Ebony and Ivy

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Ebony and Ivy Page 45

by Craig Steven Wilder


  37. Lease between John Bard and Lucas and Ann Lazeire, 8 October 1765, Bard Family Papers, Box 1, Folder 8, Bard Collection; “Petition of Belinda, an aged African slave asking for an allowance from the estate of Isaac Royal, a Absentee,” and the General Court’s “Resolve,” Acts and Resolves of the General Court, vol. 239: 11–14, Massachusetts State Archives; “The Petition of Belinda, Servant of Isaac Royall, Esq.,” Royall House Reporter, April 1967; Chan, Slavery in the Age of Reason, 47–95. The lineage of Fortune Howard, who likely was also enslaved at Ten Hills, is available in Franklin A. Dorman, Twenty Families of Color in Massachusetts, 1742–1998 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1998), 143–92.

  38. In 1807, the year Preston died, John Revere, the son of Paul Revere, graduated from Harvard. He stayed to study medicine under James Jackson, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Revere continued his education at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1811. He went on to a distinguished teaching career at Jefferson College in Philadelphia, and the University of the City of New York. William Preston, A Letter to Bryan Edwards, Esquire, Containing Observations on Some of the Passages of His History of the West Indies (London: J. Johnson, 1795), 5; Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (London: J. Stockdale, 1793–94); Christopher Preston, “Life and Writings of William Preston 1753–1807,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, September 1942, 377–86; Valentine Mott, A Biographical Memoir of the Late John Revere, M.D., Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the University of New York (New York: Joseph H. Jennings, 1847), esp. 16–20; E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1979), 355.

  39. Sloan, Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal, 13–15.

  40. Ibid.; Roger L. Emerson, “The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, 1768–1783,” British Journal for the History of Science, November 1985; William Brown, An Address to Students, Delivered in the Hall of the Royal Medical Society on 16th December 1852, at the First of a Series of Meetings Conducted by the Medical Missionary Society (Edinburgh: John Greig and Son, 1854), 5–17; List of Members, Laws, and Library Catalogue, of the Medical Society of Edinburgh, appendices; James Ramsay, An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (London: James Phillips, 1784), esp. 199–210; Iain Whyte, Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756–1838 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 108–10.

  41. A Pennsylvanian [Benjamin Rush], An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements, on the Slavery of the Negroes in America, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1773), 3; A Pennsylvanian [Benjamin Rush], A Vindication of the Address, to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements, on the Slavery of the Negroes in America, in Answer to a Pamphlet Entitled, “Slavery Not Forbidden by Scripture; Or a Defence of the West-India Planters from the Aspersions Thrown Out Against Them by the Author of the Address” (Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1773), 5.

  42. On the influence of Christian teleology on Rush’s view of medicine, see D’Elia, “Dr. Benjamin Rush and the American Medical Revolution.” Vogt made this assertion at midcentury, when science, including his own research, was fully engaged in the project of categorizing the peoples living outside the narrow cultural and historical pathways of western and northern Europe into species. Vogt’s comment on theology followed his methodical anthropological dissection and comparison of what he determined to be the superior Germanic type and the primitive Negro form. Carl Vogt, Lectures on Man: His Place in Creation, and in the History of the Earth, ed. James Hunt (London: For the Anthropological Society of Paris, 1864), 171–202, 403.

  43. [Rush], Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements, on the Slavery of the Negroes in America, 3, 15, 26.

  44. The Medical Society of South Carolina was founded in 1789. David Ramsay, An Eulogium upon Benjamin Rush, M.D., Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine and of Clinical Practice in the University of Pennsylvania. Who Departed This Life April 19, 1813, in the Sixty-Ninth Year of His Age. Written at the Request of the Medical Society of South Carolina, and Delivered Before Them and Others, in the Circular Church of Charleston, on the 10th of June, 1813, and Published at Their Request (Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1813), esp. 9. Also see David Hosack, An Introductory Discourse, to a Course of Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic: Containing Observation on the Inductive System of Prosecuting Medical Inquiries; and a Tribute to the Memory of the Late Dr. Benjamin Rush. Delivered at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, on the Third of November, 1813 (New York: C. S. Van Winkle, 1813).

