Last updated: July 30, 2025
Person
Samuel Burris
Quick Facts
Significance:
Samuel D. Burris was a conductor on the Underground Railroad who risked his freedom and his life to assist enslaved people escape to freedom.
Place of Birth:
Kent County, DE
Date of Birth:
October 14, 1813
Place of Death:
San Francisco, CA
Date of Death:
December 3, 1863
Place of Burial:
Colma, CA
Cemetery Name:
Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
Samuel D. Burris's life was spent fighting for the abolition of slavery, often putting himself in mortal danger. He was an agent on the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people cross from Delaware into Pennsylvania. In doing so, he was subjected to prosecution and imprisonment and came very close to being sold into slavery himself.
Burris was born to free Black parents in western Kent County, Delaware in 1813, likely near Willow Grove. Burris was one of six children and worked variously as laborer and blacksmith. Yet, it is clear from his eloquent writing that he was educated. Details about Burris's early life is sparse, but by the 1840s he had a family of his own, and by 1850 he moved his family to Philadelphia.
Burris first became involved in the Abolition movement in 1843, when he subscribed to the National Anti-Slavery Standard newspaper. He quickly took on more active roles, such as becoming a member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society based in Philadelphia. As a member he served as a "conductor", or secret agent, helping enslaved refugees escape from Maryland and Delaware to the safety of Pennsylvania. In this work, he collaborated with two other prominent white Quaker abolitionists, John Hunn and Thomas Garrett. All three men assisted in the liberation of the enslaved Hawkins family. Burris conducted the family and four other male freedom seekers from Queen Anne's County, Maryland to John Hunn's farm in Middletown, Delaware. However, one of Hunn's neighbors became suspicious of the group and alerted the authorities. Ultimately, this resulted in the arrest of the Hawkins family, while Burris and the other four men were forced to continue without the family to Thomas Garrett's home in Wilmington, Delaware.
The Hawkins family was transferred to the New Castle jail, and with the intervention of Thomas Garrett and his lawyer, the family was set free in the New Castle Court House. With permission from Chief Justice James Booth Jr., Thomas Garrett arranged a wagon to take the Hawkins family to his home where they reunited with Samuel D. Burris and the rest of the party. Eventually, the Hawkins family successfully escaped to Byberry Township, Pennsylvania. Although Burris avoided prosecution, Hunn and Garrett were forced to pay exorbitant fines for their roles in the Hawkins family's liberation.
Samuel D. Burris could not continue to avoid the legal consequences of his actions forever and was eventually caught and tried. In January of 1847, Burris attempted to aid the escape of an enslaved woman named Maria Matthews. Matthews tried to board a steamship, but was captured at Short's Landing, located at the confluence of Duck Creek and the Delaware River, and re-enslaved. Burris was arressted after a stagecoach driver testified that Burris had met Matthews at Short's Landing. While Burris was in jail, awaiting trial in Dover, Delaware, two other enslavers from Murderkill Hundred accused him of assisting those who they enslaved to escape. Burris was acquitted of helping Maria Matthews but convicted for the other two cases brought against him. He was sentenced to be imprisoned for a total of fourteen months, fined $500 along with prison charges, and sold twice for a total of 14 years.
His time in the Dover jail was not spenty idly, nor was he abandoned by his abolitionist compatriots. On March 29th, 1848, Burris wrote a powerful letter from prison that would be published in The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, in June of 1848. In this letter, Burris wrote,
"I suppose you have long since heard, that I was arrested on the 10th of July last, charged with being concerned in helping slaves to regain their freedom, which in the State of Delaware is a crime next to that of murder, if committed by a colored man ... This day there was a slave-trader from Baltimore to see me ... This trader's name is Mass Fountain, who has shipped 165 human beings from Slaughter's slave prison in Baltimore at one time, to the great slave market of New Orleans. He visits the courts of Delaware regularly twice a year, in order to buy all the convicts which the State holds for sale, to be exported. Now you may say that this trader is an inhuman tyrant, because he buys and sells human beings; but you will recollect that this man is only doing a lawful business, encouraged and protected by the State of Delaware."
Burris experienced Delaware's "lawful business" in September of 1848, when he was sold on the steps of the Old State House in Dover. Unkknown to Burris, his fellow agents at the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society heard of his fate and hatched a plan to save him. Quaker abolitionist Isaac Flint, furnished with funds from the Society, posed as a trader during the auction of Burris. Through good acting, steady nerves, and a bribe to one Baltimore trader, Flint won the auction. After getting Burris a safe distance away from Dover, Flint told him, "not to fear, you have been purchased with abolitionist gold and I will spirit you away to Philadelphia." Burris escaped slavery by the skin of his teeth.
It is unclear if Burris remained involved in Delaware's Underground Railroad but on February 16th, 1849, twenty-nine residents of the Camden area sent a petition to the Delaware General Assembly against Burris. They note Burris, "is going about the county they believe persuading and enticing slaves Servants and apprentices to run away and leave their Homes." They note that Burris, "was accused, apprehended, tried and found Guilty agreeable to Law, after which he was Sold as Servant, and bot [sic] by some men who suffered him to go about amongst as and continue the same unjustifiable employment." They, "request Your Honors to pass some Law to reach his Case and effectully [sic] stop such conduct." Perhaps this petition was in response to local orations Burris may have presented. The local newspaper, The Blue Hen's Chicken, reported that Burris had speaking engagements in Wilmington and Dover in late 1848. Regardless of whether Burris was still actively involved in Delaware's Underground Railroad or not, we do know he continued to work with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society on their Business Committee into the early 1850s.
The pressure against Burris and Delaware's increasingly oppressive laws against Blacks probably prompted him to move his family to Philadelphia in 1850. Then following in the footsteps of his older brothers, who had relocated their families to the free state of California, in 1852 Burris moved to San Francisco for better economic opportunities. Burris's wife and children would eventually join him as well.
Yet, Burris continued in his fight for equality and justice. He signed a petition in 1852 regarding African American freedom in California, and during the Civil War Burris was among the first to successfully raise funds among black churches in San Francisco to help alleviate the suffering of enslaved fugitives who liberated themselves in Washington, D.C. Burris passed away in 1863, and did not live to see the abolition of slavery in the United States. In 2015, Governor Jack Markell of Delaware officially pardoned Burris posthumously, and his story continues to gain national prominence in recognition of his heroic deeds.
To learn more about Samuel D. Burris, contact and visit the Old State House in Dover, DE.
Reflection Questions
- What do you find inspiring about Samuel D. Burris’ life?
- How can the perseverance he showed fighting for the abolition of slavery inspire modern movements for social justice?
- Was Burris right in breaking the law to fight slavery?
Sources
“The People: Samuel D. Burris.” Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs - State of Delaware, 5 Apr. 2021, history.delaware.gov/flight-to-freedom/people_burris/.
Krawitz, Robin, director. Samuel D. Burris. First State National Historical Park, National Park Service, 2015, www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=D40B8F30-F712-620E-0C9BDC547E73E032.
Reed, Paula, and Edith Wallace. 2019. A Historic Saga of Settlement and Nation Building: First State National Historical Park Historic Resource Study. New Castle, DE: National Park Service.
Williams, William Henry. Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865. SR Books, 1996.