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William & Mary benefited from enslaved labor from its inception in 1693 until the Emancipation Proclamation made slavery illegal in the Confederate states in 1863. Recently, universities have more closely examined their historic connections to slavery. Brown University, for example, reported in 2006 that slave labor was used in the construction of the university and that the Brown family was involved in the slave trade. Students and scholars found similar connections between the University of Maryland and enslaved labor. A similar academic inquiry into William & Mary and slavery, the Lemon Project, is underway. Between 1760 and 1765, the Prince George House may have been used by English philanthropists, the Associates of Dr. Bray (named for Thomas Bray), to Christianize and educate local enslaved and free black children. Adam and Fanny, two children who were enslaved by William & Mary, attended the school at its second location, which is assumed to have been located on Capitol Landing Road in Williamsburg.

Brief Overview

Scholar Al Brophy had been calling for William & Mary to examine its historical ties to slavery and in September 2007 he delivered a lecture on the topic at the Marshall-Wythe Law School. Brophy and Terry Meyers4 subsequently published articles on the topic in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal and, in December 2007, the Student Assembly called for a study and an apology for the university's slave-holding past (Meyers). On April 22, 2008, the Faculty Assembly passed a resolution to explore the university's history of slavery and race relations. In 2009, a report from visiting scholar Prof. Robert Engs was presented to the Board of Visitors who unanimously passed a resolution to support continued research on slavery at the university through the Lemon Project. "The Lemon Project: a Journey of Reconciliation," was named after Lemon, a man enslaved by the college. While the Board of Visitors did not offer a formal apology, they offered an acknowledgment that William & Mary had "owned and exploited slave labor," "engaged in the discrimination and exclusion that characterized educational institutions during the era of Jim Crow," and "failed to challenge these hurtful policies."

Slavery has not yet fully entered into the popular history of the university, but its influence is undeniable. In the colonial era, the College of William & Mary was racked with financial problems. Private endowments provided a substantial portion of the college's operating finances, but these were not always reliable. After the Revolutionary War, the most lucrative endowments which had come from British benefactors ceased. Long before, to help the fledgling college, the British government granted William & Mary 20,000 acres of land. This land was rented out to local farmers. The revenue generated from land rents was an important source of income for the college, though, like private endowments, they were not always reliable. Throughout the 18th century, the college constantly found it difficult to collect rents from tenants and was forced to evict farmers. Many of the farmers who did pay their rents paid in kind with the local cash crop tobacco, a commodity often produced through slave labor. (Kristin Zech, 'So Well Endowed': Economic Support of the College of William & Mary During the Colonial Period." Honors Thesis, 2001)

Leasing land to slaveholders barely indicates the degree of the college's involvement with slavery. In 1718, the college purchased an additional 2,119 acres of land known as the "Nottoway Quarter" and 17 enslaved peoples to labor on it. Even beyond American Revolution, this plantation financed the education of several students holding the Nottoway Foundation at the college through the production of tobacco. The Nottoway Quarter produced as many as 25 hogsheads (about 25,000 pounds) of tobacco in a year. As tobacco prices fell during the war, the Nottoway plantation was offered for sale or lease in 1777, but several enslaved peoples were retained for labor on campus (Zech). The Nottoway Quarter was leased by the college until 1802 when it was sold.

At William & Mary, enslaved peoples were an integral component of daily operations throughout the antebellum period. Enslaved peoples held on campus performed manual labor, prepared food, nursed ill students and cared for horses. They also tended to the maintenance of burning fires, and nearly every room on campus had a fire place that required attention throughout wintertime. Those enslaved peoples who possessed skills in crafts such as carpentry performed maintenance on campus buildings. Enslaved peoples were also hired out to local farmers as well, further increasing their economic value for the College. Historical records also show that the College made long-term accommodations to retain enslaved peoples. According to the records of baptisms for enslaved children at Bruton Parish Church, the campus had already housed a substantial population of enslaved peoples, and it grew larger with the addition of the Nottoway enslaved peoples. Although the Nottoway Quarter was sold, enslaved peoples were the most significant functional and financial assets to survive the colonial period, and the College continued to own enslaved peoples until the Civil War. (Jennifer B. Oast, "Forgotten Masters: Institutional Slavery in Virginia, 1680-1860." Ph.D. Dissertation, College of William & Mary, 2008; Zech)

For some, the liberal nature of the American Revolution diminished the legitimacy of slavery. Exploitation of enslaved labor troubled many at William & Mary, most notably George Wythe and St. George Tucker, but they did little to alter the college's involvement with slavery. St. George Tucker proposed a scheme for gradual emancipation that would, after nearly a century, extricate Virginia from the "peculiar institution," but it never came to fruition. In a shift from the Enlightenment values of the 18th century, many of the faculty members of the antebellum period were leading defenders of slavery and the southern way of life. President Thomas R. Dew was perhaps the most infamous example of these, and he is credited with advancing the argument that slavery was not a necessary evil but a positive good. Dew was immensely popular as a professor and as president at the College. William & Mary stayed a pro-slavery institution until the Civil War (T. Meyers).

