Slavery and the Long Road to Freedom
Europeans, notably the Dutch, brought enslaved Africans to America beginning in the 17th century. Enslaved Africans were in New Castle as early as 1662. By the mid-1700s, slavery had a huge impact on the local area. In fact, one out of every three people living in southern New Castle County was enslaved.
Things began to shift in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The way people made money changed, and more people started to believe that slavery was wrong. During this time, many enslaved people in New Castle finally gained their freedom through a legal process called “manumission.” By 1850, there were no longer any enslaved people living in the town.
Excerpt from the will of Kensey Johns of New Castle, 1839.
Delaware sat between the Southern states where people were enslaved (like Maryland and Virginia) and the Northern states where they could be free (like Pennsylvania). This made Delaware a major route for people trying to escape slavery.
New Castle and Wilmington were especially important. Because they were close to water and roads, they were relatively easy to travel through. Plus, there were many local people - especially Quakers - who hated slavery and were willing to hide and help anyone passing through. This made Delaware a big part of the Underground Railroad, the secret network that helped people get to freedom.
Runaway advertisement placed by New Castle’s Richard McWilliam in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1773.
Free Black People in New Castle
New Castle’s history includes several examples of free Black people
who worked hard to become successful business people and community leaders,
even during a very difficult time in American history.
Harriet Tubman is again in these parts. She arrived last evening from one of her trips of mercy to God’s poor, bringing two men with her as far as New Castle.
- Thomas Garrett, 1860
A Stop on a Secret Route to Liberty
In the early 1800s the Underground Railroad brought freedom seekers through New Castle. The Underground Railroad was not a real train but a hidden network of secret paths and safe houses for people to escape slavery. Freedom seekers traveled hundreds of miles toward “free” states in the North and even all the way to Canada.
Kind neighbors in New Castle and nearby communities risked much to help, providing hidden spaces to sleep, food to eat, and guidance on the next leg of the trip to safety and freedom. Some, like Wilmington Quaker Thomas Garrett, were charged with crimes and tried for them because of the help they provided.
Harriett Tubman, the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, escorted more than 300 people out of slavery in Maryland, including some through New Castle.
Image - Harriet Tubman, Library of Congress
James Smith's Journey to Freedom
In 1838, James L. Smith and two companions who were all enslaved in northeastern Virginia, escaped their bondage and made their way north seeking to live free. Their travel was mostly on foot though they used a canoe and small boat which they found to sail across the Chesapeake Bay. The arrived near Frenchtown, Maryland. One of James’ companions was familiar with the area and recommended that they avoid going through Frenchtown in order to evade being captured as fugitives.
Once they reached the road to New Castle, they stopped to rest and had to hide in the woods in order to sleep without fear of discovery. Upon resuming their walk, James could not keep up with his travel companions due to an old injury to his leg. His companions decided to leave him because he slowed them down and they worried about being captured by a patrol. After they left him, James nearly gave up hope, but soon found the strength and courage to continue.
He continued walked and soon experienced his first encounter with a steam locomotive of the New Castle-Frenchtown Railroad. The engine’s appearance, noise and steam frightened him, and he scrambled away to hide from it. The second time he encountered the train he looked in the passenger cars to see if it carried any black passengers, but it did not. Only white passengers were aboard. He imagined the locomotive to be the devil taking souls to Hell.
He continued walking until he came to a house owned by a white family. Though he was afraid they might capture him as a fugitive, he asked for breakfast because he was very hungry. He was invited inside and fed. He paid a quarter for his meal and continued walking to New Castle. Upon his arrival at noon, he was soon reunited with his companions. Within a couple of hours, they were able to board a steamboat sailing to Philadelphia. Although James heard that New Castle was “one of the worst slave towns in the country, and the law was such that no steamboat, or anything else, could take a colored person to Philadelphia without first proving his or her freedom” he found that no one stopped them or asked them for any documentation at all. They boarded the ship and purchased their tickets with no difficulty. They arrived safely in Philadelphia that afternoon.
Smith eventually made his way to Springfield, Massachusetts where he received a formal education and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. After marrying in 1842 he moved to Norwich, Connecticut where he continued working as a minister and a shoemaker.
Bench
c. mid-19th century
This bench is from the Lukens Farm which was located north of town on the Delaware River. Local lore suggests that the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad, speculating that fleeing slaves were brought to the house by way of the river, directed to sit on this bench in an interior room of the farmhouse until nightfall, and then led upriver under cover of darkness.
New Castle Historical Society