--- title: Slavery on U.S. College Campuses—Beyond Buying and Selling description: The relationship between early academia in the U.S. and the institution of slavery was extensive, as the case of Georgetown makes clear canonical: https://time.com/4492871/slavery-history-college-campuses/ author: Arica Coleman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-15T16:00:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:31.322Z article:section: History og:title: Slavery on U.S. College Campuses—Beyond Buying and Selling og:description: The relationship between early academia in the U.S. and the institution of slavery was extensive og:url: https://time.com/4492871/slavery-history-college-campuses/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2847c79baec54035/6988a5f30a4a22ec559cb3f9/gettyimages-566422415.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5933 og:image:height: 3337 og:image:alt: Georgetown University In 1830 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Slavery on U.S. College Campuses—Beyond Buying and Selling twitter:description: The relationship between early academia in the U.S. and the institution of slavery was extensive twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2847c79baec54035/6988a5f30a4a22ec559cb3f9/gettyimages-566422415.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Slavery on America's College Campuses Went Beyond Buying and Selling > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Arica Coleman](https://time.com/author/arica-l-coleman/) ## Arica Coleman Sep 15, 2016 4:00 PM UTC  Vintage illustration of Georgetown University in 1830, from a series of prints of American historical colleges; lithograph, 1920. Vintage illustration of Georgetown University in 1830, from a series of prints of American historical colleges; lithograph, 1920.GraphicaArtist / Getty Images by [Arica Coleman](https://time.com/author/arica-l-coleman/) ## Arica Coleman Sep 15, 2016 4:00 PM UTC Not long after Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia [announced](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/slaves-georgetown-university.html?%5Fr=0) a plan to atone for the school’s [active participation](http://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/inventory) in slavery—which included the 1838 sale of 272 slaves, which kept the school financially afloat—the descendants of those slaves are now calling on the school to do more. Beyond the proposed monument and admission preferences, they are [asking](http://www.theadvocate.com/baton%5Frouge/news/communities/westside/article%5F814c2770-76aa-11e6-a126-db8d1b99098e.html) the university to partner with them to raise $1 billion to finance a reconciliation project. The group first raised $115,000 in seed money, which was the amount Georgetown received for the slave sale. Their effort to extend the conversation beyond DeGioia’s statement is fitting, as it is worth remembering that the relationship between the slave economy and America’s academies did not stop at the sale of human beings. That continuing transaction is one of the points underlined by the research of Craig Steven Wilder, the foremost expert on the topic and the author of [_Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America’s Universities_.](http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ebony-and-ivy-9781608193837/) Georgetown was founded in 1789 by John Carroll, the first Catholic Bishop in the U.S. As noted by Wilder in his chapter “War and Priest: Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution” in [_Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development_](http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15556.html), members of the Catholic clergy relied on the profits from several plantations for funding of church and campus alike. For the first 40 years of Georgetown’s existence, the college was tuition free, with the help of the funds provided by the slavery economy. And the history of the Catholic Church and Georgetown University is hardly unique, as the colonial-era Protestant Church similarly invested and profited from a thriving slave economy while building institutions of higher learning based upon American Indian and African slavery. Many American universities were also built with the use of slave labor, and enslaved people were instrumental in the maintenance and daily upkeep of American college campuses. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) Slaves were a ubiquitous presence on college campuses. As one Yale chronicler stated “it was common custom of the times to own Negro and Indian slaves. . .” Such slaves were used to attend the personal needs of the president, rectors, governors, faculty, students and campus grounds. College presidents, many of whom were also slave owners, used slaves as personal attendants and as house servants to maintain the president’s mansion. Harvard president Increase Mather (from 1692-1701), used an enslaved man gifted to him by his son Cotton Mather, “to run errands for the college.” Harvard president Benjamin Wadsworth (1725-1737) brought his slave Titus, who lived with his family, to the college and “bought a Negro Wench” two days before arriving on campus. Benjamin Franklin, founder of the College of Philadelphia; the first eight presidents of the College of New Jersey (Princeton); and Georgetown presidents Fathers Louis William Valentin DuBourg (1796-1798) and Stephen L. Dubuisson (1825-1826), as Wilder’s research highlights, all acquired and used slaves for their own personal service during their tenure as the top college administrator. Some faculty and students had their own personal servants as well. When a group of Harvard scholars and students came together about a decade ago to research the university’s historical involvement with slavery, they [found](http://www.harvardandslavery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Harvard-Slavery-Book-111110.pdf) that the Massachusetts school was home to many slaves during the 18th century, like Ciceely, a slave owned by Professor of Hebrew Judah Monis. Campus chores were in abundance and enslaved people were burdened with the most arduous tasks, as according to Wilder: --- > “” --- In many ways, campus life echoed life on the plantation, as excess workers would be hired out to college-town locals, as demonstrated by a Dec. 19, 1826, [advertisement](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/racism-campus-protests-mizzou-yale-craig-wilder) from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) that read: --- > “” --- (When hiring out slaves proved less profitable, Washington College, like Georgetown would, [sold](https://www.wlu.edu/presidents-office/issues-and-initiatives/timeline-of-african-americans-at-wandl/account-of-sale) slaves to recoup some of its loses.) The enslaved population on college campuses also endured physical and emotional abuses. They were often conscripted into entertaining students, or terrorized by them. For example, enslaved people at the University of North Carolina were often subjected to so-called pranks that in at least one case in 1811 involved students running wild while attacking their servants. They endured whippings, dismemberments, brandings, secret sales that disrupted family units and sexual assault. This resulted in emotional trauma, leading some to commit suicide. Slavery is a horrible and painful chapter of American history, the legacy of which continues to haunt the nation. While some would rather ignore it, we must no longer deny its reality or its effects. As DeGioia, speaking to the Georgetown University community stated, “we cannot do our best work if we refuse to take ownership of such a critical part of our history . . . We must acknowledge it.” Indeed, the full depth of slavery’s contribution to early American academia must be openly acknowledged for truth and reconciliation to be fully achieved.  **_Historians explain how the past informs the present_** _Arica L. Coleman is the author of_ That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia _and chair of the Committee on the Status of African American, Latino/a, Asian American, and Native American (ALANA) Historians and ALANA Histories at the Organization of American Historians._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4492871/slavery-history-college-campuses/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4492871/slavery-history-college-campuses/"},"headline":"Slavery on America's College Campuses Went Beyond Buying and Selling","datePublished":"2016-09-15T16:00:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:31.322Z","description":"The relationship between early academia in the U.S. and the institution of slavery was extensive","url":"https://time.com/4492871/slavery-history-college-campuses/","keywords":["Education","slavery","Opinion topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2847c79baec54035/6988a5f30a4a22ec559cb3f9/gettyimages-566422415.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Arica Coleman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/arica-l-coleman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2847c79baec54035/6988a5f30a4a22ec559cb3f9/gettyimages-566422415.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Georgetown University In 1830","caption":"Georgetown University In 1830","creditText":"GraphicaArtist / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4492871/slavery-history-college-campuses/","name":"Slavery on America's College Campuses Went Beyond Buying and Selling"}}]}] ```