An essay by Terry Meyers, "Thinking about Slavery at the College of William & Mary" (see below), argues that, more than generally known, many at the College in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were uneasy about slavery, as manifested by the award of an honorary degree in 1791 to the English abolitionist Granville Sharp. That history, Meyers suggests, was obscured by a post-Reconstruction need to avoid most discussion of slavery in the College's history since such a discussion would inevitably raise the specter of Thomas Roderick Dew and the South's losing the Civil War. The apparent skepticism about slavery, Meyers suggests, may have encouraged the first known application by Rozarro, a local free Black man, in 1807. Rozarro wished to attend the lectures in science at the College.

Race relations at the college from Reconstruction through the twentieth century have improved, though slowly. In 1926, the college accepted and used a flagpole donated by the Ku Klux Klan, but President Julian A. C. Chandler repudiated KKK politics at the same time. In a portion of the student body, racist elements were still prevalent in the second half of the twentieth century. Through the 1970s, Kappa Alpha Order, Alpha Zeta Chapter celebrated Old South Week and paraded down Colonial Williamsburg in Confederate garb. Up until the 1970s, the Confederate flag was flown by student groups at campus events. Other students, however, were activists that pushed for racial integration and the repeal of anti-miscegenation legislation. In 1945, Marilyn Kaemmerle, editor of the student newspaper the Flat Hat, was removed from her position when she endorsed progressive stances on race. Despite this troubled past, slavery and racism are part of the history of William & Mary. With the work of the Lemon Project, faculty, students and alumni should recognize both the noble and ignoble past of the university as we move into the twenty first century (T. Meyers).

Most recently, efforts to acknowledge the role of slavery on William & Mary's campus contributed to the erect of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved, dedicated in May 2022.

By Michael Lusby, April 2010; revised by Special Collections Staff in March 2023

Exhibits

  • An exhibit Slavery in Virginia was produced by Swem Library at William & Mary in 2007 to honor the bicentennial of the end of the U.S. slave trade and to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about race relations in Virginia. In 1807, William & Mary alumnus Thomas Jefferson, then serving as president of the United States, signed into law a bill to end American participation in the international slave trade. An online version is available.
  • The exhibit "A Large and Curious History: Tobacco at The College of William & Mary" included documents related to the Nottoway Plantation and tobacco production to benefit William & Mary. It was installed from April 26-November 2010.
  • An exhibit, "Prejudice So Prevalent in the Present Generation: Slavery at the College of William & Mary" was mounted by Swem Library in March 2011 to run to September 2011.

Bibliography

Listed here is a draft bibliography of material of interest and use to those examining William & Mary, slavery, and race relations with an emphasis on the 19th century. This resource continues to expand.

NOTE: A number of the items listed here were taken from "Master-Slave Relations: A Williamsburg Perspective," a MA thesis by Ywone D. Edwards; and "Thomas Roderick Dew: Defender of the Southern Faith," a Ph.D. dissertation by Stephen Mansfield. While focusing on William & Mary and its connections to slavery, many of these sources have a wider area of interest. Using the search term "Slavery Virginia Williamsburg" in the on-line catalog at Swem leads to a number of works about local slavery. The resource book "Enslaving Virginia, Becoming Americans: Our Struggle to be Both Free and Equal" (1999) is a convenient and rich collection on slavery in Virginia, especially during the 18th C. Copies are available at the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg.

Books

NOTE: A number of the items listed here were taken from "Master-Slave Relations: A Williamsburg Perspective," a MA thesis by Ywone D. Edwards; and "Thomas Roderick Dew: Defender of the Southern Faith," a Ph.D. dissertation by Stephen Mansfield. While focusing on William & Mary and its connections to slavery, many of these sources have a wider area of interest.

Adams, Herbert B. The College of William & Mary: A Contribution to the History of Higher Education with Suggestions For Its National Promotion. Circular of Information of the Bureau of Education. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1887.

