Story at a glance
- Harvard presidents and faculty enslaved more than 70 individuals, some of whom labored on campus, from the university’s founding in 1636 until slavery ended in Massachusetts in 1783.
- Nathaniel Eaton, Harvard’s first president, owned a slave known only as “The Moor,” who likely served the university’s earliest students.
- The institution benefited from donations and financial ties to the slave trade all the way through the 20th century, according to the report.
A new report is detailing Harvard University’s deep ties to slavery and racial discrimination in the U.S. as the prestigious institution pledges $100 million toward an endowment to rectify the injustices.
The “Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery” report released Tuesday was compiled by a committee appointed in 2019 by Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow and documents the university’s “extensive entanglements” with the legacy of slavery.
According to the report, Harvard presidents and faculty enslaved more than 70 individuals, some of whom labored on campus, from the university’s founding in 1636 until slavery ended in Massachusetts in 1783.
Nathaniel Eaton, Harvard’s first president, owned a slave known only as “The Moor,” who likely served the university’s earliest students. The report says it’s possible the individual arrived in New England aboard the “Desire,” one of the first American slave ships.
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Slaves served presidents, professors and students of the university, and the institution benefited from donations and financial ties to the slave trade all the way through the 20th century, according to the report.
“Harvard’s very existence depended upon the expropriation of land and labor—land acquired through dispossession of Native territories and labor extracted from enslaved people, including Native Americans and Africans brought to the Americas by force,” the report states.
“And, long after the official end of slavery, intellectual clout of influential Harvard leaders and distinguished faculty would be a powerful force justifying the continued subjugation of Black Americans.”
The report also critiques the renowned university’s intellectual production during this time, emphasizing Harvard’s longest-serving president, Charles William Eliot, and others in the 19th and 20th century promoted eugenics and other theories underpinning white supremacist ideology and racial superiority.
“While Harvard does not bear exclusive responsibility for these injustices, and while many members of our community have worked hard to counteract them, Harvard benefited from and in some ways perpetuated practices that were profoundly immoral,” Bacow said in a statement.
“Consequently, I believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and on our society.”
Bacow committed $100 million toward recommendations issued by the study’s authors to attempt to remedy the injustices tied to Harvard’s entanglements with slavery.
Recommendations include expanding Harvard’s partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, identifying and engaging with direct descendants of slaves who labored on Harvard’s campus, honoring slaves through memorialization, among others.
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