#3 – Harvard and Slavery

Since its founding in 1630 as NewTowne, Cambridge had deep ties to the New England enslavement practice. Throughout colonial Massachusetts, enslaved people were part of the fabric of life, particularly for the elite, political leaders, and prominent families. For my mini exhibition, I wanted to focus on Harvard College specifically. The college has a dark history as it relates to slavery, and in recent years, the community has become increasingly interested in addressing this overlooked part of our school’s past. Not only were there enslaved people working on the college campus, but many of the school’s early leaders were slave owners themselves. Much of the school’s prosperity and success was built upon the foundations to which enslaved labor greatly contributed. 

This photograph of Wadsworth House was taken by George Kendall Warren around 1861-66. Wadsworth House was built in 1726-1727 for the president of Harvard, Benjamin Wadsworth. It is the second oldest building at Harvard, and as such, it has a complex history tied to slavery. There were four enslaved people that lived and worked in the house. In 2016, President Drew Fuast revealed a plaque to memorialize them and to, “remind us that slavery was not an abstraction, but a cruelty inflicted on particular humans.” The plaque honors the names of the four enslaved people, Titus, Venus, Juba, and Bilhah, and it states under which presidents they worked. During the unveiling ceremony, Faust said, “Today we take an important step in the effort to explore the complexities of our past and to restore this painful dimension of Harvard’s history to the understanding of our heritage.” The plaque prominently faces the path upon which people pass the house, and as such, the house has taken on an important new meaning for the Harvard community. 



This photograph was taken around 1897-1905 of the Elmwood house, which was, at the time, the home of the Lowell Family. The building was built in 1767 by Antiquan plantation owner and Harvard graduate Thomas Oliver. Throughout history, each of the house’s owners has been affiliated with Harvard. In 1963, the university acquired the home and was dedicated to preserving the house’s history, housing Revolutionary War soldiers and many important politicians, poets, and professors. They were not, however, concerned with acknowledging the ties between Oliver’s plantations and the building’s construction. This serves as an example of how the wealth Cambridge residents and Harvard affiliates accrued was often linked to slave labor. Since 1971, the house has been the residence for Harvard presidents. 



This is a portrait of Isaac Royall, Jr. and his family, painted by Robert Feke in 1741. The slave-owning family’s immense wealth came from their West Indian plantations. In the early 1800s, Isaac Royall Jr. gifted Harvard an abundance of land. The property was sold, and the proceeds were used to found Harvard’s Royall Professorship of Law, and in 1817, the Harvard Law School. Today, many Harvard Law School students are protesting this aspect of their school’s origin. This serves as an example of the inextricable ties between slave owners and Harvard’s founding. 


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