The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities. Bureau of Education Circular of Information. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1887.

Ambler, Charles H. Thomas Richie: A Study of Virginia Politics. Richmond, VA: Bell Book and Stationery Co., 1913.

Andrews, Marietta Minnegerode. Memoirs of a Poor Relation. New York: E.P. Dutton & co., 1927.

Bagby, Alfred. King and Queen County, Virginia. New York: The Neale Publishing co., 1908.

Becker, Carl. The Declaration of Independence, A Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: Vintage Books, 1942.

Brubacker, John S. and Willis Rudy. Higher Education in Transition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958.

Bruce, William C. The History of the University of Virginia, 1819-1919. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920-1922.

Brugger, Robert. Beverly Tucker: heart over head in the Old South. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1978.

---. Ourselves, Our Past? Psychological Approaches to American History. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981.

Carr, Lois Green, Phillip Morgan, and Jean Russo, editors. Colonial Chesapeake Society. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Virginia, 1841-1842. Charolettesville, VA: James Alexander, 1842.

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of William & Mary College. Petersburg, VA, 1837-1840, 1842.

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of William & Mary College. Richmond, VA: P.O. Bernard, 1843.

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of William & Mary College. Richmond, VA: Shepard and Colin, 1844-1846.

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of William & Mary College. Williamsburg, VA: Gazette Office, 1855.

Chittwood, Oliver P. John Tyler, Champion of the Old South. New York: D. Appleton - Century Co., 1939.

Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.

Coleman, Mrs. George P. Virginia Silhouettes: Contemporary Letters Concering Slavery in the State of Virginia, Correspondence of Cynthia Beverley Tucker Coleman. Richmond, VA: Deetz Press, 1934.

Craven, Avery O. Edmund Ruffin, Southerner. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1966.

Davis, Richard Beale. Intellectual Life in Jeffersonian Virginia, 1790-1830. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1921.

Deagan, Kathleen. Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of a Colonial creole Community. New York: Press, inc., 1983.

Dew, Thomas R. Review of the debate [on the abolition of slavery] in the Virginia legislature of 1831 and 1832. Richmond, T.W. White, 1832. E449 .D511 (SCRC Rare Books collection)

Dodd, William E. The Cotton Kingdom. Vol. 27, The Chronicles of America Series, edited by Allen Johnson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1921.

Dorfman, Joseph. The Economic Mind in American Civilization. 5 vols. New York: Viking Press, 1946-1959.

Elliott, E.N., ed. Cotton is King; and Pro-Slavery Arguments. Augusta, GA: Pritchard, Abbott & Loomis, 1860.

Engerman, Stanley and Eugene Genovese, editors. Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere, Quantitative Studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Floyd, John. The Life and Diary of John Floyd. Edited by Charles H. Ambler. Richmond, VA: Richmond Press, 1918.

Freidel, Frank. Francis Lieber, Nineteenth-Century Liberal. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University, 1948.

Genovese, Eugene. Western Civilization Through Slaveholding Eyes: The Social and Historical Thought of Thomas Roderick Dew. New Orleans: The Graduate School of Tulane University, 1986.

---. The World the Slaveholders Made: Two Essays in Interpretation.. New York: Vantage Books, 1971.

---. Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage Books, 1976.

Glassie, Henry. Folk Housing in Middle Virginia: A Structural Analysis of Historic Artifacts. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1975.

Godson, Susan H et. al. The College of William & Mary: A History. 2 vols. Williamsburg: King and Queen Press, 1993.

Goodwin, W.A.R. Historical Sketch of Bruton Church, Williamsburg, Virginia. Bowie: Heritage Books, 1998. Originally published, 1903.

Greenberg, Kenneth S., ed. "Thomas R. Dew, 'Abolition of Negro Slavery,' September and December 1832." The Confessions of Nat Turner and Related Documents. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996.

Gutman, Herbert. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. New York: Vintage Books, 1976.

Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957.

Handler, Jerome S. and Frederick W. Lange. Plantation Slavery in Barbados: An Archaeological and Historical Investigation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Harrison, Francis Burton ed. The Harrisons of Skimino. Privately Printed, 1910.

Harper, William. The Pro-slavery argument, as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the Southern States. Containing the several essays on the subject of [i.e. by] Chancellor Harper, Governor Hammond, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew. New York: Negro Universities Press [1968]. Reprint of the 1852 ed. E449 .P956 1968 (Swem stacks); 1853 edition available in SCRC Rare Books and Archives book collections, E449 .P956 1853.

