose remains have been held in storage for decades, by recognizing their humanity and facilitating reburial.
Community History Engagement & Establishment of Advisory Council
The disposition of the remains between 1936 and 2024 was not in keeping with ethical practices for human remains in cultural collections. Historical, museological, and anthropological professional guidelines for ethical practices with human remains in cultural collections suggest that members of stakeholder communities should be integral parts of the decision-making process for how to address reburial, repatriation, and interpretation.
With this in mind, Rutgers University’s collections provenance research team assembled a council of experts with academic and vernacular expertise to issue recommendations about how to appropriately reinter these ancestors. Grant funding from the Henry Luce Foundation-funded Grounded Knowledge Project of the Institute for Diversity & Civic Life, administered by New Brunswick Theological Seminary, is facilitating this work among a collaborative, interdisciplinary group representing diverse individuals and professional backgrounds engaged in this community-centered effort to consider the reburial of these ancestors, and to acknowledge and document the legacy of slavery and dispossession within the community of Pequannock.
The advisory council began meeting in February 2024 to review the existing evidence and to discuss the best resolution for the remains of these ancestors. The Acknowledging the History of Enslavement and Liberation of African Americans in Pequannock Project is a collaborative, community-engaged effort to rebury the displaced remains of at least four Black unfree people in Pequannock Township in the 19th century and to honor the lives and histories of enslaved people in New Jersey.
The council is comprised of community leaders and researchers sharing knowledge and contributing diverse perspectives. This project was created to find a final resting place for the remains of these ancestors and to promote community engagement with histories of race, slavery, liberation, and unfreedom in New Jersey. Informed by more than a year of research and after spending many hours of community knowledge-sharing, the committee has issued a list of recommendations which can be viewed here.
The recommendations are informed by the consensus among council members that the ancestors under consideration should be buried respectfully in the places they lived, worked, worshiped, married, and raised families. There were several free Black landowners and farmers who lived in Pequannock in the mid-1800s, including a family who had been previously enslaved and became free and purchased land from the DeMotts after living on it and working it for many years. Many enslaved and free African Americans, and the white people who enslaved them, in Pequannock and the surrounding area, were members of the Reformed Dutch Church (now First Reformed Church) of Pompton Plains.
Because these histories connected to the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, the records of that church were a critical part of the archive that informed our understanding of these individuals and slavery in that community. The pastors of that church and African American RCA pastors in the surrounding community were vital participants on the advisory council, together with researchers and practitioners of public history and racial justice initiatives. These efforts hope to inform the ongoing work of the Rutgers Geology Museum and its collections, but also how churches, educational and non-profit organizations, and public institutions throughout New Jersey address the past, present, and future of these histories, which continue to resonate in diverse ways throughout our communities.
Upon the recommendation of the advisory council, a peaceful and dignified private reburial ceremony took place on July 13, 2024 in the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains Cemetery.
The council welcomes community feedback and input, especially from people with a shared heritage with nineteenth-century North Jersey and contemporary Morris County and nearby residents. We hope to foster opportunities to speak about the history of enslavement and liberation of the African Americans who lived in Pequannock in the colonial and early national periods in New Jersey.
A public event is scheduled for October 26, 2024. We welcome participation from people interested in reckoning with these histories in our region.
The work to honor these lives and engage with this history continues, with descendant communities, community members, public and religious institutional partners.
For more information or to get involved, contact AAHistPEQ@gmail.com
Event Details:
Date & Time: October 26, 2024 from 1-3 PM (Eastern Time)
Location: Friendship Hall, First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains
529 Newark Pompton Turnpike, Pompton Plains, NJ 07444
(Free parking available at Township Hall parking lot, across the street.)