New revelations today for Johns Hopkins University and Medical Center. Its namesake, the businessman and abolitionist both institutions are named after, owned slaves.
Recently they found a document — strong evidence Hopkins, the founding donor of JHU and the hospital, owned slaves at his Baltimore home in 1840 and 1850, and his family had an extensive relationship to slaveholding. Join the conversation!
Visitors to the Rutgers University New Brunswick campus this spring will find historical markers at four new locations informing them about prominent university figures who made their fortunes through the slave economy.
Jacob Rusten Hardenbergh, Rutgers’ first president, owned abolitionist Sojourner Truth and her parents, Bomefree and Mau-Mau Bett, as slaves. Join the converstation!
Enslaved blacks came to William and Mary through several channels. Some were purchased outright to serve the president and professors, some were given to the College, and still others belonged to members of the faculty, administration and to students. Several worked on the main campus, while others lived and worked on Nottoway Quarter, the college-owned tobacco plantation.
Historian Craig Steven Wilder asserts that during the colonial period, “a small army of slaves maintained the College of William and Mary.” Join the conversation!
At an April 2013 meeting of the President’s Cabinet, Dr. Marcus Martin, Vice President and Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity, made a presentation on slavery at the University of Virgina and proposed that a commission be formed to further explore the topic and to make recommendations as to the next steps the University could take in response to this history of slavery. Join the conversation!
Princeton University, founded in 1746, exemplifies the central paradox at the heart of American history. From the very start, liberty and slavery were intertwined. The University boasts of being the site of an American victory during the Revolutionary War, and of hosting the Continental Congress in Nassau Hall in 1783. The campus literature fails to note, however, that the first nine presidents of the University, serving until 1854, held slaves at some point in their lives. Join the conversation!
As part of an anti-racism effort born out of last year’s nationwide protests, the University of Delaware has launched a deeper exploration of its history as it relates to both enslaved people and the treatment of Black students.
Alison Parker, who chairs UD’s history department, said that the “legacy of enslavement and the dispossession of indigenous people” weaves through the university’s history, which goes back to 1743. Join the conversation!
Eleazar Wheelock came to Hanover and carved a place for Dartmouth College out the wilderness, or so the story goes. Often overlooked in that account is the significance of slavery in the founding and the first century of the college.
College archivist, Peter Carini has discovered that Wheelock owned at least nineteen enslaved persons during his lifetime. Their labors supported the well-being of President Wheelock’s family and his students and contributed to the maintenance of his home and the school’s buildings. Enslaved persons cleared trees, swept buildings, drove oxen, prepared meals, and cared for the sick. Enslaved as well as free people of color lived and worked in other Hanover households and businesses. Join the conversation!
Brown released a report in 2006 detailing the history of enslavement of its campus. Action steps The action taken following the report includes erecting a slavery memorial and establishing centers committed to doing more research. But students say the next step is reparations. Join the conversation!
Columbia is the latest major university to publish a preliminary report and put up a website with details about its historical ties to slavery.
“From the outset, slavery was intertwined with the life of the college,” the preliminary report by Columbia professor Eric Foner states. “Of the ten men who served as presidents of King’s and Columbia between 1754 and the end of the Civil War, at least half owned slaves at one point in their lives. So did the first four treasurers.” Join the conversation!
Penn has announced a range of significant findings into the University’s history with slavery. In a statement dated June 28, the University wrote that 75 of Penn’s former trustees were slave owners, including Penn’s first Provost, William Smith. The University also paid a Penn professor for work done by an enslaved man whom he owned, and sent faculty members to raise money from slave-owning families. Join the converstation!