Hastings, Earl C. Jr. and David Hastings. A Pitiless Rain: The Battle of Williamsburg, 1862. Shippensburg: White Mane, 1997.

Haulman, Claude A. and William J. Hausman. "Political Economy at the College of William & Mary." in Essays in Economic and Business History: volume VII, Selected papers, ed. Edwin J. Perkins. Los Angeles: History Department, University of Southern California, 1988.

Higman, Barry W. Slavery Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834.

The History of the College of William & Mary from Its Foundation, 1660, to 1874. Richmond, VA: J.W. Randolph & English, 1874.

Hodder, Ian. The Present and the Past: An Introduction to Anthropology for Archaeologists. New York: Pica Press, 1983.

Hubbell, Jay B. The South in American Literature 1607-1900. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1954.

Jackson, David K. compiler. The Contributors and Contributions to the Southern Literary Messenger 1834-1864. Charlottesville, VA: Historical Publishing Company inc., 1936.

Jenkins, William. Proslavery Thoughts in the Old South. Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1960.

Jeter, J.B. The Surmons and Other Writings of the Reverand Andrew Broaddus, with a Memoir of his Life. New York: Lewis Colby, 1852.

Knight, Edgar W., ed. A Documentary of Education in the South before 1860. 5 vols. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1953.

Kornwulf, James. "So Good A Design": The Colonial Campus of William & Mary, Its History, Background, and Legacy. Williamsburg: The College of William & Mary, 1989.

Laws and Regulations of the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Richmond, VA: Shepard and Colin, 1849.

Laws and Regulations of the College of William & Mary in Virginia and Regulations of the Society. Richmond, VA: Thomas White, 1830.

Leone, Mark and Parker Potter, Jr. The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Inc. Press, 1988.

Malone, Dumas. The Public Life of Thomas Cooper 1783-1839. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1926.

Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power, Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. Combridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

McColley, Robert. Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia. Urbanna, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1964.

McGill, Ralph. The South and the Southerner. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1963.

Minor, Benjamin Blake. Southern Literary Messenger 1834-1864. New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1905.

Mintz, Sidney. Caribbean Transformations. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1974.

Mohr, Clarence L. On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves Morpurgo, J.E. Their Majesties' Royall Colledge: William & Mary in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Williamsburg: The Endowment Association of The College of William and Mary in Virginia, 1976.

Moran, Charles. Black Triumvirate. New York: Exposition Press, 1957.

Mumford, Beverley B. Virginia's Attitudes Toward Slavery and Sucession. new York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909.

Nelson, Truman, ed. Documents of Upheaval. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.

Nichols, Michael. Aspects of the African American Experience in Eighteenth Century Williamsburg and Norfolk. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1990.

The Officers, Statutes, and Charter of the College of William & Mary. Philadelphia: William Fry, 1817.

Oast, Jennifer. Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680-1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316225486

Osbourne, Ruby Orders. The Crisis Years: The College of William and Mary in Virginia, 1800-1827. Richmond: Dietz Press, 1989.

Otto, John Solomon. Cannon's Point Plantation, 1794-1860: Liveing Conditions and Status Patterns in the Old South. New York: Academic Press, 1984.

Perdue, Charles L. Jr., T.E. Barden and R.K. Phillips. Weevils in the Wheat. Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 1976.

Phillips, Ulrich B. American Negro Slavery. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1918.

Poole, W.F. Anti-Slavery Opinions Before the Year 1800. Cincinnati, OH: R. Clark & co., 1873.

Recollections of a Beloved Pastor, the Reverend William H. Wilmer. Philadelphia: John C. Pechin, 1835.

Richardson, James D., ed. A Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents. 11 vols. Washington DC: Bureau of National Literature, 1914.

Rogers, William Barton. Life and Letters of William B. Rogers. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & co., 1896.

Ruffin, Edmund. The Political Economy of Slavery. Washington DC: L. Towers, 1857.

Rutman, Darret B. and Anita Rutman. A Place in Time: Middlesex County, VA, 1650-1750. New York: Norton, 1984.

Singleton, Theresa. The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life. New York: Academic Press, 1985.

Smith, John Augustine. Lectures on Government. Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson & Son, 1817.

Sobel, Mechal. The World They made Together: Black and White Values in Eighteenth Century Virginia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.

The South Vindicated From the Treason and Fanaticism of the Northern Abolitionists. Philadelphia: H. Manly, 1836.