  45. Thomas G. Dyer, The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History, 1785–1985 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985), 64–65; William S. Powell, The First State University: A Pictorial History of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 33; William Gaston, Address Delivered before the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies at Chapel-Hill, June 20, 1832 (Raleigh, NC: Jos. Gales, 1832).

  46. David F. Ericson, The Debate over Slavery: Antislavery and Proslavery Liberalism in Antebellum America (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 96–107; Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 21–77; Daniel Walker Hollis, University of South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1951–56), I:102–3, 164; Michael Sugrue, “‘We Desire Our Future Rulers to Be Educated Men’: South Carolina College, the Defense of Slavery, and the Development of Secessionist Politics,” History of Higher Education Annual, 1994; James H. Thornwell, The Rights and the Duties of Masters: A Sermon Preached at the Dedication of a Church Erected in Charleston, S.C., for the Benefit and Instruction of the Coloured Population (Charleston, SC: Walker and James, 1850); Presbyterian Church of the United States [James H. Thornwell], Report on the Subject of Slavery, Presented to the Synod of South Carolina, at Their Sessions in Winnsborough, November 6, 1851; Adopted by Them, and Published by Their Order (Columbia, SC: A. S. Johnston, 1852).

  47. The “Rogers Brothers” are best known for their contributions to nineteenth century science. James Blythe taught chemistry at several schools, including Washington Medical College in Baltimore, and the universities of Cincinnati and Pennsylvania. Robert Empie became professor of chemistry at the University of Virginia, and then succeeded his brother at Pennsylvania, where he also served as dean of the faculty. Henry Darwin and William Barton opened a school in Windsor, Maryland. Henry Darwin then held professorships in natural philosophy and geology at Dickinson College and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1835 William Barton left William and Mary for a professorship in natural philosophy at Virginia, where he later served as chair of the faculty.

  Report card for James and William Barton Rogers from William and Mary, 23 February 1820; William Barton Rogers to James Rogers, 19 January 1822; and William Barton Rogers to Thomas Jefferson, 14 March 1824, William Barton Rogers Papers, Box 1, Folders 2–4, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. James P. Munroe, William Barton Rogers: Founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston: George H. Ellis, 1904), 4–31; William Barton Rogers to Uncle James Rogers, 22 February 1833, in Emma Savage Rogers, ed., Life and Letters of William Barton Rogers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896), esp. I:1–12, 102–3; “A Statute for the Government of the Steward, and Regulation of the College Table, Passed July 6th, 1830,” Laws and Regulations of the College of William and Mary, in Virginia (Richmond: Thomas W. White, 1830), 5–6; Thomas R. Dew, Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832 (Richmond: T. W. White, 1832); Larry A. Witham, Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and Evolutionists in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 14–18.

  48. John McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation: Southern Nationalists and Southern Natio
nalism, 1830–1860 (New York: Norton, 1979), 177–226.

  49. John Fulton, Memoirs of Frederick A. P. Barnard: Tenth President of Columbia College in the City of New York (New York: Macmillan for Columbia University Press, 1896), 246–59; David G. Sansing, The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1999), esp. 75; J. S. Newberry, President F. A. P. Barnard, LL.D., S.T.D., L.H.D. (New York: Privately printed, 1889); Nicholas L. Syrett, The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 74; Don H. Doyle, Faulkner’s County: The Historical Roots of Yoknapatawpha (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 177–78.

  50. Fulton, Memoirs of Frederick A. P. Barnard, 251–60; Sansing, University of Mississippi, esp. 75; Doyle, Faulkner’s County, 177–78; “A Great Educator,” The Literary World, 22 August 1896, 260–61; Newberry, President F. A. P. Barnard; Proceedings at the Inauguration of Frederick A. P. Barnard, S.T.D., LL.D., as President of Columbia College, on Monday, October 3, 1864 (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1865). On the presence of northerners in the academies of the South and the intellectual course of this era, see Alfred L. Brophy, “‘The Law of the Descent of Thought’: Law, History, and Civilization in Antebellum Literary Addresses,” Law & Literature, 2008, 343–402.

