The Princeton & Slavery Project turns 10

This week, The Daily Princetonian (Princeton University's campus newspaper) published an article recognizing the 10-year anniversary of The Princeton & Slavery Project -- which means it's my 10-year work anniversary too. I've been involved with the project since it was founded as a single undergraduate research seminar taught by Princeton history professor Martha Sandweiss, first as a researcher and writer and now the project's editor and project manager.

From that first course in 2013, the project has expanded into a major digital history initiative, with all of our findings fully accessible to the public on our website. There, you'll find a digital archive of 400+ primary sources and more than 100 interpretive essays investigating Princeton University's historical links to the institution of slavery.

We share the stories of the nine Princeton presidents who owned slaves and the sixteen (known) enslaved people who lived and labored on Princeton's campus between 1756 and the 1820s. We investigate the origins and influence of the American Colonization Society, founded by Princeton alumni, which sought to "solve" racism in the United States by relocating all African Americans to a colony in west Africa. We follow the money, tracing donations from Cuba's sugar trade and Liberia's rubber plantations to Princeton's libraries.

In 1766, six enslaved people were sold alongside livestock and furniture at the President's House on Princeton's campus after the death of their enslaver, President Samuel Finley.

Because The Princeton & Slavery Project has always been a grassroots, independent faculty project rather than a formal study commissioned by Princeton's president or Board of Trustees, we don't have the power to make policy changes or recommendations to the university. We can and do, however, share our research openly so that individuals and organizations can apply it to their own activism and calls for change (like the NJ Reparations Council, where I presented some of our findings this fall). Our goal has always been to ensure that the much-needed conversations about race and reparations on campus and in our community be as informed as possible.

In honor of The Princeton & Slavery Project's anniversary, I hope you'll take a look at our website today and learn something new. Here's to another 10 years!