Editing Delaware (section)

===Slavery and race===
{{Main|History of slavery in Delaware}}
Many colonial settlers came to Delaware from [[Maryland]] and [[Virginia]], where the population had been increasing rapidly. The economies of these colonies were chiefly based on labor-intensive tobacco and increasingly dependent on African [[Slavery in the United States|slaves]] because of a decline in working class immigrants from England. Most of the English colonists had arrived as [[Indentured servitude|indentured servants]] (contracted for a fixed period to pay for their passage), and in the early years the line between servant and slave was fluid.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Most of the free African-American families in Delaware before the Revolution had migrated from Maryland to find more affordable land. They were descendants chiefly of relationships or marriages between white servant women and enslaved, servant or free African or African-American men.<ref>{{citation |last=Heinegg |first=Paul |title=Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware |url=http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/ |url-status=dead |access-date=February 15, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100807191511/http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/ |archive-date=August 7, 2010}}</ref> Under slavery law, children took the social status of their mothers, so children born to white women were free, regardless of their paternity, just as children born to enslaved women were born into slavery. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in England, more slaves were imported for labor and the caste lines hardened.

By the end of the colonial period, the number of enslaved people in Delaware began to decline. Shifts in the agriculture economy from tobacco to mixed farming resulted in less need for slaves' labor. In addition local [[Methodist]]s and [[Quaker]]s encouraged slaveholders to free their slaves following the American Revolution, and many did so in a surge of individual manumissions for idealistic reasons. By 1810, three-quarters of all blacks in Delaware were free. When John Dickinson freed his slaves in 1777, he was Delaware's largest slave owner with 37 slaves. By 1860, the largest slaveholder owned 16 slaves.{{sfn|Kolchin|1994|pp=78, 81–82}}

Although attempts to abolish slavery failed by narrow margins in the legislature, in practical terms the state had mostly ended the practice. By the [[United States Census, 1860|1860 census]] on the verge of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], 91.7% of the black population were free;{{sfn|Kolchin|1994|pp=81–82}} 1,798 were slaves, as compared to 19,829 "free colored persons".<ref>{{citation |title=Historical Census Browser |url=http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/start.php?year=V1860 |contribution=1860 Federal Census |publisher=University of Virginia Library |access-date=November 30, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011024040/http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/start.php?year=V1860 |archive-date=October 11, 2014 }}</ref>

An independent black denomination was chartered in 1813 by freed slave [[Peter Spencer (religious leader)|Peter Spencer]] as the "[[Spencer Churches|Union Church of Africans]]". This followed the 1793 establishment in Philadelphia of the [[African Methodist Episcopal Church]] by [[Richard Allen (bishop)|Richard Allen]], which had ties to the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1816. Spencer built a church in Wilmington for the new denomination.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.udel.edu/BlackHistory/antebellum.html|first=Peter T.|last=Dalleo|title=The Growth of Delaware's Antebellum Free African Community|publisher=University of Delaware|date=June 27, 1997|access-date=June 21, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905050734/http://www.udel.edu/BlackHistory/antebellum.html|archive-date=September 5, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> This was renamed as the [[African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection]], more commonly known as the [[A.U.M.P. Church]]. In 1814, Spencer called for the first annual gathering, known as the [[Big August Quarterly]], which continues to draw members of this denomination and their descendants together in a religious and cultural festival.<ref>{{Cite web|title=August Quarterly Festival Celebration
|url=http://www.augustquarterly.org/|access-date=February 2, 2021|website=www.augustquarterly.org}}</ref>

Delaware voted against [[secession]] on January 3, 1861, and so remained in the Union. While most Delaware citizens who fought in the war served in the regiments of the state, some served in companies on the Confederate side in [[List of Maryland Confederate Civil War units|Maryland]] and [[List of Virginia Civil War units|Virginia]] Regiments. Delaware is notable for being the only slave state from which no Confederate regiments or militia groups were assembled.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}} Delaware essentially freed the few slaves who were still in bondage shortly after the Civil War{{explain|date=June 2020}} but rejected the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th]], [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th]], and [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th]] Amendments to the Constitution; the 13th Amendment was rejected on February 8, 1865, the 14th Amendment was rejected on February 8, 1867, and the 15th Amendment was rejected on March 18, 1869. Delaware officially ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments on February 12, 1901, decades after they had already come into force.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bill Detail - Delaware General Assembly |url=https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail/48275#:~:text=Since%20the%2014th%20Amendment%20to,,%20color,%20or%20national%20origin. |access-date=2024-06-29 |website=legis.delaware.gov}}</ref>