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Certificate of Abandonment, Piscataway
Township New Jersey, 1806
Courtesy: Special
Collections/University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.
In this document dated June 6, 1806 and transcribed below, slave
owner Mary Boice of Piscataway relinquished responsibility for the infant Sarah, born on
November 16, 1805 to Boice’s slave Judi. Because the baby was born under the
provisions of New Jersey’s Gradual Manumission Act of March 1804, she was legally a
free person. However, under the terms of the Act, slave owners were entitled to the
services of such children of their slaves born after July 4, 1804, until these children
were either 21 years old (for females) or 25 years old (for males) unless they chose to
relinquish their rights to that service. As this document shows, Boice abandoned her claim
to Sarah’s services and is so doing she also absolved herself of any legal
responsibility to care for the child. That responsibility for the child’s support was
then placed in the hands of the overseers of the poor of her town. It is likely that Boice
was illiterate, as the document bears her mark and not a signature. The document is transcribed below:
| To the Town Clerk & overseer of the poor of this
township of Piscataway Gentlemen this are to inform you that
my Negro wench Judy was brought to bed the sixteenth day of November last with a female
child which she named Sarah—I do therefore hereby give you notice that I do abandon
all my right & title to the said female child agreeably to an Act of the Legislature
in which case made & provided – Given under my hand the 6th day of
June 1806.
Her
Mary Boice
mark
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