UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 12
November 21, 1996
Book on Del. slavery views individual histories, culture

     There are many documents and records about the rich and
famous and the major players in history, but there is
comparatively little information about members of less prominent
groups that also were important in shaping the past and present,
according to William H. Williams, who teaches history in the
Parallel Program and the Master of Liberal Studies Program in
Georgetown.
     His new book, Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865, an
extensively documented overview of the history of slavery in the
state, published by Scholarly Resources Inc., is a look at such a
group.
     The project began 10 years ago when Williams, an authority
on Delaware history, wrote The First State, An Illustrated
History of Delaware. "While researching that book, I discovered
that, although other southern slave states had published studies
of slavery and freedom, little had been published about the
history of slavery and African Americans in Delaware," he said.
     As he writes in the introduction, he decided to write the
book to give a "more accurate depiction of past race relations"
within Delaware.
     Researching the book was a formidable task because of the
lack of information and records. "Delaware is a small state and
did not have big plantations as they did further south where
record-keeping was more important," Williams said.
     "Most slaves could not read or write, so they left little
written legacy. Research on the Underground Railroad also was
difficult because the people involved were outside the law and
did not want to leave incriminating records," Williams said.
     Slavery in Delaware and elsewhere in the New World grew by
the "convergence of three factors: Virgin land, the desire to
grow cash crops and a great scarcity of free agricultural
laborers," Williams points out in his book.
     As a border state, Delaware was unlike its neighbors to the
south and north. For example, Maryland and Virginia were under
British rule and first used indentured servants as labor until
immigration declined in the late 17th century. From the
beginning, Delaware, on the other hand, under Dutch rule from
1655-1664, depended upon slaves from Africa for labor, although a
few Native Americans also were slaves.
     One reason was that the Dutch West India Company and its
ocean-going fleet controlled West African trading centers where
African commercial networks existed, exporting gold, ivory and,
"most important slaves." The slave trade, as Williams notes in
his book "had existed in Africa long before... Europeans began
transporting unfree blacks to the New World," citing trans-Sahara
slave trade that existed prior to 700 A.D.
     After the British took over Delaware in 1664, the number of
slaves in the area declined to probably less than 5 percent of
the total population. However, after 1713, the number of enslaved
African Americans increased so rapidly that 20 to 25 percent of
Delaware's population were slaves by the end of the Colonial
period.
     Beginning in the 1720s, waves of indentured servants from
Ireland arrived at the ports of New Castle and Wilmington. They
joined with slaves to become members of an interchangeable work
force for the remainder of the Colonial period. Mortality rates
on their ships may have been as high as for slave ships, and many
of the white servants were probably driven through the Delaware
countryside and sold at public fairs, according to Williams.
     However, as he points out, there were two major differences
between the African Americans and white indentured servants-the
latter were not bound to unfree labor for the rest of their
lives, nor were their children, and most, although not all,
voluntarily came to America.
     Delaware also was unusual in that it led all of the states
in the percentage of its population who were free African
Americans during the antebellum period. In 1775, 95 percent of
the African Americans in Delaware were slaves; in 1810, this
number declined to 24 percent; and the figure was down to 8
percent in 1860.
     Possibly because of the large number of freed African
Americans in the state, the white population felt threatened,
Williams said. Delaware's laws regulating freed slaves were
probably more oppressive than in other states, and African
Americans did not have equal rights before the courts and were
frequently mistreated by law enforcement officers. Because public
schools refused to admit them during the antebellum period,
education for free African Americans was restricted to a few
privately funded schools in New Castle County, two in Kent County
and none in Sussex County.
     Williams' book is interjected with individual histories of
black Americans, such as Richard Allen, founder of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church. The work also traces the influence of
the Quakers and Methodists in supporting the abolition of
slavery.
     Although slavery was finally abolished in Delaware by the
13th Amendment in December of 1865, for the state's African
Americans, William writes, "more than a century would pass before
some of the hopes and dreams for equal treatment... were
realized."
     Williams received a 1990-91 fellowship from the University's
Center for Advanced Study to work on the book. A graduate of Drew
University, with a master's degree in education from Yeshiva
University, Williams received his doctorate from Delaware in
1971.
     He is the author of The Garden of American Methodism: the
Delmarva Peninsula, 1769-1820; The First State: An Illustrated
History of Delaware; and America's First Hospital: The
Pennsylvania Hospital 1751-1841.
                                              -Sue Swyers Moncure
                                                                 
     William H. Williams will be signing copies of Slavery and
Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865 at 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 23, at
Borders Books & Music in Newark, and at 7 p.m., at Borders Books
& Music on Concord Pike.