Staudenraus, P.J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.

Tate, Thad. The Negro in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1972.

Taylor, John. Tyranny Unmasked. Washington DC: Davis & Force, 1822.

Tucker, N. Beverley. A Series of Lectures on the Science of Government Intended to Prepare the Student for the Study of the Constitution of the United States. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1845.

Tucker, St. George. A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia. Westport: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Tucker, Susan. Telling Memories Among Southern Women Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Tyler, Lyon G. The College of William and Mary in Virginia: Its History and Work, 1693-1907.

Van Horne, John C., ed. Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery: The American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray, 1717-1777. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Wish, Harvey. George Fitzhugh, Propagandist of the Old South. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1943.

Yetter, George. Williamsburg Before and After: The Rebirth of Virginia's Colonial Capital. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988.

Articles

Incomplete list, suggestions welcomed

NOTE: A number of the items listed here were taken from "Master-Slave Relations: A Williamsburg Perspective," a MA thesis by Ywone D. Edwards; and "Thomas Roderick Dew: Defender of the Southern Faith," a Ph.D. dissertation by Stephen Mansfield. While focusing on William & Mary and its connections to slavery, many of these sources have a wider area of interest.

Angulo, A. J. "William Barton Rogers and the Southern Sieve: Revisiting Science, Slavery, and Higher Learning in the Old South," History of Education Quarterly, 45:1(Spring 2005), 18-37.

Armstrong, Douglas. "An Afro-Jamaican Slave Settlement: Archaeological Investigations at Drax Hall." In The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States. Mark P. Leone and Parker Potter, Jr. editors, pp. 379-406. Washington DC: Smithsonian Inc. Press, 1985.

Beaudry, Mary C. "Archaeology and the Historical Household." Man in the Northeast, no. 28 (1984.)

Brophy, Alfred L. "Considering William & Mary's History with Slavery: The Case of President Thomas Roderick Dew."

Bryan, John Stewart. "Thomas Roderick Dew." Bulletin of the College of William & Mary, 33:5 (June 1939).

Chappell, Edward A. "Williamsburg Architecture as Social Space." Fresh Advises, pp. I-IV. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, November 1981.

---. "Slave Housing." Fresh Advises, pp. I-IV. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, November 1982.

"College of William & Mary." Farmer's Register, 2 (September 1834): 231.

Conrad, Alfred H. and John R. Meyer. "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South." The Journal of Political Economy. 66 (April 1958): 95-130.

Cota, Angela. "College's Oldest Buildings likely Built by Slaves, Lecturer Says." The Flat Hat. February 23, 2007.

Eby, Cecil D. Jr. "'Port Crayon' in the Tidewater." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 68 (October 1959): 438-449.

Deetz, James J.F. "Ceramics from Plymouth, 1620-1835: The Archaeological Evidence." In Ceramics in America, edited by Ian M.G. Quimby, 41-69. New York: W.W. Norton, 1973.

"Fitzhugh Family." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 8(April 1901): 431.

Flat Hat: "The Social Problem of the South," 6 March 1918: 2.

Gill, Harold. "The Distress of Same and Caty." In Colonial Williamsburg, pp. 25 Spring 1990.

Goldin, Claudia. "A Model to Explain the Relative Decline of Urban Slavery: Empirical Results." In Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Qualitative Studies, edited by Stanley Engerman and Eugene Genovese, pp. 427-450. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Gresham, Hattie Belle. "Dewsville and Providence." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 46 (April 1938): 112-116.

Hamilton, Phillip. "Revolutionary Principles and Family Loyalties: Slavery's Transformation in the St. George Tucker Household of Early National Virginia." William & Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine 3rd Series; 55:4 (Oct 1998): 531-556.

Harrison, Jesse Burton. "Slavery Question in Virginia." American Quarterly Review, 12 (December 1832): 379-426.

Harrison, Lowell H. "Thomas Roderick Dew: Philosopher of the Old South." Virginia Magazine of the Old South. 57 (October 1949): 390-404.

Herman, Bernard L. "Multiple Materials, Multiple Meanings: The Fortunes of Thomas Mendelhall." In Winterthur Portfolio. Vol. 19, issue 1 (Spring 1984): 67-86.

Herman, Lynne L., Johns O. Sands, and Daniel Schecter. "Ceramics in St. Mary's County, Maryland, During the 1840s: A Socio-economic Study." In The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology Papers 8(1975): 52-93.

