Ebony and Ivy (49 page)

52
. Nathaniel Saltonstall,
A Continuation of the State of New-England; Being a Farther Account of the Indian Warr, and the Engagement betwixt the Joynt Forces of the United English Collonies and the Indians, on the 19th of December, 1675, with the True Number of the Slain and Wounded, and the Transactions of the English Army since the Said Fight. With All Other Passages That Have Hapned from the 10th of November, 1675 to the 8th of February 1676. Together with an Account of the Intended Rebellion of the Negroes in Barbadoes
(London: T.M., 1676), reprinted in Lincoln, ed.,
Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675–1699
, 71–74.

53
. John Saffin kept a rather eclectic daybook that includes some material on Bristol. As the town was being established, Saffin attempted a tribute to Harvard's Charles Chauncy, who had died a few years before the war: “Chancey the School-man: Great Divine whose faime / First took its Rise, and from Grand Cambridg[e] came / Who in his pregnant Braine was wont to carrie / Arts Master-pieces like a liberarie.” Patricia E. Rubertone,
Grave Undertakings: An Archaeology of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), esp. 16; Benjamin Bourne,
An Account of the Settlement of the Town of Bristol, in the State of Rhode-Island: And of the Congregational Church Therein, with the Succession of Pastors from Its Origin to the Present Times; Together with the Act of Incorporation of the Catholic Congregational Society, and the Rules Established in Said Society
(Providence: Bennett Wheeler, 1785), 2–4; Wilfred H. Munro,
The History of Bristol, R.I.: The Story of the Mount Hope Lands, from the Visit of the Northmen to the Present Time
(Providence: J. A. and R. A. Reid, 1880), 53–93; George Howe,
Mount Hope: A New England Chronicle
(New York: Viking, 1959), 21–102; Newell, “Changing Nature of Indian Slavery in New England,” 118–27; Samuel
Sewall,
The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial
(Boston: Bartholomew Green and John Allen, 1700); John Saffin,
Brief Candid Answer to a Late Printed Sheet, Entituled, the Selling of Joseph: Whereunto is Annexed, a True and Particular Narrative by Way of Vindication of the Author's Dealing with and Prosecution of His Negro Man Servant, for His Vile and Exorbitant Behaviour Towards His Master, and His Tenant Thomas Shepard; Which Hath Been Wrongfully Represented to Their Prejudice and Defamation
(Boston, 1701); John Saffin, “Notebook, 1665–1708,” 13–14, 76, American Antiquarian Society.

54
. William Kellaway argued that the very decision to emphasize Indian education in the college mission was “likely opportunist,” intended to increase support in Parliament and allow Harvard to access funds from the New England Company. Samuel Eliot Morison disdainfully described the Indian Bible as the “least useful” publication that came from the Indian College, this “unwanted structure.” Gookin,
Historical Collections of the Indians in New England
, 34–36; Quincy,
History of Harvard University
, I:352–56; Minutes of the New England Company, 30 September 1685, in
New England Company of 1649 and John Eliot
, xliii, 206–9; Increase Mather to John Leusden, 12 July 1687, in Cotton Mather,
Magnalia Christi Americana: Or, the Ecclesiastical History of New-England, from Its First Planting in the Year 1620 unto the Year of Our Lord, 1698
(London, Thomas Parkhurst 1702), III:194–95; Morison,
Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century
, I:26–34, 345–60; Albert Ehrenfried,
A Chronicle of Boston Jewry: From the Colonial Settlement to 1900
(Privately printed, 1963), 99–101; Jaspar Dankers and Peter Sluyter,
Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679–80
, trans. and ed. Henry C. Murphy (Brooklyn: Long Island Historical Society, 1867), 382–84; John Wright,
Early Bibles of America
(London: Gay and Bird, 1893), 24. Kellaway,
New England Company
, 109–10.

55
. Entries for 6 November 1693, 2 September 1695, and 7 April 1698, Records of the Harvard Corporation, I:20, 27, 34.

56
. Wilcomb E. Washburn,
The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957); Alfred A. Cave,
Lethal Encounters: Englishmen and Indians in Colonial Virginia
(Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 147–65.

