Levin Sockum convicted as "mulatto" for selling gunpowder to his Nanticoke cousin (Millsboro, Sussex County, Delaware, 1855)

SUMMARYLevin Sockum convicted as "mulatto" for selling gunpowder to his Nanticoke cousin (Millsboro, Sussex County, Delaware, 1855) [Connections: Northeast & Mid-Atlantic, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDLevin Sockum, a Nanticoke store owner, sold gunpowder to his cousin Isaiah Harmon. Delaware law barred Black people from owning or selling arms. The prosecution called Lydia Clark, described as the "last real Nanticoke" (87 years old), who testified the cousins descended from enslaved people and a white landowner. An all-white jury found them "mulatto" or "negro," not Nanticoke. Sockum was fined and charged court costs, later lost a second trial for owning a gun, and moved away, as many Nanticoke did, to New Jersey. Nanticoke elders and historian Gabrielle Tayac say Clark's testimony was likely coerced: she was elderly and lived on a white landowner's property. Chief William Daisey: "Levin Sockum was accused of selling a gun, to a Native American, but they classified him as black."

PATTERNA gun law based on race was used to decide a person's nation in court

LENS (WW9)A jury ruled a Nanticoke man "mulatto" and took his right to bear arms

OPENGet the court record (Sussex County Court of General Sessions, 1855) and the statute's citation

SOURCEDelaware Public Media, "History Matters: Delaware's Forgotten Folks," June 5, 2015; Wikipedia, Delaware Moors.