History Matters: Caesar Rodney's slave-holding history

Caesar Rodney is known for the many public offices he held in Delaware, and his famous ride on July 1, 1776 to cast the deciding vote declaring the U.S. independent from Great Britain.But like many founding fathers, Rodney was a slave owner and that part of his legacy led to a statue of him on Rodney Square in Wilmington to be removed in 2020 during a national reckoning with racism and police violence. This report confirms Rodney enslaved at least 26 people during his life.On this edition of History Matters, Delaware Public Media’s Bente Boutiers sits down with Debbie Martin, Wilmington’s Historic Preservation Planner, who worked on the report to learn more about it.