57
. See the Royal Charter of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, 8 February 1693, Miscellaneous American Materials from the Lambeth Palace Library, Virginia Historical Society; Records of James Blair's education from Marischal College, Folder 3, Box 1, Special Collections, Swem Library, College of William and Mary; “Earliest Extant Land Patents (and Leases) of the Colony of Virginia,”
The Researcher
(1927), I and II; “Copies of the Rent Rolls of the Several County's [
sic
] for the Year 1704,” Virginia Historical Society; Wilford Kale, “Educating a Colony:
The First Trustees of the College of William and Mary in Virginia,”
Colonial Williamsburg
, Autumn 2000, 25–28; Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on the State of Virginia
(Boston: H. Sprague, 1802), 207–8; land survey for the College of William and Mary and map of the town of Williamsburg, 2 June 1699, MR 1/2067, National Archives, United Kingdom.

58
. As he was establishing Indian education on campus, President Blair proposed new uses for enslaved Africans, including shifting silk production to Virginia, where this labor-intensive process “might be perform'd by Negro Children, that are now so many useless Hands.” Henry Hartwell, James Blair, and Edward Chilton,
The Present State of Virginia, and the College
(London: John Wyat, 1727), 4, 60–77, 93; Col. Francis Nicholson to Archbishop Tenison, 22 May 1710, Misc. American Materials from the Lambeth Palace Library; Gov. Francis Nicholson to John Locke, 30 March 1697, James Blair Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Special Collections, Swem Library, College of William and Mary; Douglas Sloan,
The Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal
(New York: Teachers College Press, 1971), 20n–21n; Margaret Connell Szasz,
Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607–1783
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 68–74; Tyler,
College of William and Mary
, 12–67.

59
. Later in the century, the governors of William and Mary began affording some educational training to the college slaves. Hugh Jones,
The Present State of Virginia. Giving a Particular and Short Account of the Indian, English, and Negroe Inhabitants of that Colony. Shewing Their Religion, Manners, Government, Trade, Way of Living, &c. With a Description of the Country. From Whence is Inferred a Short View of Maryland and North Carolina. To Which are Added, Schemes and Propositions for the Better Promotion of Learning, Religion, Inventions, Manufactures, and Trade in Virginia, and the Other Plantations. For the Information of the Curious, and for the Service of Such as are Engaged in the Propagation of the Gospel and Advancement of Learning, and for the Use of All Persons Concerned in the Virginia Trade and Plantation
(London: J. Clarke, 1724), 1–94; Tyler,
College of William and Mary
, 21–23; “The Humble Petition [to Lieutenant Governor Edmund Andros] of the Clergy of Virginia at a General Meeting at James City, June 25th, 1696,” James Blair Papers, Box 1, Folder 3; Terry L. Meyers, “A First Look at the Worst: Slavery and Race Relations at the College of William and Mary,”
William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal
, April 2008, 1141–68.

60
. “Present Rules and Methods setled and agreed on by us the Rt honble Richd Earle of Burlington and the Rt Reverend father in God Henry Lord Bishop of London for the disposition of the Rents and profits of the Mannor of Brafferton in the County of York towards the propagateing the Gospel in Virginia in persuance of an authority to us given in and by a decree in the high court of Chancery beareing date the 8th day of Aug 1695 …,” and “Accounts Folder,” Brafferton Estate Collection, Box 3,
Folder 1, and Box 1, Special Collections, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

61
. “The Memorial of What Col. Spotswood, Gov. of Virginia Sent to the Bishop of London in Relacion to the Education of Indian Children at William & Mary Colledge and ye Conversion of the Neighboring Nations, to be Laid before the Queen,” 8 November 1712, Brafferton Estate Collection; Tyler,
College of William and Mary
, 21–22; “Notes from the Journal of the House of Burgesses, 1712–1726,”
William and Mary Quarterly
, April 1913, 249.

