Ebony and Ivy

by Craig Steven Wilder

  37. “Diary of William Chancellor,” 12–34.

  38. Ibid., 23–25, 35–53; Wax, “Philadelphia Surgeon on a Slaving Voyage,” 465–93.

  39. “Diary of William Chancellor,” 84–86; New-York Gazette, 13 May 1751; New York Colony Treasurer’s Office, “Reports of Goods Imported (Manifest Books) to New York,” Box 11; Wax, “Philadelphia Surgeon on a Slaving Voyage,” 465–93.

  40. Klein, ed., Independent Reflector, 6–33; Milton M. Klein, The Politics of Diversity: Essays in the History of Colonial New York (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1974), 97–107.

  41. William Smith, A General Idea of the College of Mirania; With a Sketch of the Method of Teaching Science and Religion, in the Several Classes: And Some Account of Its Rise, Establishment and Building. Address’d More Immediately to the Consideration of the Trustees Nominated, by the Legislature, to Receive Proposals, &c. Relating to the Establishment of a College in the Province of New-York (New York: J. Parker and W. Weyman, 1753); Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Johnson, 19 August 1750, Samuel Johnson Papers, Letter Books, vol. I, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Additional Charter of the College, Academy, and Charity-School of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1755), 10; George B. Wood, Early History of the University of Pennsylvania: From Its Origin to the Year 1827, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1896), 222–30; William D. Carrell, “Biographical List of American College Professors to 1800,” History of Education Quarterly, Autumn 1968, 359; Elizabeth DeLancey to Cadwallader Colden, 24 June 1755, Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden, IX:152–53.

  42. Klein, ed., Independent Reflector, 36–46; Beverly McAnear, “College Founding in the American Colonies, 1745–1775,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, June 1955, 24–26.

  43. Just months before the granting of the college charter, New York’s merchants petitioned to move the administrative center of Jamaica-including the governor’s house, the courts, and the public records office-from St. Jago de la Vega to Kingston in order to facilitate trade, particularly the commerce in slaves and the products of slavery. The governor conceded, but the capital was not formally moved until the next century. The regular trustees of the new college were a significant subset of these signatories. Catalogue of the Governors, Trustees, and Officers and of the Alumni and Other Graduates, of Columbia College. The original trustees and sponsors were checked against the New York Colony Treasurer’s Office, “Reports of Goods Imported (Manifest Books) to New York,” and Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, III:462–512. See also Harrington, New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution, 23–24, 134; “To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations-May it Please Your Lordships-The Merchants residing in the city of New York and trading to the Island of Jamaica …,” 30 July 1754, EST 9/74, National Archives, United Kingdom.

  44. Harrington, New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution, 34; New York Colony Treasurer’s Office, “Reports of Goods Imported (Manifest Books) to New York,” Box 12; Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade, 462–512; Lydon, “New York and the Slave Trade,” 379–81.

  45. King’s College was bounded by Murray Street to the north, Barclay to the south, and Church and Chapel to the east and west, respectively. Robinson Street intersected east-west but did not run through the campus. See “Plan for the City of New-York, with Recent and Intended Improvements. Drawn from an Actual Survey by William Bridges, City Surveyor, A.D. 1807,” New York Public Library Map Room. See also Thomas Bradbury Chandler, The Life of Samuel Johnson, D.D. The First President of King’s College, in New-York (New York: T. and F. Swords, 1805), 87–90; Clement Clarke Moore, The Early History of Columbia College: An Address Delivered Before the Alumni on May 4, 1825, by Clement Clarke Moore of the Class of 1798, Author of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940), 5; Klein, ed., Independent Reflector, 34–35; Nathaniel Fish Moore, An Historical Sketch of Columbia College, in the City of New-York (New York, 1846), 12–20; E. B. O’Callahan, M.D., LL.D., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured in Holland, England and France, by John Romeyn Brodhead, Esq., Agent, Under and by Virtue of an Act of the Legislature Entitled “An Act to Appoint an Agent to Procure and Transcribe Documents in Europe Relative to the Colonial History of the State,” Passed May 2, 1839 (Albany, NY: Weed, Parson, 1853–), VII:528n.

