Central Delaware played a pivotal role in the Abolitionist and Underground Railroad movements during the half-century before the Civil War. Delaware was officially a slave state from colonial settlement through the Civil War, but many Kent County Quakers and Methodists spoke out bravely against slavery and helped to harbor and transport slaves who were escaping bondage in the south. After the War, rural farming communities found they were dependant on neighbors, whatever color they might be. Kent County is home to Delaware State University in Dover, dedicated to educating African-Americans since the 19th Century; the town of Camden, where Harriet Tubman brought many fugitive slaves on the underground railroad; John Dickinson, Colonial diplomat who freed his slaves upon his death in the late 1700s; and a mondern raucous festival in June, celebrating African American life and culture!
Delaware
State University - DSU is the
state’s only historically black institution of higher education, with a
diverse enrollment of over 3300 students. Loockerman Hall is the oldest
building on campus (circa 1742). Once a plantation home, it was later believed
to be a hiding place on the Underground Railroad and was the first home
of Delaware State College. The 400-acre campus complex now boasts over 40
buildings, including new and modern classrooms, residence halls, dining
hall, student center, library, and theater. The Education and Humanities
Theater is a focal point for a wide variety of performing arts including
theatre, musical and gospel choir performances, and dance.
Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village - Loockerman Landing, the re-created 19th century village on the grounds of the Museum contains a farmhouse which was built in the 1890's by the Carney's, a black family from the area. Kent communities of the era were often color-blind, with neighbors having to depend on eachother and work together to survive.
Old State House- The State House, one of the Delaware State Museums, offers a re-enactment of the trial of Samuel Burris. Burris, a free black man, was caught and brought to trial at the State House. The punishment in Delaware before the Civil War, for any black person who was found guilty of smuggling slaves, was not incarceration, but sale into slavery. Burris' dramatic efforts and subsequent imprisionment are brought to light through a program titled "A Crime Next to That of Murder", which is an actual phrase written by Samuel D. Burris describing the nature of his crime.
Dickinson Plantation - This 1740 home was once an active slave-holding plantation that depended on the labor of slaves, free blacks, and other tenant farmers. The “World’s Apart” Slavery Tour at the plantation is guided by a costumed interpreter who discusses what colonial plantation life was like for its many residents. John Dickinson was ahead of his time in manumitting his slaves upon his death in the late 1700’s.
Barratt's Chapel - Barratt’s Chapel was the first Methodist Church in America. The traveling free black minister Harry Hoosier spoke out against slavery to the congregation here. Early Quakers and Methodists were determined Abolitionists due to their conviction that all men were created equal in the eyes of God.
Woodburn
- Now the Governor’s Mansion. Built around 1790,
the home once contained a tunnel from the basement to the nearby St. Jones
River. The tunnel was used by fugitives who traveled back and forth from
transportation on the river to a hiding place in the home. Visitors can
still see the tunnel door in the basement. Woodburn was also the site
of an unsuccessful kidnapping raid by notorious murderess Patty Cannon
of Reliance, Delaware (near Seaford). She was a brutal person who, with
her gang, captured fugitive slaves and killed them or sold them back into
slavery. Across the street from Woodburn, the Dover Public Library keeps
a hatbox that contains an actual human skull, believed to be Patty Cannon’s.
African-American Festival - Music, food, fun, and community are the highlights of this festival held each June in Dover.
All Rights Reserved