1
. Alexander Hamilton to Edward Stevens, 11 November 1769, the correspondence between Alexander Hamilton and Nicholas, John, Henry, and Tileman Cruger, 1771–1772, and the scattered records of Hamilton's matriculation in Elizabethtown and at King's College, in Harold C. Syrett, ed.,
The Papers of Alexander Hamilton
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), I:4–42;
Catalogue of the Governors, Trustees, and Officers and of the Alumni and Other Graduates, of Columbia College (Originally King's College), in the City of New York, from 1754 to 1882
(New York: Printed for the College, 1882), 7–10; Milton Halsey Thomas, comp.,
Columbia University Officers and Alumni, 1754–1857
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 8, 98; Ron Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
(New York: Penguin, 2004), 29–38; Willard Sterne Randall,
Alexander Hamilton: A Life
(New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 45–50.

2
. Virginia D. Harrington,
The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution
(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1964), 22–38; James Thomas Flexner,
John Singleton Copley
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 51–52; Cynthia A. Kierner,
Traders and Gentlefolk: The Livingstons of New York, 1675–1790
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 157–59. Gabriel Ludlow was born in New Castle, Somerset, England, in 1663. On 24 November 1694, he arrived in New York to claim a 4,000-acre grant in Orange County. He became one of the leading merchants of New York City, a founding vestryman of Trinity Church, clerk of the assembly, and a slaveholder. See the papers of “Ludlow, Gabriel, 1663–1736, and descendants,” entries 34–37, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.

3
. Kierner,
Traders and Gentlefolk
, 152–53; Jon Butler,
Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).

4
. The founding of the College of Philadelphia has traditionally been dated at 1755, when the college charter was granted. I am using the date when the academy was first founded, which conflicts with the University of
Pennsylvania's preference, 1740. I have no desire to resolve the intercollegiate contest to claim ancient status and any attendant historical flatteries. In 1740 the evangelist George Whitefield began an ephemeral school for the poor in Philadelphia, but the project failed for a lack of funds. In 1749 the trustees of a new academy drew up a constitution, and purchased and renovated the “New Building” that Whitefield had raised. The constitution included provisions for admitting destitute children to a charity school under the board's governance. The trustees later announced that their academy would open in January 1751, and the charity school opened later that year. The 1740 founding date rests on overlap between the two boards, the purchase of the Whitefield building, the decision to reserve space for Whitefield's use, and the agreement to reestablish the charity school.

Numerous colleges have claims to founding moments that predate their charters. In the 1740s the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock began his English and Indian school in Connecticut, and formalized the academy a decade later. His Connecticut school had direct ties to and continuities with Dartmouth College. However, the history of Dartmouth College begins in 1769, when the charter was issued. Similarly, the University of Delaware (1921) has a long and complicated lineage with New Ark Academy (1743). The Penn family had proprietorship over Delaware and governed from Philadelphia, which had its own college. This colonial structure also kept the New Ark Academy trustees from elevating the school beyond the preparatory grades.

While the claim to a 1740 founding is a reach, the Philadelphians were running a college course well before their 1755 charter and before King's College opened in New York City. Charters are imperfect tools for dating colleges. Many colleges were chartered several years before the establishment of a course of study and the admission of scholars. In contrast, students at the Philadelphia academy were taking a college course quite a few years before the trustees decided to augment their 1749 charter to empower the professors to grant degrees. In December 1754 the board casually ordered two of their number “to draw up a Clause to be added to the Charter for that Purpose,” having already agreed that offering degrees “would probably be a Means of advancing the Reputation of the Academy.” The trustees brought the revised charter to the governor, who approved their plan. In June 1755 they reelected Benjamin Franklin to the presidency and “assume[d] the Name and Stile of The Trustees of the College, Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania, by which Name they are incorporated.”

The College of New Jersey, the College of Philadelphia, and the College of Rhode Island had colonial charters. King's College, Queen's College, and Dartmouth College had royal charters.

The trustees originally located the College of Rhode Island in the rural town of Warren, and then moved it to Providence in 1770. “Constitutions of the Publick Academy in the City of Philadelphia” and entries from 13 November 1749 to 10 June 1755, in
Minutes of the Trustees of the College, Academy and Charitable Schools of the University of Pennsylvania
, vol. 1,
1749–1768
(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1974), vi, 1–53; Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, Charter of Incorporation for the Academy of Newark, 10 November 1769, reprinted in “Board of Trustees, Minute Book, June 5, 1783–June 24, 1952,” University Archives, University of Delaware; John S. Whitehead,
The Separation of College and State: Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale, 1776–1876
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).