At 2:26 PM -0400 4/16/01, Harold S. Forsythe wrote:
>   I don't doubt that there were many Quakers in Delaware, but I do
>doubt that their presence was the determining factor in Delaware's
>gradual emancipation (or manumission.)  Delaware, home of Du
>Pont de Nemours, was perhaps the most industrialized slave state
>by 1850.



The history of emancipation in Delaware was indeed a function of
agrarian Quakers, like the Dickinson, Hunn, and Mifflin families that
were politically active. Governor John Dickinson, a Quaker, called
the "Penman of the Revolution," was a slave owner, by the way.

Industry, of course, in those days was dispersed along the water
power streams. The biggest milling installations were merchant flour
mills and, later, textile mills. Delaware's sizable free colored
community, living on the border as they did, were quite active in the
anti-slavery movement, with such individuals as Bishop Richard Allen
and Harriet Tubman, to name but two who were active in the state.
Wilmington's black middle class was economically devastated by
emancipation, but they had been among the key people in the
Underground Railroad. I believe the free black population of Richmond
suffered a similar decline in fortunes, but the general depression of
Reconstruction may have masked the effect.

Delaware's manumission reforms occurred before duPont was much of a
force in Delaware. The duPonts only came to Delaware in 1802, and
they didn't make an immediate splash. Not until the Civil War did
that company become even a blip on the radar screen outside its small
sphere upstate.

Lincoln tried to persuade the white slave owners of Sussex County,
Delaware, to experiment in compensated emancipation, and sent a
popular politician to sell the idea.  He escaped with his life and
was appointed Chief Justice of the District of Columbia in
compensation.

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