Not Quite Men: The Free Negroes in Delaware in the 1830's

NOT QUITE MEN: The Free Negroes in Delaware in the 1830's Harold B. Hancock For the free Negroes in Delaware the 1830's were a significant decade . Their numbers had increased fourfold since 1790, and some persons predicted that slavery in this most northern slave state would soon be abolished. By 1830 Negroes in Delaware numbered 15,855, almost equally divided among the three counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex. They comprised 24.9 per cent of the population in 1830 and 25.0 per cent in 1840. Slavery was a dying institution in New Castle and Kent Counties, but Sussex County, surrounded on two sides by a southern slave state, contained almost two thousand slaves.1 Why had the number of free Negroes increased so rapidly since 1790? Humanitarian feeling was stirred by die Delaware Abolition Society, which, beginning in 1791, encouraged individuals to free slaves and included lists of manumissions in its minutes. The society also provided legal aid for free Negroes who might be kidnapped or kept illegally as slaves. Then, in 1823, a branch of the American Colonization Society was organized in Wilmington.2 Quakers were in the forefront of the abolition movement. Warner Mifflin, a Quaker from Camden, in Kent County, freed his own slaves and persuaded others to do so following the American Bevolution.3 John Hunn, another Quaker from Cantwell's Bridge, in New Castle County, later reputedly became the superintendent of the Underground Bailroad in Delaware.4 Samuel Fisher, a Philadelphia Quaker 1 United States Bureau of Census, Negro Popuhtion in the United States, 17901915 (Reprint, New York, 1968), p. 51. Negro Population in Delaware in 1830 SlaveFreeTotal New Castle7865,7086,494 Kent5885,6716,259 Sussex1,9184,4766,394 Total3,29215,85519,147 Six Negroes in New Castle County and three in Sussex County owned slaves; presumably some of these slaves were members of their family. See Carter G. Woodson , Free Negro Owners of Shves in the United States in 1830 (Washington, 1924), p. 11. - Minutes, Delaware Abolition Society, 1791-1819, Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; J. Thomas Scharf, History of Delaware, (Philadelphia, 1888), II, 827. 3 Hilda Justice (comp.), Life and Ancestry of Warner Mifflin, Friend—Phihnthropist —Patriot (Philadelphia, 1905), passim. 4 Henry C. Conrad, History of Delaware, (Wilmington, 1908), II, 557-558. 320 of Delaware antecedents, left money in his will to provide for the education of Negroes in Kent County.6 In Wilmington, Quakers were the backbone of the Delaware Abolition Society and the Wilmington Union Colonization Society. Their best known leader was Thomas Garrett, who in 1850 was fined $5400 for aiding a family of seven slaves to escape. In 1858, in a letter to Gerrit Smith, he boasted of having assisted 2152 slaves to escape, only two of whom had been returned to bondage.6 The papers of William Still, a Philadelphia Negro abolitionist, are filled with instances in which slaves from Delaware were assisted in escaping by Garrett and other Quakers.7 Agriculture in Delaware faced difficult times at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1818, a well-informed speaker before the Agricultural Society of New Castle County stated that farming in the state netted landowners nothing, and predicted that the entire state would be deserted within a few years unless drastic improvements in the methods of cultivation and in fertilization occurred.8 As a result of soil exhaustion , the population of the state remained virtually stationary in 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840, and many persons emigrated to the West or moved to cities. The records of die tax collector of "Ceder Crick" in Sussex County in 1835 reflected diis migration, as he listed many persons "in phila.," "In solv" (insolvent), "Bun way West," and "up die cuntre ."9 Under these circumstances, many farmers found it unprofitable to use slave labor. Legally, slaves could not be sold out of the state or imported , but figures concerning the declining number of slaves in the county and the increase in the number of free Negroes are often not parallel, leading to suspicions diat in some instances slaves were smuggled out to soudiern markets. In any case, almost every census contained increasing numbers of free Negroes.10...