Hesseltine, William B. "Some New Aspects of the Pro-Slavery Arguement." Journla of Negro History. 21 (January 1936): 1-14.

Holmes, George. "Professor John Millington, M.D. 1779-1868." William & Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine, 2nd Series, 3:1 (January 1923): 23-35.

"Journal of the Meetings of the President and Masters of William & Mary College." William & Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine 14:1 (July 1905).

Land, Robert H. "Thomas Roderick Dew." The Alumni Gazette, College of William & Mary, 6 (May 1939): 8-10.

Meyers, Terry L.. "Benjamin Franklin, The College of William & Mary, and the Williamsburg Bray School," Anglican and Episcopal History, 79:4 (December 2010), 368-393.

Meyers, Terry L. "A First Look at the Worst: Slavery and Race Relations at the College of William & Mary." William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 16:4 (April 2008), 1141-1168. Available at: http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol16/iss4/8/

Meyers, Terry L. https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slavery_at_the_College_of_William_and_Mary."

Meyers, Terry L., "Thinking About Slavery at the College of William & Mary." William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 21:4 (May 2013), 1215-1257. Available at http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol21/iss4/6/

Miller, George. "A Tenant Farmer's Tableware: Nineteenth-Century Ceramics from Tabb's Purchase." In Maryland Historical Magazine Vol. 69 Iss. 2 (1974): 197-210.

Mitchell, Broadus. "Thomas Roderick Dew." The Dictionary of American Biography. Edited by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, 266-267. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-1944.

Moore, Sue Mullins. "Social and Economic Status on the Coastal Plantation: An Archaeological Perspective." In The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life, edited by Theresa Singleton, pp. 141-160. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1985.

Morgan, Philip. "Early Virginia," in "Don't Grieve After Me:" The Black Experience Virginia 1619-1986. pp. 13-31. Hampton, VA: Hampton University Press, 1986.

---. "Three Planters and Their Slaves: Perspectives on Slavery in Virginia, South Carolina and Jamaica 1750-1790." In Race and Family in the Colonial South, edited by Winthrop D. Jordan and Sheila L. Skemp. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1987.

---. "Slave Life in Piedmont Virginia 1720-1800." In Colonial Chesapeake Society, edited by Rois Green Carr, Philip D. Morgan and Jean B. Russo. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Onwood, Maurice. "Impulse and Honour: the Place of Slavery in the Ideology of the Planterdom." Plantation Society Vol. 1 Iss. 1 (1979): 31-56.

Orser, Charles. "The Archaeological Analysis of Plantation Society: Replacing Status and Caste with Economics and Power." American Antiquity 53 (1988): 735-751.

---. "Toward a Theory of Power for Historical Archaeology. Plantation and Space." In The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States. Edited by Mark Leone and Parkter Potter, Jr., 313-343. Washington DC: Smithsonian Inc. Press, 1988.

---. "On Plantations and Patterns." Historical Archaeology 23(1989): 28-40.

Otto, John Solomon. "Artifact Diffenerences - A comparison of Ceramics from Planter, overseer and Slave Sites on an Antebellum Plantation." In Research Strategies in Historical Archaeology, 91-118. New York: Academic Press, 1977.

Rachal, William M. ed. "Early Records of the Virginia Historical Society, 1831-1834." Virgina Magazine of History and Biography 68 (April 1959): 186-206.

Ruffin, Edmund. "Agricultural Review: Slavery and Emancipation." Farmer's Register 1 (June 1833): 36-48.

---. "College of William & Mary." Farmer's Register 2 (September 1834): 239.

Ryland, Elizabeth Hawes. "A Nineteenth Century Schoolboy's Plaint." William & Mary Quarterly, 2nd series 20 (October 1942): 415-417.

Shepard, Steven J. "Status Variation in Antebellum Alexandria; An Archaeological Study of Ceramic Tableware." In Consumer Choice in Historical Archaeology, 163-198. New York: Plenum Press, 1987.

Singleton, Theresa. "An Archaeological Framework for Slavery and Emancipation, 1740-1880." In In the Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States edited by Mark Leone and Parker Potter, Jr., 345-370. Washington DC: Smithsonian Inc. Press, 1988.

Stampp, Kenneth. "An Analysis of Dew's Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature". Journal of Negro History 27 (October 1942): 380-388.

Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley. "An Essay on the Moral and Political Effect of the Relation Between: The Caucasian Master and the African Slave." Southern Literary Messenger X-42 (June 1844): 329-339.

