Traveling to History: Seven
“TALES OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM” WALK:
THE STORIES OF ENSLAVED AMERICANS IN DELAWARE
By James F. Lee
An historical interpreter leads a tour on The Green in Dover. Courtesy of Delaware State Parks.
A beam of moonlight shining through the window and reflecting off an iron bar in the darkroom was enough for Henry Predeaux to sense something was wrong. His guide had just led Predeaux and seven companions, all runaway slaves, into a building they were told was a sanctuary on the Underground Railroad. It was really the Dover Jail and the year was 1857. Thinking quickly, he created a diversion while his seven companions jumped out an open window into the night. Eventually all of the “Dover Eight” made it to freedom, despite being betrayed by their guide tempted by the $3,000 price tag on their heads.
This was one of many stories we heard several years ago on the “Tales of Slavery and Freedom” walk offered by the First State Heritage Park in Dover, Delaware. The 45-minute tour is still offered today on The Green, a two-acre, tree-covered oasis in the heart of the city lined with elegant houses, where at one time the powerful and their enslaved servants lived.
The Green in Dover, Delaware. Originally laid out in 1717. Photo by James F. Lee.
“Walking tours are an important way to engage the public with the stories and places where history happened,” said Robin Krawitz, Historian with the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program of the National Park Service.
Our earlier tour started at the John Bell House (circa 1730), a tiny wooden structure on the southeast corner of The Green. Historical interpreter Michael Cinque, dressed in breeches and hose and a three-cornered hat, greeted my wife and me. We learned right away that the history of slavery was all around us. Michael told us that one former resident of the Bell House was Nathaniel P. Smithers, a Republican lawyer who worked on President Lincoln’s plan of Compensated Emancipation, offering slaveholders $500 per freed slave (five times the going rate). The idea proved so controversial it was never brought to a vote.
Site of the Golden Fleece Tavern on The Green in Dover. Richard Allen labored here for years to earn money to buy his freedom. Photo by James F. Lee.
At the Old State House, an elegant 2 ½ story brick Georgian structure at the eastern end of The Green, home to Delaware’s legislature from 1791 to 1933, Michael explained that Delaware’s enslaved population was small relative to other states. Samuel Chew (1693-1744), who lived on The Green in a house next to the Old State House where the state Supreme Court building now stands, was the state’s largest slave holder, at one time owning 62 slaves. Unlike those in plantation states toiling in cotton and tobacco fields, most enslaved people in Delaware worked in flax, wheat, and corn fields and often slept in the attics and basements of their owners and sometimes in separate quarters. By the early 1800’s, Delaware had a rapidly dwindling population held in bondage.
But the state legislature, fearful of the growing number of free Blacks, enacted the “Black Codes,” restrictive laws limiting African Americans’ rights and establishing separate penalties for the same crimes. In ante-bellum Delaware, whites convicted of theft were punished with three months in jail, while free Blacks convicted for the same crime received 39 lashes and seven years servitude.
Image of Richard Allen, founder of the AME Church and influential African American leader. Born enslaved in Delaware, he was able to purchase his freedom through his labor. {{PD-US}}.
We stopped at the site of the Golden Fleece Tavern that once stood at the corner of South State Street and The Green, where delegates voted to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1787, making Delaware the first state to do so. This tavern had a connection to Richard Allen (b. 1760), an enslaved person whose owner came to believe slavery was wrong and gave Allen an opportunity to buy his freedom. While enslaved, Allen worked on his own time for pay at the Golden Fleece and for others, hauling salt and chopping wood. He raised his freedom money in several years. Allen became a Methodist, taught himself to read and write, and moved to Philadelphia, where he started the Free African Society, participated in the Underground Railroad, and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Interior of the Old State House on The Green in Dover, Delaware. Samuel Burris, a free black man, was tried here for violating Delaware’s law against aiding escaped slaves. Photo by James F. Lee.
Back at the Old State House, we learned the story of Samuel Burris, a free Black man born near Dover, who repeatedly risked his freedom as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. Burris, who lived in Philadelphia, was eventually caught, and charged with two counts of violating Delaware’s laws against aiding escaped slaves. Tried in that building in 1847, he was convicted, sentenced to 14 year of slavery, and auctioned right on the courthouse steps overlooking The Green. Unknown to Burris, Isaac Flint, an abolitionist, outbid the other buyers and bought him for $500 with money raised by other abolitionists. Flint took him North to freedom after Burris served four more months for the second count. Since our tour, Samuel Burris has been posthumously pardoned by the governor of Delaware.
These tales are tragic, but they are uplifting, too, said Ryan Schwartz, Interpretive Programs Manager at First State Heritage Park. “It’s a very emotional tour for a lot of people.”
Every place holds the stories of all the people who lived there. We learned their names and tried to understand what happened on The Green, in the heart of the capital of a slave-holding border state.
Image of Samuel Burris from about 1850. A free man, he risked his safety assisting escaping enslaved people. {{PD-US}}.
