Once called “The Peculiar Institution” America’s roots in slavery are an every-growing tree whose limbs continue to reach all facets of present day life, including education. Six of America’s Ivy League institutions have direct links to slavery. Benefiting from its profits at the expense of enslaved people from Africa and their descendants. Harvard, Brown, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and Dartmouth all have a legacy which includes the depravity and horrific violence inflicted on the bodies and lives of black people through slavery.
The remaining Ivy League schools, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University have no reported links. The University of Pennsylvania was established by Benjamin Franklin who as a young man owned slaves but went on to become a well-known abolitionist serving as President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. In Craig S. Wilder’s book, Ebony & Ivory: Race, Slavery, and Troubled History of America’s Universities, Wilde claimed that “practically every college and University founded during colonial era America had a history of slavery.” (hyperlink to source: http://www.thedp.com/article/2016/09/upenn-slave-trade-history ). This claim was disputed by the University of Pennsylvania which insisted the school maintained an institution separate from the buying and selling of slaves. Cornell University was established in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
While history cannot be changed, many of these universities are now taking steps to confront their slave stained past. These realities further bring to light that America could not, would not, and does not exist without slavery.
Harvard University
Early 18th-Century View of Harvard College Giclee Print
Harvard University is America’s oldest institute of higher learning. Established in 1638 the University had deep ties to colonial-era slavery until the system ended in Massachusetts in 1783. The fortunes of many contributors to the school came from slave labor and the slave trade. In March of this year the university hosted a daylong conference covering the historical connection between slavery and universities across the country. The conference included noted author/journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates as a keynote speaker. He urged Harvard to do more than just admit past wrongs. "I don't know how you conduct research that shows that your very existence is rooted in a great crime, and you just, well, shrug, and maybe at best say I'm sorry," said Coates. "You have to do the right thing and try to make some amends." The conference is an outcome of the Harvard and Slavery Initiative founded in 2007, which researches Harvard’s connections to slavery.
.(slavery plaque) Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
On September 3rd Harvard Law School presented a stone memorial which features a plaque recognizing the enslaved people whose work helped establish the law school in 1817. Slaveholder Isaac Royall Jr. willed his estate to Harvard upon his death in 1781. The proceeds were eventually used to establish the first law professorship at Harvard. Royall inherited his estate from his father, a brutal slaveholder who made his fortune on the labor of enslaved people in Massachusetts and Antiqua. Amid student protests last year, the university also retired the official shield of the law school which shows bundles of wheat and is directly connected to the Royall coat of arms.
Yale University
Established in 1701 by colonial clergyman, Yale University was originally named the “Collegiate School”. In 1718 the name was changed in honor of Welch merchant Elihu Yale after his large contribution to the school. Although Elihu never set foot on the school’s grounds he was a ruthless slave trader and his contribution was connected to profits made from the slave trade.
In 2015 students and alumni pressured the school to change the name of its Calhoun College, one of Yale’s 14 residential colleges. John C. Calhoun, a graduate of Yale in 1804, also served as United States vice president between 1825 and 1832. He was known as a strong supporter and defender of slavery, believing the institution “a positive good”. Despite these views the school chose to name the college after Calhoun in 1931. Finally, in February of this year Yale announced the residential college will be renamed for 1930 Yale graduate Grace Murray Hooper, a noted computer scientist and mathematician. While the residential college will no longer be named after Calhoun the school will not remove carvings or statues associated with him. (http://www.dw.com/en/yale-university-to-drop-pro-slavery-namesake-from-college/a-37519465).
Princeton University
Historic etching of Nassau Hall and Maclean House- Princeton University
Established in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, nine of Princeton’s presidents owned slaves. During the school’s first 120 years a significant number of students came from the south, many holding anti-abolitionist views. Since 2013 Princeton History Professor Martha A. Sandweiss, along with a team of undergraduate and doctoral history students, have researched the school’s historical connection to the institution of slavery through the Princeton and Slavery Project. On November 17-18 2017, the university will host The Princeton & Slavery Project Symposium. Nobel Laurette Tony Morrison will give the keynote address. The weekend events will also include a series of plays based on research and historical documents uncovered from the project. Professor Sandweiss believes that the project has a different goal than ones headed by other Ivy League schools, and feels the information uncovered should expand beyond Princeton. “We've found richer stories than I anticipated or knew that we would be able to find,” Sandweiss said. “The really exciting part of the project now is that, unlike some other schools, we're not just conceiving of this as a narrow academic project, but as a collaboration, working with local organizations to reach broader and more diverse groups with the history that we're uncovering.”
Protesters at Princeton University. (Photo by Mary Hui/For the Washington Post
In 2015, prior to the soon to be public findings of the Princeton and Slavery Project ,the school was confronted by student protests demanding the college remove former US president Woodrow Wilson’s name from school buildings. Wilson was president of Princeton from 1902 till 1910 during which he discouraged blacks from applying, stating “The whole temper and tradition of the place are such that no Negro has ever applied for admission, and it seems unlikely that the question will ever assume practical form.” As a US President Wilson was a strong supporter of segregation, implementing polices that hindered the progression of black people. Determined to push blacks out of federal jobs he demoted them to low paying menial jobs, creating an affirmative action haven for whites. Despite Wilson’s legacy of racism, the board of trustees at Princeton decided against expunging him from the campus, claiming that Wilson can now be viewed with all his faults known. The board also concluded that concessions would be made for “an expanded and vigorous commitment of diversity and inclusion at Princeton.”