Upshur, Abel P. "Domestic Slavery." Southern Literary Messanger 5 (October 1839): 677-687.

Woodman, Harold D. "Comments on Urban Slavery." In Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies edited by Stanley Engerman and Eugene Genovese, 451-454. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Theses and Dissertations

Curtis, Christopher M. "Can These be the Sons of Their Fathers?: The Defense of Slavery in Virginia, 1831-1832." MA Thesis, Virginia Tech, 1997.

Dingledine, Raymond C. Jr. "The Political Career of William Cabell Rives." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1947.

Edwards-Ingram, Ywone. Master-Slave Relations: A Williamsburg Perspective. MA Thesis, College of William & Mary, 1990. LD6051 .W5m Anthro., 1990, E38 (Copy in the SCRC Archives thesis/dissertation collection.)

Gill, Russell B. "Secondary Education in King and Queen County, Virginia, 1691-1938." MA Thesis, University of Virginia, 1938.

Hickin, Patricia P. "Joun Curtis Underwood and the Anti-slavery Crusade, 1809-1860." MA Thesis, University of Virginia, 1961.

Hunter, Robert. Ceramic Acquisition Patterns at Meadow Farm, 1810-1861. MA Thesis, College of William & Mary, 1987. LD6051 . W5m Anthro., 1987, H85 (Copy in the Swem Library stacks and SCRC Archives thesis/dissertation collection.)

Leavitt, Genevieve. Slaves and Tenants Farmers at Shirley Plantation: Social Relationship and Material Culture. MA Thesis, College of William & Mary, 1981. LD6051 .W5m Anthro., 1981, L43 (Copy in the Swem Library stacks and SCRC Archives thesis/dissertation collection.)

Mansfield, Stephen S. "Thomas Roderick Dew: Defender of the Southern Faith." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1968. LD6051 .W517 1836 M3 1980 (Copy in the Swem Library stacks and SCRC Archives book collection.) Note: Mansfield donated copies of much of his source material not already held by the Special Collections Research Center in 2008. See the records of Dew from his time as president in the SCRC Collections Database.

McKee, Lawrence W. Plantation Food Supply in Nineteenth Century Tidewater Virginia. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1988.

Oast, Jennifer B. "Educating Eighteenth-Century Black Children: The Bray Schools." M.A. Thesis, College of William & Mary), 2000.

Oast, Jennifer B. "Forgotten Masters: Institutional Slavery in Virginia, 1680-1860." Ph.D. Dissertation, College of William & Mary, 2008.

Rice, Philip Morrison. "Internal Improvements in Virginia, 1775-1860." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1948.

Tarleton, Lavonne. "John Millington, Civil Engineer and Teacher, 1779-1868." M.A. Thesis, The College of William & Mary, 1966. LD6051 .W5m Educ., 1966, T37 (Copy in the Swem Library stacks and SCRC Archives thesis/dissertation collection.)

Turrentine, Percy Winfield. "Life and Works of Nathaniel Beverley Tucker." Ph.D. Dissertation, 3 vol., Harvard University, 1952.

Zech, Kristin. "'So Well Endowed': Economic Support of the College of William & Mary During the Colonial Period." Honors Thesis, 2001.

Conference Papers, Institution Reports, and Lecture Notes

DRAFT

NOTE: A number of the items listed here were taken from "Master-Slave Relations: A Williamsburg Perspective," a MA thesis by Ywone D. Edwards; and "Thomas Roderick Dew: Defender of the Southern Faith," a Ph.D. dissertation by Stephen Mansfield. While focusing on the College of William & Mary and its connections to slavery, many of these sources have a wider area of interest.

Adams, William Hampton. "Black American Heritage and Archaeology: Theoretical Paradigms and Methodological Practices in the Search for Ethnic Heritage." Paper presented at the "digging the Afro-American Past: Historical Archaeology and the Black Experience" conference, University of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, May 17-20, 1989.

Barbar, Frank. "Brush-Everard House Kitchen and Surrounding Area. Block 29, Area E. Colonial Lots 164-165." Report on 1967 Archaeological Excavations.

Brown, Marley. "The Other Half: Afro-Americans in Tidewater Virginia 1619-1885." Paper presented at the Ethno-History Conference, Williamsburg, VA, November 1988.