  51. Virginius Dabney, Mr. Jefferson’s University: A History (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981), 9–26; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford, 1982), 279; William Barton Rogers to his brothers, 16 November 1840, in Rogers, ed., Life and Letters of William Barton Rogers, I:176–78.

  52. John Duffy, “A Note on the Ante-Bellum Southern Nationalism and Medical Practice,” Journal of Southern History, May 1968, 266–76; Samuel A. Cartwright, “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” in Paul F. Paskoff and Daniel J. Wilson, eds., The Cause of the South: Selections from DeBow’s Review, 1846–1867 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 26–43.

  53. Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 97; David Greene Haskins, A Brief Account of the University of the South (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1877), 5–7; John Henry Hopkins, Extract from the American Citizen, His Rights and Duties in Reference to Slavery (New York: Pudney and Ressell, 1860); John Henry Hopkins, Bible View of Slavery (New York: Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge, 1863); George R. Fairbanks, History of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee, from Its Founding by the Southern Bishops, Clergy and Laity of the Episcopal Church in 1857 to the Year 1905 (Jacksonville, FL: H. and W. B. Drew, 1905), 1–44.

  54. J. H. Van Evrie, Negroes and Negro “Slavery”: The First an Inferior Race; The Latter Its Normal Condition (New York: Van Evrie, Horton, 1861), 143–67.

  CHAPTER 8: “COULD THEY BE SENT BACK TO AFRICA”

  1. John Haskell Hewitt, Williams College and Foreign Missions: Biographical Sketches of Williams College Men Who Have Rendered Special Service to the Cause of Foreign Missions (Boston: Pilgrim, 1914), 35–42; Ashbel Green, D.D., L.L.D., President of the College, A Report to the Trustees of the College of New Jersey: Relative to A Revival of Religion Among the Students of Said College, in the Winter and Spring of the Year 1815 (Philadelphia: Benjamin B. Hopkins, 1815), 6.

  2. “Reverend Edward D. Griffin, D.D., President of Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Jan 20, 1832,” in William B. Sprague, ed., Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Albany, NY: Packard and Van Benthuysen, 1832), 156; William B. Sprague, comp., Memoir of the Rev. Edward D. Griffin, D.D. (New York: Taylor and Dodd, 1839), 90–94; “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Edward D. Griffin, of Newark, N. Jersey, to the Rev. Dr. Green, of Philadelphia,” Evangelical Intelligencer, April 1808; Ansel Nash, “Memoir of the Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, D.D.,” American Quarterly Register, May 1841.

  3. “Professor Stowe on Colonization,” African Repository and Colonial Journal, December 1834.

  4. Catalogue of the Governors, Trustees and Officers, and of the Alumni and Other Graduates, of Columbia College (Originally King’s College), in the City of New York, from 1754 to 1882 (New York: Printed for the College, 1882), 10–12; see the report of the founding meeting, 25 January 1785, “Standing Committee Minutes,” vol. V, Records of the New York Manumission Society, New-York Historical Society.

  5. See the preface and report of the founding meeting, 25 January 1785, “Standing Committee Minutes,” vol. V., Records of the New York Manumission Society; George E. Brooks Jr., “The Providence African Society’s Sierra Leone Emigration Scheme, 1794–1795: Prologue to the African Colonization Movement,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies (1974), 184–87.

  6. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), I:39, 204, 213–14, 247–48, 355, III:78, 82, 102, 104, 400; Abiel Holmes, The Life of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D.: A Fellow of the American Philosophical Society; of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; of the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences; a Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Professor of Ecclesiastical History; and President of Yale College (Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1798), 157–58; “The Constitution of the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Holden in Bondage” (New Haven, 1790).

