Harvard’s campus is filled with names of prominent ancient figures who played an important role in the progress of the university and Massachusetts. These Americans and their generational legacies are revered with plaques, pulpits, buildings, and streets that shape the Façade of Harvard.
But many surnames of any Harvard student are also related to a darker legacy.
A landmark University report released last week found that at least 41 prominent Harvard affiliates enslaved blacks and Indians, and many others spread discrimination and racism through their leadership and scholarships at the University.
The report, produced through the University’s Presidential Commission on the Legacy of Slavery, knew more than 70 enslaved black and indigenous people through Harvard professors and leaders, some of whom lived and worked on campus. Its appendix included a list of known slave owners. , detailing how they are commemorated on campus.
Here are the houses, dormitories, pulpits, streets, and towns that commemorate the legacy of slavery and discrimination at Harvard.
Harvard’s residential housing formula is a must-have component of the undergraduate experience. Students in the college’s upper class introduce themselves to their peers with their name, class year, and household affiliation. When they do, just below them they identify the surnames. related to the aftermath of slavery, racism or discrimination.
Governor John Winthrop, a founding member of Harvard who served on the university’s second-highest governing body, enslaved at least seven other people and ordered that 17 pequot prisoners of war be sold into slavery in Bermuda. Founder of the progression of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he served for several terms as governor and lieutenant governor.
Winthrop House, an upper-class residence, is betrothed to Winthrop and his descendant, named John Winthrop.
Winthrop, a descendant of the governor, owned two slaves known as George and Scipio. He was professor of mathematics and herbal philosophy from 1738 to 1779 and acting president of Harvard for one year.
Mather House, of Harvard’s 12 residential houses, is named after Augmente and Cotton Mather, who had slaves, known as “the Spaniard,” Onesimus, Obadiah and “a little boy” in the report’s appendix.
After graduating from college in 1656, Augmentation Mather later served as president and chancellor of Harvard. His son, Cotton Mather, a member of Harvard’s boards of directors, served first at Harvard Corporation and then on the Board of Supervisors.
In 2020, four citizens of the Mather House wrote a petition calling on Harvard to replace the space call in light of the family’s ties to slavery that has collected more than three hundred signatures. Although they identified the slave property of the Mathers, the deans of the Michael D. Rosengarten and Christie McDonald said there were no plans to replace the space call.
Leverett House and the Dudley Network are named after the parents of Harvard affiliates who owned slaves. Leverett House will pay tribute to the grandson of Governor John Leverett, who legalized the capture, slavery and forced migration of many Indians during King Philip’s war.
The Dudley community, a classic space system election, commemorates Thomas Dudley, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a member of the Harvard Corporation. Dudley’s son and grandson, Joseph and Paul Dudley, sat on the university’s administrator and slave forums. known as Peter, Brill, Guinea, an unnamed “Indian” girl and an unnamed “black boy”.
In emailed statements, resident professors and deans from Winthrop House, Mather House and the Dudley network stated the report’s findings and pledged to facilitate discussion.
The namesakes of Lowell House and Eliot House, Abbott Lawrence Lowell and Charles W. Eliot, are two university presidents who oversaw Harvard in the twentieth century. While none enslaved people, they also did not endorse racist practices on campus.
Lowell, known for creating the residential home system, banned black scholars from living in the new homes, promoted anti-Semitic admission policies, and supported eugenics. He also accumulated his wealth in the textile industry, which depended on cotton harvested through slaves.
As president with more years of service at Harvard, Eliot had a “paradoxical racial legacy,” according to the report. While Harvard produced its first black graduates during his tenure, Eliot also promoted eugenics and racial segregation.
The center of the university, Harvard Yard, which attracts thousands of tourists a month, houses several monuments in honor of slave owners and their loved ones.
Wadsworth House, which sits on the edge of the courtyard across from Massachusetts Ave. , built in 1726 for its namesake Benjamin Wadsworth, a college president who enslaved two people. The gate near the building is also named after Wadsworth.
