Yale University boasts about its involvement in the abolitionist movement, while failing to acknowledge the institution’s long-term ties to the slave trade, according to three graduate students who released a paper on the subject on Monday.
The paper, titled “Yale, Slavery, and Abolition,” was published by the Amistad Committee, founded in 1988 in order to foster greater understanding of the still-lingering effects of slavery and of the story of the Amistad captives, a boatload of slaves who rebelled in 1839 against their captors and later successfully gained their freedom. The paper documents Yale’s long list of benefactors who engaged in the slave trade.
According to the authors, they felt compelled to compile the evidence because the university was minimizing its ties to the sustenance of slavery while celebrating what it calls its “long history of activism in the face of slavery” in literature marking its tercentennial.
Among the authors’ contentions are that the university relied heavily on slave-trading money for many of its first scholarships and for its first endowed professorship, financed largely by the prominent New York slave trader Philip Livingston. The paper also says that 8 of the university’s 12 residential colleges were named after slave owners, some as late as the 1960’s, and that university leaders successfully blocked the foundation of what would have been the nation’s first black college, in New Haven in 1831, because officials felt the college’s proximity to Yale would tarnish the institution’s reputation.
In a statement, the university did not challenge the findings of the report but commented that “no institution with a history stretching long before emancipation is untainted by the evil of slavery” and that “discussion of those connections is important and worthwhile.”
The authors of the report, Antony L. Dugdale, J.J. Fueser, and J. Celso de Castro Alves, compiled their evidence largely from primary sources, including official statements made by Yale officials in the 1800’s, census records, and bills of sale from slave auctions. They say they hope the report will spark dialogue about what, if anything, Yale should do to redress past wrongs.
“What we are doing with this report is making sure that the history that Yale tells, that we tell as members of the Yale community, is an honest history that includes both the good and the bad,” said Mr. Dugdale. In regards to its ties to slavery, though, “Yale’s just been quiet.”
“We are paying attention to every facet of Yale’s history, and this is a useful contribution in that endeavor,” said Gila Reinstein, a spokeswoman for the university, who denied that the institution had neglected this aspect of its history. “The conclusion of the study is that Yale’s history regarding slavery and abolition is exceedingly complex. We don’t dispute that.”
The report is available online at http://www.yaleslavery.org