Hendrik Hartog. The Trouble with Minna: A Case of Slavery and Emancipation in the Antebellum North. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. 208 pp. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4696-4088-4.
Reviewed by Edward Mair (University of Hull)
Published on H-Slavery (August, 2020)
Commissioned by Andrew J. Kettler (University of South Carolina)
In The Trouble with Minna, Hendrik Hartog uses a case of disputed ownership of an enslaved woman to highlight the inconsistent and corruptible legal framework of slavery in New Jersey. Minna was a disabled slave who had been rented out to Elizabeth Haines by her master, Henry Force, in 1822, but in 1836 Haines demanded compensation for the care of this enslaved person from Force. In barely more than 150 pages, Hartog uses the case of Force v. Haines (1840) to expose a multitude of cases that centered on gradual emancipation in New Jersey and to show how slaveholders and the enslaved alike navigated this system. Hartog highlights not only the strains and weaknesses of gradual emancipation but also the ambiguous area of semi-legality that its constituents stood within. Through a nuanced look at a handful of cases, Hartog builds on James J. Gigantino II’s The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865 (2015).
From the outset, Hartog reminds us that "until the 1860s, the end of slavery was understood as an incremental rather than instantaneous event" (p. 7). Furthermore, throughout the text Hartog is keen to remind the reader that by "the late 1830s, there was little profit, perhaps even little honor or prestige, in keeping slaves in New Jersey" (p. 134). At its core, this study is an analysis of the pitfalls of gradual abolition in a state that lacked a definitive stance on slavery. Gradual abolition had been instigated by many states across the United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. New Jersey passed its own version of this law in 1804, making the state the last to pass a gradual abolition law. Gigantino's The Ragged Road to Abolition may better contextualize this legal fact, explaining how the disruption of the Revolutionary War made the whites of New Jersey anxious about slave revolts. The law allowed children born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1804, to become free upon their twenty-first birthday for women or their twenty-fifth for men. However, slavery was still legal within the state, and the lines between slavery and freedom became blurred. Hartog's contribution is to highlight the amount of different experiences that resulted from such an ill-defined system.
While Hartog comes at this case from the intention of unpacking a complex legal regime, he does not let the legal minutiae overshadow the humans who lived within this system. This careful balance is reflected in the structure of the book. The first chapter lays out all the key opinions of the judges who litigated on the Force v. Haines case of 1840, with Hartog adding context to the reasons for these diverse opinions. With this legal and contextual foundation assured, Hartog uses chapters 2 and 3 to discuss "the legal world of gradual emancipation as it might have been experienced in its heyday," including a shift that moves toward the human experience (p. 8). Contrary to the title, which implies focus on the case of Minna, Hartog spends the majority of the short book unearthing other stories of gradual emancipation in New Jersey. These examples, which are rich in detail and vibrancy, ensure the book's appeal to a wide audience, and not just those interested in the legal history of slavery. They also serve to give readers a means to draw their own conclusions on the case of Minna. Hartog returns to the Force v. Haines case in chapter 4, offering his own conclusion on how the key figures of the trial viewed their own standing in this framework of gradual abolition.
Hartog uses a wide base of sources, particularly from the New Jersey State Archives, which serves to paint a vivid picture of the many different experiences of slavery in the state. However, Hartog's scope often extends to other states, as these cases were often complicated by the different laws of surrounding states. Hartog tells us about slaves who were gifted to family members in neighboring New York state and who gained their freedom there but came across state lines to New Jersey. Contemporary litigants pondered about who was responsible for these slaves, and ultimately, who should be financially responsible for these people. Hartog's conclusion to such cases lack resolution. For example, in the case of slave women Leah and Elsie, "the matter ended, as far as the historical record shows, without any determination of what the New Jersey law said with regard to responsibility for Leah or Elsie. Leah or Elsie disappears from the historical record" (p. 47). The inconclusiveness of the story's end reflects the ambiguity of gradual emancipation and the limits of legal records in telling us the whole story. Such a case highlights the true scope of Hartog's argument, commenting not only on New Jersey in general but also on the effects of the state's ambiguous slave laws on the courts of neighboring states, particularly New York.
Another case Hartog details also demonstrates how the problems of gradual emancipation could transcend state boundaries, and the precarity it created for the Black population. Cato Richards was a freeman, but his case shows how determined actors could bend the courts to effectively strip former slaves of any rights they may have gained. Richards was attacked by his former master, John C. Hatfield, who attempted to kidnap him. Hatfield claimed he still had possession over Richards's wife and brought cases to the New York and New Jersey courts. Throughout the whole saga, multiple contradictions in the setup of the case were apparent, as well as coercion of Cato Richards. In the end, Cato was put in a jail and then forced to serve Hatfield for at least five years to regain his freedom. All this was done and sanctioned by the courts, even though Richards was technically free. Hartog concludes that "he was free, but burdened by a racist culture that presumed the legitimacy of a white master's power" (p. 109). The example of Richards is consistent with Hartog's paradigm of unpacking gradual emancipation and weaves seamlessly with the other cases he employs.
Richards's story, as well as the other cases Hartog unearths, feed back into the case of Minna. Hartog masterfully balances all of these different stories, extracting from them the key details that highlight the peculiarities of gradual emancipation. The reader leaves the book with a sense of intrigue as we arrive at Hartog's final mystery of whether after all his legal posturing to the contrary, Force may have taken Minna back into his care. An 1840 census implies that this may have been the case. Nevertheless, this book is an illuminating study of how the law broke down binary distinctions of those who had gained freedom and those who had not. As with his conclusions on Minna, Hartog does not embellish these historical actors to force resolution upon the cases. Like so many other enslaved figures, they drift in and out of the historical record, but Hartog demonstrates that their brief appearances can give clarity to a seemingly ambiguous legal system.
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Citation:
Edward Mair. Review of Hartog, Hendrik, The Trouble with Minna: A Case of Slavery and Emancipation in the Antebellum North.
H-Slavery, H-Net Reviews.
August, 2020.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54639
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