History of slavery in Delaware

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File:Gov. Ross Plantation - slave quarters.jpg at Gov. Ross Plantation, in Seaford, Delaware]]

The history of slavery in Delaware began when it was Delaware Colony and continued until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.{{Cite web |date=2022-02-11 |title=Which Side of Black History is Delaware on? |url=https://www.aclu-de.org/en/news/which-side-black-history-delaware |access-date=2023-08-26 |website=ACLU Delaware |language=en |archive-date=2023-05-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531201550/https://www.aclu-de.org/en/news/which-side-black-history-delaware |url-status=live }} The Delaware River was an important waterway used for bringing slaves inland to Pennsylvania.{{Cite journal |last=Wax |first=Darold D. |date=1983 |title=Africans on the Delaware: The Pennsylvania Slave Trade, 1759–1765 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27772875 |journal=Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=38–49 |jstor=27772875 |issn=0031-4528}} In 1776, Delaware prohibited the importation of slaves, and on December 7, 1787, prohibited both imports and exports of slaves from the state.{{Cite book |last1=Jewett |first1=Clayton E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0YuhW73gDMC&dq=delaware+slave+trade+law&pg=PA35 |title=Slavery in the South: A State-by-State History |last2=Allen |first2=John O. |date=2004-02-28 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-32019-4 |pages=35 |language=en}} Delaware never abolished slavery and in order of admission to the Union was the first of the 15 slave states but did not secede from the Union during the American Civil War.{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=North vs South in Delaware |url=https://dehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/North-vs-South-in-Delaware.pdf |website=Delaware Historical Society |access-date=2023-08-26 |archive-date=2021-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918133102/https://dehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/North-vs-South-in-Delaware.pdf |url-status=live }} There were 1,798 enslaved people living in Delaware at the time of the 1860 U.S. census.

A state with a mix of enslaved people and free people of color that lay in close proximity to the slave jails of traders in Baltimore and Washington, legally free blacks were sometimes kidnapped into slavery, and "freedmen found it wise to deposit apprentice and freedom papers with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in Philadelphia."{{Cite web |last=Newton |first=James E. |date=1997 |title=Black Americans in Delaware: An Overview |url=https://www1.udel.edu/BlackHistory/overview.html |access-date=2023-08-26 |website=University of Delaware |archive-date=2021-09-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927063845/https://www1.udel.edu/BlackHistory/overview.html |url-status=live }} The Johnson–Cannon gang, whose tavern and slave pen stood on the border between Maryland and Delaware, were notorious slave stealers and murderers.{{cite web |title=Martha "Patty" Cannon |url=https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/051200/051231/html/051231bio.html |website=Maryland State Archives |access-date=5 March 2025}} The state also hosted stations of the Underground Railroad such as the Appoquinimink Friends Meetings House.{{Cite book |last=Hudson |first=J. Blaine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AKRI-GNca6oC&q=Delaware |title=Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad |date=2015-01-09 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-0230-1 |pages=124 |language=en |access-date=2023-08-26 |archive-date=2023-08-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826210526/https://books.google.com/books/about/Encyclopedia_of_the_Underground_Railroad.html?id=AKRI-GNca6oC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q=Delaware&f=false |url-status=live }} Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, a businessman of the Quaker faith, reportedly assisted in the escapes of between 2,000 and 3,000 slaves.