I contributed to this.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
Harvard Legacy of Slavery Initiative Releases Database Identifying 1,613 Enslaved PeopleHarvard Legacy of Slavery Initiative Releases Database Identifying 1,613 Enslaved People www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
This kind of story pops up a lot in Pasadena. My favorite plant nursery was owned by a Japanese family beginning in 1923; when they were interned, Mexican neighbors ran it for two years. They handed it right back to the Takemuras when they returned to run it– for another 50 years. It's still there.
4/4 Caveat: my data set needs heavy editing, but I imagine a tolerance of variance between +/- 5% - 10%. Also, this includes Boston, Cambridge, and towns in Essex County that had multiple parishes (so not exactly rural).
3/4Harvard ministers enslaved 290 Massachusetts residents, and I’ve identified 81.4% by name.
Here is a paragraph that I have written:
1/4 Harvard prepared 946 men for the Congregational pulpit from 1636 to 1776.
When this project was still at Harvard, we engaged Jessica Marie Johnson's concepts in "Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads." I'm not defending anyone, including my earlier participation, but we anticipated this critical and rightful analysis.
2/4 And in Massachusetts, 143 Harvard slaveholding ministers settled as clergy in 88 of the 184 towns incorporated before 1775; hence, 47.8% of colonial Massachusetts towns employed an enslaver as their spiritual authority at some point in their history.
The Crimson has a non-paywall story about the Harvard slavery database. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...