In 2016, former University President Drew G. Faust, along with former Congressman John R. Lewis commissioned a plaque at Wadsworth House to 4 slaves who lived and worked on campus in the eighteenth century: Bilhah, Venus, Titus and Juba.
Further down Massachusetts Avenue, brass markers commemorate the home of Nathaniel Eaton. Eaton, the first Harvard executive to serve as a schoolteacher in the 1630s, enslaved an individual, known only as “The Moor. “
Wigglesworth Hall, a dormitory for freshmen located at Harvard Yard, built on the site of slave owner Edward Wigglesworth’s home. Professor of theology and member of the Corporation, Wigglesworth enslaved a guy known as Hannibal. The bedroom is named after his father.
Israel Stoughton oversaw the enslavement of many members of the Pequot tribe, according to the report. He also enslaved an “unnamed Pequot woman” as well as a woman known as Dorcas. Stoughton Hall, the first-year dormitory, is named after her son. .
Harvard-endowed professorships are named in honor of the donors, some of whom have ties to slavery.
A chair of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School is named after a descendant of Israel Thorndike, a Massachusetts General Hospital donor who trafficked slaves in the Caribbean. namesake of the Perkins Chair of Astronomy and Mathematics.
Thomas Hancock, namesake of the Hancock Chair of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, owned an unknown number of slaves, one of whom was named Cato.
Isaac Royall Jr. funded the first Chair of Law at Harvard, the Royal Chair of Law. Together with his father, he owned more than 60 enslaved people in Massachusetts and enslaved an unknown number of other people on a plantation in Antigua.
Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 announced in an email to affiliates following the report that the president “will now retire and never be occupied again. “Professor Janet E. Halley, who held the position for more than a decade, resigned from her position, Manning wrote.
Other Harvard affiliates, slave owners, have played a role in the school’s history: adjustments on campus have altered or erased some of its traces.
For about two centuries, the seal of Harvard Law School featured the coat of arms of the Royall family. The Society legalized the replacement of the seal in 2016 following a student protest.
The Perkins Conference Room in Massachusetts Hall, which houses the Harvard president’s, pays tribute to a descendant of MGH founding donor Samuel Gardner Perkins, who traded slaves in Haiti.
For more than a century, Francis Foxcroft’s house stood on the corner of Kirkland and Oxford streets before being demolished to build Lowell Conference Hall. Foxcroft, a member of the Board of Supervisors who enslaved two people.
Jonathan Hastings, who enslaved at least 4 people, a college mayor, guilty of managing the school’s residential operations. A stone pill next to Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Littauer Center marks the site of his home, according to the report.
Andrew Bordman II served as butler and cook at the university from 1703 to 1747 and enslaved at least 8 people. Slaves lived and worked in Bordman’s space until Harvard bought it in 1794. The Smith Campus Center is now the place where space once stood.
Former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver enslaved at least a dozen people. Oliver built Elmwood, presidents of Harvard since the 1970s, and served on the board of directors. The report recovered the names of at least 11 other people enslaved by Oliver and noted that he had also enslaved an unknown number of other people in Antigua.
Several cambridge streets are named after Harvard families and affiliates with ties to slavery, Holyoke, Willard and Trowbridge streets.
Edward Holyoke, who was president of Harvard from 1737 to 1769 and was given the name Holyoke Street, enslaved 4 people. Joseph Willard, appointed president of Harvard in 1781, enslaved a guy named Caesar. Edmund Trowbridge, an instructor and tutor, enslaved 3 people.
Brattle Street and Brattle Square are named after william brattle’s family. A tutor, a member of the Harvard Corporation, and treasurer of the University, Brattle owned two slaves: Scipio and Cicely.
The town of Hopkinton, Mass. , is named after Edward Hopkins, who contributed significant money to Harvard in the early eighteenth century, and Winthrop, Mass. , is named after Governor Winthrop and his family.
The report also met 11 other Harvard administrators, university members and smarter donors who enslaved other people but are not yet commemorated on campus.
Correction: May 2, 2022
A previous edition of this article incorrectly stated that the Hancock Chair of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages is a position at the Harvard Divinity School. In fact, it is a chair in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
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