Art and Slavery at Princeton
An investigation of Princeton University’s largely unexamined social, financial, and ideological ties to American slavery reveals the early University presidents’ complex engagement with the issue. The Faculty Room portraits of past presidents both capture the institutional history of Princeton University and more generally suggest the conflicted history of the United States as it struggled with national issues—not least the debate over slavery. Several Princeton presidents advocated emancipating slaves while others supported the continuation of slavery. Jonathan Edwards, president of Princeton in 1758, grew up in a slaveholding household in East Windsor, Connecticut, and he later used enslaved labor in his mission to the Stockbridge Indians. He also traveled to Newport, Rhode Island, to purchase a “Negro girl named Venus” for eighty pounds.
Samuel Davies, president from 1759 to 1761, was not opposed to slavery, but he did believe in the spiritual equality of masters and slaves. As a result, Davies taught hundreds of slaves to read and converted many of them to Christianity. John Maclean Jr., president between 1854 and 1868, was a member of the American Colonization Society, which supported emancipation and sought to repatriate blacks to Africa. These findings call for reflection on the meaning of this history in the present—and on the complicated historical, political, and moral questions posed by present-day confrontations with past injustices.
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