William Livingston (1723-1790)
- Name
- William Livingston (1723-1790)
- Identifier
- NJS-PER-00020
- Given Name
- William
- Family Name
- Livingston
- Birth Date
- November 30, 1723
- Death Date
- July 25, 1790
- Sex
- Male
- Description
-
William Livingston (1723-1790) was the first governor of the State of New Jersey during the Revolutionary War, serving from 1776 to 1790. In 1969, Livingston College at Rutgers University was named in his honor. His family had a long-standing connection with the university. In 1766, his brothers Philip Livingston and Robert Livingston were two of the charter trustees of Queen's College (the original name of Rutgers University); and his cousin Rev. John Henry Livingston would go on to become the university's fourth president from 1810 to 1825. William Livingston was an ex-officio member of the college's Board of Trustees (by virtue of his position as New Jersey governor), and he presided over several meetings of the board in the 1780s.
Livingston came from a wealthy family of landholders, merchants, and slave-traders in New York. Before coming to New Jersey, he worked as an attorney in New York City representing the interests of his family's vast international mercantile operation; their business included slave-trading voyages to Africa and plantations in the Caribbean. He moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1772.
During the American Revolution, William Livingston became convinced that slavery was incompatible with the young American nation's ideals of freedom. Livingston called slavery "an indelible blot" upon humanity. As governor of New Jersey, he opposed the slave trade and hoped to pass a gradual abolition program after the Revolution. To set a public example for other slaveholders, in 1787 Livingston manumitted a woman named Bell and her son Lambert, who had been enslaved in Livingston's household in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Livingston won a ban on the Atlantic slave trade in New Jersey in 1786 (22 years before the Atlantic slave trade became illegal nationwide). But he was not able to achieve abolition during his tenure as governor, because slaveholders who opposed Livingston's views held too much power in the New Jersey legislature.
In 2021, a Scarlet and Black historical marker acknowledging the connection between the Livingston family and slavery was erected at Livingston Campus. The text of the historical marker reads thus:
"Livingston Campus (site of former Livingston College) was named after William Livingston, the first governor of the state of New Jersey, whose family made a fortune trafficking human beings in the transatlantic slave trade. The campus opened in 1969 as an experimental, social-justice oriented campus at the site of Camp Kilmer, a World War II-era military camp. The Livingston family collectively enslaved hundreds of people and William’s brothers, Philip and Robert, two of Rutgers’ founding trustees, bought and sold hundreds more. When William Livingston moved to New Jersey, he enslaved at least two people, a woman named Bell and her son Lambert. Though he later advocated for gradual abolition, he continued to represent the legal interests of his slave-trading family’s wealth throughout his career. This marker honors Bell, Lambert, and the other women, men, and children enslaved and sold by the Livingston family." - Sibling of
- Philip Livingston (1716-1778)
- Organization
-
Rutgers University
- Bibliographic Citation
- Boyd, Kendra, Miya Carey, and Christopher Blakley. “Old Money: Rutgers University and the Political Economy of Slavery in New Jersey.” In Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, edited by MARISA J. FUENTES and DEBORAH GRAY WHITE, 43–57. Rutgers University Press, 2016.
- Gigantino, James J., II. William Livingston’s American Revolution. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
- Source Resource
- https://records.njslavery.org/api/items/1237
- Source Site
- https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/page/home
- Contributor
- Jesse Bayker
Part of William Livingston (1723-1790)