Delaware land and population records prior to and during the 1800s are spotty and incomplete, especially where free Black men are concerned. The free Black population was increasing, rising from a 50/50 split in 1800 (230 free Blacks, 239 enslaved persons) to a 75/25 split in 1840 (305 free, 111 enslaved).

Free Blacks were still regarded by law as something more than mere pieces of property but “less than fully human,” and did not enjoy the rights and freedoms of White men. Although they paid taxes, they could neither vote nor testify in a courtroom against Whites. There were few schools available for their children. 

As of 1832, it was illegal for more than 12 free Blacks to hold a meeting past 10pm in winter without three “respectable” Whites present. By 1849, it was illegal to be unemployed while poor and the state held the power to sell anyone judged as such into servitude.

Free Black men and women risked the threat of being grabbed by “slave catchers” or arrested. Free Blacks lived in constant fear that they or members of their families would be sold back into slavery. Kidnappers found that taking free Blacks had far fewer consequences than seizing those who were enslaved. One of the most notorious “slave catchers” was Patty Cannon who lived four miles west of Seaford in Sussex County. Cannon abducted hundreds of free Black people and freedom seekers along the Delmarva Peninsula and sold them into slavery in southern states such as Alabama and Mississippi. When arrested, she confessed to nearly two dozen murders of Black kidnap victims. 

Some free Black men, individually or in groups, actively expressed their opinions on contemporary issues. They sought religious freedom and fairness in labor practices and spoke passionately about their sense of justice, independence, and desire for equality. They petitioned the state demanding action on abolition, emigration, and education. The White majority responded to their growing numbers by passing increasingly harsh, restrictive legislation to restrict their political and economic progress. In spite of these discriminatory practices, free Blacks found ways of creating economically and socially viable families and communities.

Even later, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs designed to help all farmers largely hindered Black farmers’ ability to obtain loans or increase their acreage. White farmers wouldn’t sell land to Black farmers. If Black farmers were successful in acquiring land, they often were denied operating loans, and were provided limited access to USDA programs intended to help farmers improve their property. USDA documents revealed, in many cases, loans for Black farmers would take two or three times longer to receive compared to loans for White farmers. As such, Black farmers had to wait to plant crops and so their yield suffered. Every obstacle forced more Black farmers out of farming. 

“Thompson’s Beginning”

Levin Thompson, a free Black man, displayed a great deal of creativity and business acumen. By the time of his death in 1816, he was among the top 5% of assessed property owners in Sussex County. He was wealthy enough to loan money to his White counterparts for interest.

According to William H. Williams’s Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865, in 1794, Levin Thompson, born to a Maryland free family, arrived in Delaware and purchased a 200-acre farm and timberland east of Laurel that he expanded into ownership of 428 acres of farmland named “Thompson’s Beginning.” Thompson also operated a gristmill and a sawmill. He owned several spinning wheels and a loom that produced 200 yards of linen and 60 yards of woolen cloth a month. He formed partnerships with White neighbors who assisted him through the tangled legal network that restricted Blacks. To operate his extensive holdings, Thompson employed many free Blacks and provided housing near his mills for 40 free Blacks. Many of his workers purchased freedom for their family members. 

Delaware has three counties: New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. Around 1860, about 10% of free Black men in Kent and Sussex counties were tenant farmers or were temporary farm laborers who worked during the growing and harvesting of crops such as corn, wheat, and other foodstuffs. In the Cypress Swamp area of Sussex County, free Blacks took jobs related to the timber industry, cutting down trees, driving teams of oxen, and reworking logs into lumber and shingles. Those who did not have land might own oxen they could rent out for cultivating fields, hauling wood and bark, or moving buildings. 

Belltown

By 1860, 68 enslaved persons showed on property listings by White farmers within a three-mile radius of Belltown, now the Five Points intersection near Lewes, Delaware. Fully half of those were listed as “fugitives” so a good number of them had probably set out in search of freedom along the Underground Railroad.

Oral tradition states the Sussex County town was named after Jacob “Jigger” Bell, whose name first appears in the 1822 historical record. Bell, a thirty-something resident of Lewes and a free Black man, was painted as a bold businessman and as Delaware’s first Black real estate developer. He bought up land, divided it into smaller parcels, then sold the parcels to others drawn to the free-Black haven and self-sufficient community. Most of the land in Belltown was farmland with cornfields and apple orchards. In the census of 1860, Bell is listed as a 60-year-old minister. He died in the late 1870s, nearing the ripe old age of 90. By the 1870s, Belltown was big enough to support two churches, both built on land donated by Black property owners.

Special Field Order 15, issued on January 16, 1865, promised newly-freed Blacks 40 acres of farmland in a strip of land covering 400,000 acres ranging from South Carolina to Florida. Nearly 40,000 freed Blacks took up residence on this land. But this field order did not benefit Black Delaware farmers as Delaware was a border state and not a Confederate state. Additionally, President Andrew Johnson rescinded the Special Field Order in the fall of 1865. This returned the land to the previous property owners, many of whom had been White enslavers.

Many of Delaware’s former enslaved farmers became sharecroppers, under terms that benefitted the landowners who collected half the crop. Landowners often financed the cost of seeds, fertilizers, and other crop inputs but often at exorbitant interest rates. This left the Black farmers with little money for food, clothing, and other living expenses. Black farmers often were forbidden to seek better opportunities. 

By 1980, gripping drought suffocated much of the South. White farmers put in irrigation. Black farmers were denied access to federal or local money and were not advised to structure their business to separate the farm from the home. Without irrigation, yields suffered and forced many Black farmers to lose their homes. The number of Black farmers nationwide plummeted from 926,000 in 1920 to less than 46,000 by 2017.

Although Blacks could not become doctors or lawyers and despite, for the most part, living in a state of poverty or semi-poverty, free Blacks found ways to survive, to accumulate significant amounts of material wealth, and build a future for themselves and their families as they became an essential aspect of Delaware’s economic growth.

Jessica Clark is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Journalism. After a 30-year career as a Public Information Specialist and photojournalist for several federal agencies, she retired to Georgetown, Del. She restored former Governor John Collins’ 1790s home on Collins Pond and is a Sussex County Master Gardener.