Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 210.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on May 31st, 26, in Austin, Texas.

We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States

from the beginning without intentional presentism. We haven't said too much about New Jersey in the

more than five years of this podcast, which is perhaps a bit strange,

since I've lived more of my life there than in any other state.

You gads.

The ugly truth is that 17th century New Jersey, after the capture of New Amsterdam by men

under the authority of James, the Duke of York,

in the spring of 1664, was just not very podcast worthy. There were a lot of weird little legal issues,

but few famous controversies, or brutal wars, or or hilarious screw-ups out of which to spin

history podcasting yarn. And with one exception, which we will cover in this episode,

there were no political innovations that echo today. If you listened to episode 167, oh, what about New Jersey?

In episode 171, New Jersey is revolting, you might recall that apart from a few Dutch farms

across from New Amsterdam and some Swedes and Finns along the eastern shore of the Delaware,

European settlement of the colony came surprisingly late.

Then when it did come, all sorts of problems with getting clear title to land

in the scope of local governmental authority meant that newcomers were reluctant to take

the big risk of working for years to develop a farm, only to lose it in a dispute over boundaries.

That would change with the migration of thousands of Quakers to the colony of West New Jersey

in the mid-1670s.

But even that story is mostly important because it sets up the founding of Pennsylvania

...