Nanticoke on trial: State v. Levin Sockum (Sussex County, Delaware, 1855)

SUMMARYNanticoke on trial: State v. Levin Sockum (Sussex County, Delaware, 1855) [Connections: Virginia & Eastern Shore, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDDelaware Public Media (2015) reports that Levin Sockum, a Nanticoke store owner, sold gunpowder to his cousin Isaiah Harmon at a time when Black people were barred from owning guns. The prosecution called Lydia Clark, 87, described as the "last Nanticoke." She testified that the two men descended from slaves and a white landowner. An all-white jury found Sockum "mulatto, or negro," not Nanticoke. He was fined and lost a second trial for owning a gun. The article says Clark's testimony was likely coerced (she lived on a white landowner's property). It also reports that census takers were told to mark Nanticoke as Black or mixed race, which tribal members call "paper genocide." Wikipedia adds that Delaware Moors were listed as "Black" or "Mulatto" in censuses of the 1800s and early 1900s

PATTERNA court ruling that turned Nanticoke men into "mulatto" in law, decided by a jury and secured with coerced testimony. The Nanticoke were neighbors and kin of the Accomac/Gingaskin across Delmarva

LENS (WW9)A jury voted on whether a Nanticoke man was a Nanticoke

OPENThe trial record (Sussex County Court of General Sessions, 1855) and Weslager's Delaware's Forgotten Folk still need to be checked. The 1881 Delaware school act and the Nanticoke Indian Association's incorporation were not confirmed this session

SOURCEDelaware Public Media, "History Matters: Delaware's Forgotten Folks" (2015); Wikipedia, Lydia Clark; Wikipedia, Delaware Moors.