  46. Last wills and testaments of Peter Van Brugh, 23 May 1740, and James Alexander, 13 March 1745, in Peter Van Brugh Livingston, “Record Book of Deeds, Mortgages, etc, 1667–1803,” New York State Library. See the correspondence of Robert Livingston and Peter Van Brugh Livingston, Storke and Gainsborough, Correspondence with American Merchants, NYS Miscellaneous Collections, Box 5.

  47. Brendan McConville, These Daring Disturbers of the Public Peace: The Struggle for Property and Power in Early New Jersey (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 31–36.

  48. The last wills and testaments of Philip Livingston, 15 July 1748, and James Alexander, March 13, 1745, in Livingston, “Record Book of Deeds, Mortgages, etc, 1667–1803”; New York Colony Treasurer’s Office, “Reports of Goods Imported (Manifest Books) to New York”; John Watts to James Napier, 1 June 1765, Letter Book of John Watts, 354–56.

  49. “Report of the Meeting of the Governors of the College of New York (King’s College), Reading of the Royal Charter of Incorporation, and Report of the Governors’ Taking the Oath of Office, New York, 1755,” The New-York Post-Boy, or Weekly Gazette, May 12, 1755, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

  50. Pennsylvania Gazette, 16 September 1742; Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London: Pluto, 1984), 46; D. M. Joslin, “London Private Bankers, 1720–1785,” Economic History Review 7, no. 2 (1954): 184; entry for 25 June 1750, in Minutes of the Trustees of the College, Academy and Charitable Schools of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. 1, 1749–1768, 7; Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia (New York: Norton, 1948), 151; Allen B. Ballard, One More Day’s Journey: The Story of a Family and a People (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011), 18–20; George E. Thomas and David B. Brownlee, Building America’s First University: An Historical and Architectural Guide to the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 26–27; William Smith, A Poem on Visiting the Academy of Philadelphia, June 1753 (Philadelphia, 1753), 15n; Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels, 21–30; Richard B. Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623–1775 (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2000), 200–203; Catalogue of the Governors, Trustees, and Officers and of the Alumni and Other Graduates, of Columbia College, 8.

  51. Cheesman A. Herrick, White Servitude in Pennsylvania: Indentured and Redemption Labor in the Colony and Commonwealth (Philadelphia: John Joseph McVey, 1926), esp. 57–99.

  52. A founder of Bethlehem Steel, Joseph Wharton began his manufacturing career as one of many Quakers in the iron industry of Pennsylvania. He also joined Samuel Willetts, the New York merchant and Quaker, in founding Swarthmore College (1864), and he later became the founder of the Wharton School of Business (1881) at the University of Pennsylvania, the nation’s first such university program. Willets also left Swarthmore a major gift in his will. Thomas M. Doerflinger, A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 152–57; Samuel M. Janney, The Life of William Penn: With Selections from His Correspondence and Auto-Biography (Philadelphia: Hogan, Perkins, 1852), 422; Herrick, White Servitude in Pennsylvania, 92–94; Wax, “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720–1766,” 254–87; Sheryllynne Haggerty, The British-Atlantic Community, 1760–1810 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), esp. 170; Darold D. Wax, “Africans on the Delaware: The Pennsylvania Slave Trade, 1759–1765,” Pe
nnsylvania History, January 1983, 38–39; see the voluminous correspondence with David Barclay in William Allen, Letterbook Commencing 31 July 1753, Shippen Family Papers, 1749–1860, Box 3, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Gazette, 8 June 1749, 30 August 1750, 10 October 1754, 23 November 1752; American Weekly Mercury, 13–20 June 1728; W. Ross Yates, Joseph Wharton: Quaker Industrial Pioneer (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1987), esp. 211–26; New York Times, 14 February 1883.

  53. Wax, “Africans on the Delaware,” 41–44; Wax, “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720–1766,” 254–87; Pennsylvania Gazette, 25 June 1747; Doerflinger, A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise, 38, 48.

  54. Wax, “Africans on the Delaware,” 42; Wax, “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720–1766,” 254–87; American Weekly Mercury, 19–26 April 1739, 7 May 1741, 18–25 June 1741.

  55. Wax, “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720–1766,” 254–87; Pennsylvania Gazette, 8–15 March 1739, 5–12 July 1739, 15 October 1741, 1 July 1742, 26 October 1749, 26 September 1751, 11 June 1752; American Weekly Mercury, 7 May 1741, 6–13 September 1744; Herrick, White Servitude in Pennsylvania, esp. 57–99.