Dade, Janine and Jane Koehler. "A comparison of Relative Social Status Between Rural and Urban Slave Households. A Collaborative Researhc Project." Williams Pitman, Director. Department of Archaeological Reaserch, Colonial Williamsburg.\

Epperson, Terrence. "Race and the Disciplines of the Plnatation." Paper presented at the "digging the Afro-American Past: Historical Archaeology and the Black Experience" conference, University of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, May 17-20, 1988.

McKee, Lawrence. "Virginia Slave Cabins. Documented Intentions Versus Archaeological Realities." paper presented at the Society of Historical Archaeological Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 1988.

Meyers, Terry L. "Writing at the Williamsburg Bray School?" Including a discussion by a number of scholars of whether writing was taught to the black pupils at the Williamsburg Bray School. Available at http://www.wm.edu/sites/lemonproject/researchandresources/resourcesandresearch/index.php

Reed, Washington Jr. "St. George Tucker House and Outbuildings, Block 29 bldg. 2 [colonial lots 163-4, 169] Architecture Report." Revised by Howard Deerstryme. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1952.

Samford, Patricia and Meredith C. Moodey. "Archaological Excavations on the Brush-Everard Property: An Interim Report." Department of Arcaheological Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Thomas R. Dew's Published Works

Lectures on the Restrictive System. Richmond, VA: Samuel Shepard & Co., 1829.

"Abolition of Negro Slavery." American Quarterly Review 12 (September 1832): 189-265.

"Professor Dew's Essay on Slavery." DeBow's Southern and Western Review 10 (June 1851): 658-665.

Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature. Richmond, VA: Thomas White, 1832.

An Essay on Slavery. Richmond, VA: J.W. Randolph, 1849.

Harper, William, James Hammond, William Gilmore Simms, and Thomas R. Dew. The Pro-Slavery Arguement. Charleston, SC: Walker, Richards & co., 1852.

Collections in the Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library

Researchers should consult the Special Collections Research Center's (SCRC) webpage for assistance in searching for additional material of interest. Information about most collections listed here, including finding aids with inventories in some cases, is available from the SCRC Collections Database.

Blair, James, Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Blair, Banister, Braxton, Horner, Whiting Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Bucktrout, Richard Manning. Daybook and Ledger, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

College Papers Collection, Folders 250-253, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Dew Family Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Ewell, Benjamin, Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

"A List of Negroes at College, 1780" (UA 339); original formerly part of the University Archives Subject File Collection, "Slaves Owned by the College" folder, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Faculty Assembly, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Millington, John, Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Morpurgo, Jack E., Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Morton, Richard Lee, Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Office of the Bursar Records, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Office of the President, Thomas Roderick Dew Records, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

"The Owl," student newspaper/humor publication, January 1954. Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

"Randolph, John, (of Roanoke) 1792," University Archives Faculty-Alumni File Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Saunders, Robert

List of persons enslaved by the College, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

Southall Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

"Transfer to the Faculty in Virginia, February 27, 1729,"

Tucker, Nathaniel Beverly, Letters, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary.

University Archives Bound Volume Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary. Includes several notebooks of notes taken by students of Dew's lectures at the College.

Manuscripts in Other Archives and Libraries

 

Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charolettesville, VA.

 

  • A. W. Anthony Collection, photostats. Orginials at the New York Public Library, New York, NY.
  • Berkeley Family Papers
  • Bryan Family Papers
  • Robert Lewis Dabney Student Notebook
  • Grinnan Family Papers
  • Griswold Manuscripts, photostats. Originals at the Boston Public Library, Boston, MA.
  • Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart Papers
  • James Madison Papers, photostats. Orignials at the Library of Congress, Washington DC.
  • Minutes of the Rector and Visitorys, University of Virginia

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA

  • Galt Family Papers

Duke University Library Durham, NC.

  • George B. Harrison papers
  • George F. Holmes Manuscripts

Library of Congress Washington DC.

  • Bassett Family Papers
  • John Floyd Papers
  • Jesse Burton Harrison Papers

National Archives Washington DC.

  • Passport Records

Virginia Historical Society Richmond, VA.

  • Thomas B. Montague Student Handbook

The Library of Virginia, Richmond, VA.

  • Governor John Floyd Letterbook
  • King and Queen County Tax Records
  • Tazewell Family Papers
  • Williamsburg City Tax Records
  • Wyndham Roberston Papers, microfilm. Originals at the University of Chicago Library Chicago, IL.

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A note about the contents of this site

This website contains the best available information from known sources at the time it was written. Unfortunately, many of the early original records of William & Mary were destroyed by fires, military occupation, and the normal effects of time. The information in this website is not complete, and it changes as we continue to research and uncover new sources.