Media

Record of purchase by Andrew Bordman from the widow Martha Daille of a “Negro man slave named Cuffe” for the sum of forty pounds

(Deed of sale, 1716/7. HUG 1228 Box 2, Folder 3)
A bill issued to the widow Sarah Bordman listing the costs associated with mending the shoes of “her negro Cato."

Shoemaker William Manning issued the bill (Bill, 1771 August 23. HUG 1228 Box 2, Folder 39)
33 gallons of West Indies rum were ordered for 1781 Commencement, pointing to Boston’s prominence in the “triangle trade."

(Mr. Gannett's account for Commencement dinner, July 1781. UAI 71 Box 19, Folder 15)
In the 1790s members of the Debating Club took up the question of whether French slaves in the West Indies should be emancipated

(Records of the Debating Club of Resident Graduates, 1792-1793. HUD 3320.505)
Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett, the first African American instructor at Harvard, was hired prior to emancipation.

He served as director of the Harvard College Gymnasium from 1859 to 1871 (Photograph circa 1860. HUP Hewlett, A. Molyneaux (3a))
At Harvard, Clement Garnett Morgan, who was born to enslaved parents in Virginia, won the prestigious Boylston Prize for oratory

(Photograph of Clement Garnett Morgan, circa 1890. HUP Morgan, Clement Garnett, AB 1890)
W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American student to earn both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate from Harvard -1 of 2

(The suppression of the African slave trade in the United States of America, 1638-1871 by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1895. HU 90.330)
W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American student to earn both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate from Harvard -2 of 2

(The suppression of the African slave trade in the United States of America, 1638-1871 by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1895. HU 90.330)
In his diary Edward Augustus Holyoke, son of Harvard president Holyoke, wrote that “Johny went to Bost[on] on foot with Juba"

Johny was Holyoke's brother and Juba was the family's enslaved man. (Diary of Edward Augustus Holyoke, 1744. HUM 46 Volume 3)
The Dana-Palmer House. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., who lived here as a child, was a lawyer for fugitive slaves in the 1850s.

The Dana-Palmer House was built in 1822. (Photograph taken by Paul J. Weber for the News Office, circa 1930. HUV 2329 (BP 131))
Greenleaf House, built by James Greenleaf, a merchant who linked slave-based Southern cotton industry with N.E. textile mills.

Built in 1859. (Greenleaf House. Home of President Le Baron Briggs, 1903-1923. LC 48-1-1. Radcliffe College Archives.)

Bound by History

Harvard, Slavery, and Archives

Media

Record of purchase by Andrew Bordman from the widow Martha Daille of a “Negro man slave named Cuffe” for the sum of forty pounds

A bill issued to the widow Sarah Bordman listing the costs associated with mending the shoes of “her negro Cato."

33 gallons of West Indies rum were ordered for 1781 Commencement, pointing to Boston’s prominence in the “triangle trade."

In the 1790s members of the Debating Club took up the question of whether French slaves in the West Indies should be emancipated

Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett, the first African American instructor at Harvard, was hired prior to emancipation.

At Harvard, Clement Garnett Morgan, who was born to enslaved parents in Virginia, won the prestigious Boylston Prize for oratory

W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American student to earn both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate from Harvard -1 of 2

W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American student to earn both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate from Harvard -2 of 2

In his diary Edward Augustus Holyoke, son of Harvard president Holyoke, wrote that “Johny went to Bost[on] on foot with Juba"

The Dana-Palmer House. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., who lived here as a child, was a lawyer for fugitive slaves in the 1850s.

Greenleaf House, built by James Greenleaf, a merchant who linked slave-based Southern cotton industry with N.E. textile mills.