  56. Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, Providence in Colonial Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912), 270–71; Wax, “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720–1766,” 285.

  57. James T. Campbell et al., Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice (Providence: Brown University, October 2006), 12–25; orders and letters from Nicholas Brown and Company to Esek Hopkins, dated 10 September 1764, 9 November 1765, 16 November 1765, and 8 January 1766, and “Brig. Salley’s Account Book, 1765,” 16–86, University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, Brown University Library.

  58. Graham Russell Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665–1865 (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1997), 1–32; Charles R. Foy, “Ports of Slavery, Ports of Freedom: How Slaves Used Northern Seaports’ Maritime Industry to Escape and Create Transatlantic Identities, 1713–1783,” Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, 2008, 215n; The Charter of Queen’s College, in New-Jersey (New Brunswick, NJ: Abraham Blauvelt, 1810); John Howard Raven, comp., Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Rutgers College (Originally Queen’s College) in New Brunswick, N.J., 1766–1909 (Trenton, NJ: State Gazette Publishing, 1909), 5–25, 66; Maria Farmar, last will and testament, 18 March 1788, “Abstracts of Wills on File in the Surrogates Office, City of New York, Volume XIV, June 12, 1786–February 13, 1796. With Letters of Administration, January 5, 1786–December 31, 1795,” Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1905 (New York: Printed for the Society, 1906), 136–38; Charles Farmar Billopp, comp., A History of Thomas and Anne Billopp Farmar and Some of Their Descendants in America (New York: Grafton, 1907), 33–50; John P. Wall, The Chronicles of New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1667–1931 (New Brunswick, NJ: Thatcher-Anderson, 1931), 58–59; Lydon, “New York and the Slave Trade,” 389.

  59. William Bentinck-Smith, “Nicholas Boylston and His Harvard Chair,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1981, 17–39; Boston Evening-Post, 17 February 1772; Historical Register of Harvard University, 1636–1926, 44; “Nicholas Boylston,” Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, December 1895, 205–9; Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade, III:72–76, 257; epitaph for John Richardson Bayard, 15 July 1756, and the last will and testament of Peter Bayard, Cecil County, Maryland, 25 June 1765, #1377 and 1381–2, Box 1, Henley Smith Collection, Library of Congress; last will and testament of Cornelius Van Schaack, 31 July 1775 (in hand of his son Peter Van Schaack), Van Schaack Family Papers; Peyton Farrell Miller, A Group of Great Lawyers of Columbia County, New York (Privately printed, 1904), 75–76.

  60. Just a few years earlier, while serving the Presbyterian communion in Virginia, Rev. Davies had accused the planters of neglecting and preventing the spiritual salvation of enslaved people. In unequivocal language, he charged them with offending providence. It was not just immoral but a sin that put white people’s souls in jeopardy, he judged. The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge had supported Davies’ Virginia ministry. In New Jersey, the SSPCK supported the Indian mission, but slave traders and slave owners governed the college. Samuel Davies, Nassau Hall, to Mr. [Peter Van Brugh] Livingston, 18 January 1760, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 1, no. 2 (1845): 78; Samuel Davies, The Duty of Christians to Propagate Their Religion among Heathens, Earnestly Recommended to the Masters of Negroe Slaves in Virginia. A Sermon Preached in Hanover, January 8, 1757 (London: J. Oliver, 1758).

  61. General Catalogue of the College of New Jersey, 1746–1896 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1896), 43–52; Thomas, Columbia University Officers and Alumni, 97–105; Kierner, Traders and Gentlefolk, 163–64.

  62. Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade, III:494; Theodore Thayer, As We Were: The Story of Old Elizabethtown (Elizabeth, NJ: Grassmann for the New Jersey Historical Society, 1964), 78–79; David Ogden, The Claim of the Inhabitants of the Town of Newark, in Virtue of the Indian Purchase Made by the First Settlers of Newark, in 1667, Stated and Considered (Woodbridge, NJ: Samuel F. Parker, 1766); David Ogden of Newark, NJ, to Jonathan Sergeant, 16 November 1759, 23 May 1760, and 24 July 1761, Box 2, Folder 8, Robert Ogden of Elizabethtown, NJ, to Jonathan Sergeant, 10 June 1771, Box 2, Folder 20, Abraham Ogden of Newark, NJ, to Nicholas Low, 31 December 1783, Box 2, Folder 1, Ogden Family Papers, Manuscripts Division, Firestone Library, Princeton University; Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, October, 1701–May, 1745 (New York: Henry Holt, 1885), 373–75; General Catalogue of the College of New Jersey, 42–50; Thomas, Columbia University Officers and Alumni, 97, 102–3; Thomas Harrison Montgomery, A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A.D. 1770 (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1900), 547; see also William Ogden Wheeler, comp., The Ogden Family in America: Elizabethtown Branch and Their Ancestry: John Odgen, the Pilgrim and His Descendants, 1640–1906, Their History, Biography and Genealogy (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1907), esp. 67–84.

