Perth Amboy is a small city in New Jersey with much historical significance. At the inception of the colony of New Jersey, it was split into two different parts: West Jersey and East Jersey. Perth Amboy served as the capital of East Jersey. [1]Being by the coast, Perth Amboy became an important trading port for the colonies. This remained true even after the East and West Jersey united and the capital became another city.
The image depicted above displays a picture of Raritan Bay and the port located in Perth Amboy. This print, Vue d’amboy et du steam-boat[2], was drawn by Anne Marguerite Hyde de Neuville, a French aristocrat woman, in 1806[3]. She drew this while she during her trip from New Brunswick to New York. Since Perth Amboy is a boat ride away from Staten Island, it was a popular way to get from New Jersey to New York. The print is the first depiction of a steamboat in the United States.[4]
In 1804, New Jersey became the last state in the North to abolish slavery, however that did not prevent slave trading. This emancipation was passed as a gradual process, so it was not fully enacted right. In 1806, the act had just been passed two years prior, so the process was still in its infancy. In the picture, two boats are shown one of them being a steamboat. This port was very important to the economy of New Jersey. Its most significant purpose, however, was in the transatlantic slave trade. Perth Amboy was one of the ports in the North utilized to transport slaves from Africa to the United States. There were many loopholes that allowed slave trade to occur just not internationally, but domestically. Slave traders would then sell the captured slaves to slave owners in the south. Slave trader Jacob Van Winkle sought to sell New Jersey slaves to slave owners in the South. He decided to do this because he saw an opportunity for profit as New Jersey slaves were sold cheaper than Southern slaves, making them more appealing to slave owners. This practice was used among slave traders in New Jersey well until November 5, 1818, when a bill made internal slave trading illegal in New Jersey. There were still many loopholes to this bill, but it heavily decreased the slave trading that was occurring. [5]
There is a possibility that one or both of the boats in the drawing had slaves on them when Hyde de Neuville was drawing. If this is the case, then she likely omitted that part since she was on vacation with her husband and did not want to depict such a dark subject in her landscape print. She wanted to show the quaint and tranquil atmosphere that the small town had. This can be seen with the sole house in the print surrounded by trees and a pond. Additionally, there are children playing with a dog in front of the house. This shows that the people who lived during this period, particularly the wealthy, showed apathy to the atrocities that were occurring around them; choosing to ignore them.
[1] Maxine N. Lurie and Richard F. Veit, in Envisioning New Jersey: An Illustrated History of the Garden State (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016), p. 35.
[2] Anne-Marguerite Hyde de Neuville, Vue D’amboy Et Du Steam-Boat., photograph (Perth Amboy, NJ, 1809), The New York Public Library.
[3] There are conflicting dates with the book and the NYPL website.
[4] Deák Gloria, “The New World Sojourn of Baron and Baroness Hyde De Neuville,” in Passage to America Celebrated European Visitors in Search of the American Adventure (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013), p. 13.
[5] James J Gigantino II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77, no. 3 (2010): pp. 281-302, https://doi.org/10.1353/pnh.0.0045.