Mapping the Delaware Diaspora: Hetty Saunders and the Geographies of Freedom Seeking

Mapping the Delaware Diaspora is an online presentation series that puts the Delaware Historical Society's collections into conversation with other repositories around the nation to demonstrate the breadth of Delawarean stories available to researchers and learners to benefit from. We invite cultural heritage professionals and researchers to join the DHS in an hour-long Zoom event exposing audiences to research methods, new stories of Delawareans, and the wealth of resources available to them in museums, libraries, and archives. This program explores the life and writings of Esther “Hetty” Saunders, a Black woman born enslaved in Delaware who sought and secured freedom across the Delaware River in southern New Jersey. Through her poetry and personal journey, participants will consider how Saunders’s life reflects the broader Delaware diaspora and the intertwined landscapes of enslavement, refuge, and creativity that linked the two states.