1797, "To Be Sold" [Trenton] Source, The State Gazette & New-Jersey Advertiser, May 30, 1797.
Courtesy, Special Collections/University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.
 

This advertisement from a Trenton newspaper offers a slave woman for sale. The document is transcribed below:

"Near nine years time of a BLACK GIRL, about nineteen years of age; she is sober and honest, has been brought up in the country, and wishes a situation in it; she will be sold reasonable. Enquire of the Printer. April 24, 1797."

In 1800 there were reportedly 12,422 slaves in New Jersey, the last northern state to abolish slavery. At the end of the eighteenth century slavery and commerce in slaves were still strong.