Franklin 250 · Franklin Township, New Jersey
1783 at Rockingham
Black refugees and the crisis of American freedom
In 1783 about 3,000 Black men, women, and children sailed free from British-held New York, each written down by name in a British register. Twenty-nine named people and an infant came from central New Jersey. Most had escaped slavery.
That same year American leaders wrote a demand for their return into the treaty that ended the war, and Washington spent the autumn at Rockingham, the Berrien farmhouse in what became Franklin Township, where enslaved people also lived. This site follows those stories from the documents themselves.
29 Lives
Who left central New Jersey for freedom, how we know their names, and where they went.
The Clause
How the founders tried to get them back, from Yorktown to Article VII of the Treaty of Paris.
One House
Rockingham, the people enslaved there, and the clause that came home to it.
The Voyages
Follow the twenty-nine from New York to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and on to Sierra Leone.
The People
Every person named on the boards, with the record that names them.
In Their Own Words
Boston King and Judith Jackson describe 1783 in New York themselves.
The Archive
Every page of the orders, letters, treaty, and tax list, with transcriptions.
The lecture
1783 at Rockingham: Black Refugees and the Crisis of American Freedom
Saturday, October 24, 2026, 2:00 PM
Franklin Township Public Library, 485 DeMott Lane, Somerset, New Jersey
Timothy Messer-Kruse, Bowling Green State University, author of Slavery’s Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution (LSU Press, 2024). Moderated by Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli, Hendrick I. Lott House.
Visiting the exhibition?
The three boards at the library follow the same order as this site. Each board has a short route; each page here gives the full documents, larger and with complete transcriptions. Start with 29 Lives, or go straight to the archive. Teachers: see For Teachers.
Do you know more?
If your family, church, or town has a story, a name, or a document connected to anyone on this site, we would like to hear from you. See About.