  7. Ashbel Green, The Life of Ashbel Green, V.D.M., Begun to be Written by Himself in His Eighty-Second Year and Continued to His Eighty-Fourth (New York, 1849), 417, 449–52; David C. Humphrey, From King’s College to Columbia, 1746–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 298–302; Milton Halsey Thomas, comp., Columbia University Officers and Alumni, 1754–1857 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 282–83; John Howard Raven, comp., Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Rutgers College (Originally Queen’s College) in New Brunswick, N. J., 1766–1916 (Trenton, NJ: State Gazette Publishing, 1916), 11; The American Quarterly Register, May 1836; Thomas Clap, The Annals or History of Yale-College, in New-Haven, in the Colony of Connecticut, from the First Founding thereof, in the Year 1700, to the Year 1766: with an Appendix, Containing the Present State of the College, the Method of Instruction and Government, with the Officers, Benefactors and Graduates (New Haven, John Hotchkiss and B. Mecom, 1766), 117; Jonathan Edwards, The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade, and of the Slavery of the Africans: Illustrated in a Sermon Preached Before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Holden in Bondage, at Their Annual Meeting in New-Haven, September 15, 1791 (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1791).

  8. The College of Rhode Island did, however, confer honorary degrees to friends in Britain, particularly the wealthy Baptist merchants of Bristol. Report of the Standing Committee, 9 November 1786, Records of the New York Manumission Society; “An Oration Delivered the Evening Previous to the Commencement 1786,” Wells Family Papers, 1738–1953, Box 5, MC 727, Special Collections and University Archives, Alexander Library, Rutgers University; posted in Daily Advertiser, 6 January 1787; see Rev. Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, in Two Parts (London: J. Phillips, 1788); Moses Brown to Samuel Hopkins, 20 January 1786, and Samuel Hopkins to Moses Brown, 7 March 1787, Moses Brown Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society; James T. Campbell et al., Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice (Providence: Brown University, October 2006), 23–24; Hywel Davies, Transatlantic Brethren: Rev. Samuel Jones (1735–1814) and His Friends, Baptists in Wales, Pennsylvania, and Beyond (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1995), 127.

  9. Samuel Skudder’s parents contributed $25, and Griffin promised to free the child after a decade. Rev. Griffin carefully secured his interests in the bargain. Samuel would have to serve faithfully for ten years, adding any time missed for illness or neglect to his term and compensating the reverend for medical costs, clothing beyond what he had when purchased, and other
costs. His emancipation was also conditional: he had to provide surety of his independence to protect Griffin from being held liable for him. Reverend Griffin maintained the option of vacating the agreement for any cause. “If the said Samuel should become uneasy and wish to be sold, of if he should behave so as to render it necessary for me to sell him,” warned the pastor, “I shall sell him as I bought him, a slave for life.” In an amendment to the record, Griffin emphasized his and his heirs’ right to sell Samuel for his remaining term if they ever needed money. The minister also agreed to repay Samuel’s parents if any funds remained after he or his heirs recovered their investment.

  Rev. Griffin assumed the presidency of Williams College during the tumult of 1821. Just before Griffin’s arrival, a group of faculty and students divided and organized themselves across the Connecticut River as Amherst College.

  Green, The Life of Ashbel Green, 326, 411; Harry B. Yoshpe, “Record of Slave Manumissions in New York During the Colonial and Early National Periods,” Journal of Negro History, January 1941, 91; Henry Rutgers’s manumission record for Thomas Boston, 12 June 1817, Records of the New York Manumission Society; Certification from the Overseers of the Poor and Justices of the Peace of the Township of Franklin, New Jersey, dated 27 September 1821, Wells Family Papers, 1738–1953, Box 5. See “Articles of Agreement made this 22nd day of April 1807 between Edward D. Griffin of the one part and Samuel Skudder by black boy, and now my property, of the other part,” vol. III, Records of the New York Manumission Society; John R. Fitzmier, New England’s Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752–1817 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 43–44; Sprague, Memoir of the Rev. Edward D. Griffin, 6, 90–94; “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Edward D. Griffin, of Newark, N. Jersey, to the Rev. Dr. Green, of Philadelphia,” Evangelical Intelligencer, April 1808; Nash, “Memoir of the Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, D.D.”

 

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