Featured Stories: Life on the Plantation
The Plantation Stories Project’s directive is to research, compile, record, and share information about all enslaved, indentured, free, and freedom-seeking Black people connected to land over which the Dickinson family claimed ownership. For the individuals who are featured below, a significant amount of information about them has been collected into stories for you to read and discover what their lives were like on the plantation. If you click Explore All Profiles at the bottom of the page, you can browse the current list of names to learn what is known about them so far. Further research may reveal new and different names, more people with the same name, or that two currently separate names are the same person. This is just the beginning.
Learn About Life on the Plantation. This is... Violet Brown's Story
There are many documents that detail Violet’s story, though her story is always seen through the lens of the white person writing the documents.
Violet was born in or around 1751. Violet was probably born on the Delaware landholdings of the Dickinson family. She was likely enslaved from the time of her birth. The Dickinson family members that established their Delaware plantation in 1740 were Samuel Dickinson, his second wife, Mary Cadwalader Dickinson, and their two sons, John and Philemon.
The first documented mentions of Violet were from 1761 to 1763, while she was enslaved by the Dickinson…