Columbia University
Columbia University 19th C is a photograph by Granger which was uploaded on July 1st, 2012.
Columbia University was established in 1754 by the Royal Charter of King George II of England. The school changed its name to Columbia after the American Revolution. As stated on the University’s website, “The college reopened in 1784 with a new name—Columbia—that embodied the patriotic fervor that had inspired the nation's quest for independence.” Despite this sentiment, Columbia was funded by leading merchants in the area whose money came from the slave trade. History professor Eric Foner published a preliminary report earlier this year, detailing how the school benefited from profits made in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The report stems from research courses led by Professor Foner and Department of History Lecturer, Thai Jones. In an interview with the Atlantic, Foner explained the University’s connection to slavery despite its location in the North, “In the colonial era slavery was a very important presence in the city and state. It wasn’t a plantation economy, but in 1750 I think about one-seventh of the population of the city were slaves. That’s not insignificant. More to the point, the elite, the one percent of this era— the people who founded King’s College and funded it—were leading merchants and if you were a leading merchant your money was coming from the West Indian slave trade, and the African slave trade.” While Columbia has not announced any plans to act on the findings of the report, Columbia President Lee Bollinger told the New York Times, “Every institution should know its history, the bad and the good,” he said. “It’s hard to grasp just how profoundly our contemporary society is still affected by what has happened over the past two or three centuries.”
Brown University
College Edifice and President's House. Colored reproduction of circa 1795 engraving
Brown University at Providence Rhode Island, was established in 1764 from funds amassed by the Brown brothers Nicholas, Joseph, John, and Moses whose wealth was based on the profits made from their ships in the African slave trade. In 2003, Brown University President Ruth Simmons, established a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The committee was commissioned to investigate the universities complicity in slavery and the slave trade.
Sculptor Martin Puryear (right) and project manager John Cooke. Full-scale model of the Memorial to Slavery and Justice.
The findings of the three-year study found that 30 members of Brown’s governing board owned or captained slave ships. Donors also provided their slave labor in the school’s construction. The committee provided a series of future recommendations which included a living site memorial. The two-part memorial was created by noted African-American sculptor Martin Puryear. The inscription on the plaque reads in part: In the eighteenth century slavery permeated every aspect of social and economic life in Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders dominated the North American share of the African slave trade, launching over a thousand slaving voyages in the century before the abolition of the trade in 1808, and scores of illegal voyages thereafter. Brown University was a beneficiary of this trade.
Dartmouth University
Bill of sale, Ann Morrison to Eleazar Wheelock; for “a Negro man named Exeter…a Negro woman named Chloe…and a Negro male child named Hercules
Established in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1769 Dartmouth University was particularly immersed in slavery from its onset. After obtaining a charter from King George II, Dartmouth’s founder Eleazar Wheelock arrived in the wilderness of New Hampshire with eight enslaved black people: Brister, Exeter, Chloe, Caesar, Lavinia, Archelaus, Peggy and an enslaved baby. Black bodies were used not only to build the school but to also participate in the curriculum. Wheelock’s physician used the body of a deceased enslaved man (Cato) as a prop, boiling the body to obtain easier access to the skeleton and wiring it for class instruction.
Dunham, del., and S. Hill, sc., A front View of DARTMOUTH COLLEGE with the CHAPEL & HALL, reproduced in Massachusetts Magazine, February 1793, Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
During the 19th century Dartmouth’s views became more progressive as a northern institution and by Lincoln’s presidential reign the school had an anti-slavery sentiment. This conflicted with the views of Nathan Lord president of Dartmouth from 1828-1863. As a younger man, Lord was a staunch abolitionist, even holding the position as vice president of the Anti-Slavery Movement in 1833. A statement from well-known abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who voiced his disdain for the bible if it supported slavery, heavily conflicted with Lord’s religious views. He searched the bible for a justification for slavery, eventually finding passages that he believed showed slavery was approved by God. Fully breaking from abolitionism, Lord argued that slavery was necessary to maintain a hierarchy of those that were chosen to be on top. When he voted against giving an honorary degree to Abraham Lincoln, the Board of Trustees denounced Lord’s views and rather than being dismissed from his position, he resigned.While Dartmouth has explored race relations in America, even offering a course on “Black Lives Matter”, it remains to be seen what action, if any, the university will take when it comes to confronting and atoning for its historical origin of inequality and slavery.
Is it enough?
While the steps these institutions of higher learning have taken is notable, more needs to be done. These historical events were always factual regardless of any acknowledgement of them. Real action must be taken for any healing to take place. The foundations of these universities were built with stolen lives and it should not be forgotten that after slavery they continued a policy of discrimination and inequality. Until proper amends have been made there will be a perceived air of dissonance when it comes to lives of black people past and present day.