  63. Entry for 16 April 1746, “Yale University Corporation and Prudential Committee Minutes,” Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library; Clap, Annals or History of Yale-College, in New-Haven, esp. 54; Historical Register of Yale University, 1701–1937 (New Haven: Yale University, 1939), 63; Wheeler, Ogden Family in America, 52.

  64. Ebenezer Baldwin, Annals of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, from Its Foundation, to the Year 1831 (New Haven: Hezekiah Howe, 1831), 308; Fryer, Staying Power, 46–47; the letter appointing John Lloyd Jr. is reprinted in “John Leverett’s Diary, 1707–1723,” 145, Papers of John Leverett, Box 8, Harvard University Archives; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, July 1903, 310–11.

  CHAPTER 3: “THE VERY NAME OF A WEST-INDIAN”

  1. Jonathan Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts by Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships (London: Benj. Motte, 1726), 194; Elaine L. Robinson, Gulliver as Slave Trader: Racism Reviled by Jonathan Swift (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006); Daniel Defoe, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: Being the Second and Last Part of His Life, and of the Strange Surprising Accounts of His Travels Round Three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself; to Which is Added a Map of the World, in Which is Delineated the Voyages of Robinson Crusoe (London: W. Taylor, 1719); Tim Severin, Seeking Robinson Crusoe (London: Macmillan, 2002); Daniel Defoe, A New Voyage Round the World, by a Course Never Sailed Before. Being a Voyage Undertaken by Some Merchants, Who Afterwards Proposed the Setting up an East-India Company in Flanders (London: A. Bettesworth, 1725).

  2. Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux reversed the master-slave relationship in his 1725 comedy L’isle des esclaves: Comèdie en un acte (Paris: Noel Pissot, 1725). See also John Witherspoon, The History o
f a Corporation of Servants, Discovered a Few Years Ago in the Interior Parts of South America, Containing Some Very Surprising Events and Extraordinary Characters (Glasgow: John Gilmour, 1765), esp. 57; Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants in General; and in Particular to the Butler, Cook, Footman, Coachman, Groom, House-Steward, and Land-Steward, Porter, Dairy-Maid, Chamber-Maid, Nurse, Laundress, House-Keeper, Tutoress, or Governess (London: R. Dodsley, 1745).

  3. Virginia’s Arthur Lee, a graduate of the Edinburgh medical program whose family patronized the College of New Jersey, responded to Adam Smith with a rabid assault upon the humanity of black people, a ridiculing of the lives of peasants in Ireland and Scotland, and a reminder that England had transported Africans to the colonies. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London, 1759), 402; Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776), ch. 3; County Tax Ratables, Somerset County, Western Precinct, 1780–1786, reel 18, New Jersey State Archives; Arthur Lee, An Essay in Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America, from a Censure of Mr. Adam Smith, in His Theory of Moral Sentiments. With Some Reflections on Slavery in General. By an American (London: For the author, 1764).

  4. Rev. Witherspoon emerged as a major intellectual and political champion of colonial resistance to English rule and his college helped define a new national culture. During his tenure in the presidency, John Witherspoon completed two terms in the New Jersey legislature, and served with Benjamin Rush in the Continental Congress. John Witherspoon of Paisley, Scotland, to Benjamin Rush, 29 April 1767, 22 May 1767, 3 June 1767, 7 July 1767, 4 August 1767, and John Witherspoon, New York City, to Benjamin Rush, 8 October 1768, John Witherspoon Collection, Box 1, Folder 13, Manuscripts Division, Firestone Library, Princeton University; Benjamin Rush, Edinburgh, to Jonathan Smith, 30 April 1767, Box 1, Henley Smith Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.