Up until recently the school named for him said he was against slavery. Turns out he owned slaves.
Maybe new name Bloomberg U? He is a big donor to JH and an alum.
Did he possibly switch from owner early in life to abolitionist later?
Benjamin Franklin did I believe.
Yes. I’ve just read one biography of Franklin and watched another (A PBS series from about 15 years ago). I was surprised to learn that Franklin had slaves, because he also famous for being president of an anti-slavery society*. But he changed his mind fairly late in life, reportedly from seeing how well schooled african-american kids learned. He didn’t stop owning slaves until 1781
*I thought, from the line in the play 1776, that he founded it. He didn’t He still owned slaves when it was founded in 1774.
see here for more details – Slavery and the Abolition Society – Benjamin Franklin Historical Society
If they want a name change Bloomberg is an alum and big donor.
Of the principal characters from the play 1776, it looks as if the only one who didn’t own slaves in real life was John Adams
I don’t know about the minor characters.
John Adams was an abrasive ass quite often, but he was also a man of high integrity. He & Abagail were abolitionists before there was really a movement.
did John Adams ever live in the south? Not from what I can see. How common were slave owners north of Virginia and Maryland? I know some slaves were captured in the north and sent south.
In that time, slaves were up North, but not as common as the farms tended to be smaller. IIRC, The Adams actually employed at least one freed slave who may have been an escaped slave. Franklin had his slave(s) in Pennsy, so not the south. Sadly New Jersey & New York had slaves. If fact NY had a leftover serf situation effectively in the Hudson Valley. Lasted quite awhile. The Patroon system I think it was called.
ETA: fixed typo
Thank you, typo.
Dang, I never knew about that! That’s crazy. I wonder if there are any alt history novels where America is discovered either earlier, or is colonized by different nations, and instead develops a landed aristocracy and feudal system.
His son, John Quincy Adams, was raised in a non-slave household, but he married into a slave-owning family. As a result, his slave-owning history is complex. see here – https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-enslaved-household-of-john-quincy-adams
Just because farms were smaller in the North, by the way, doesn’t mean there weren’t slaves. The Royall House in Medford, MA employed lots of slaves, and the current controllers of that historical property point that out at considerable length.
I was surprised to learn that, despite introducing antislavery laws into Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins still owned slaves at his death. He, too, was a character in 1776, and we have a remarkable document showing that he freed a slave in 1772, but he didn’t free all his slaves. –
As an alum, it is rattling to hear that Johns wasn’t the life-long abolitionist the University (and other sources) claimed him to be. Oh well. He still endowed the University. And more notable for those times, set up the hospital to treat all people, and established an orphanage for black children (a very uncommon act at that time).
It’d be nice to know more of his life’s arc regarding slavery, but so far the new facts don’t make me think we need to re-name the joint. Yet.
QtM, JHU BA '79 MD '83
I’m going from memory here so take it with salt but in the NY colony some wealthy people did try to set up feudal system. The problem for them was that they didn’t control all the land; the peasants would move off the estate and farm somewhere else, usually Native American land. Feudalism only works if the peasants have nowhere else to go.
And now I see this had already been mentioned. I forgot that they were called patroons.
This article has a little more info, not much:
From that article:
Hopkins, who was born in 1795, was the owner of one slave listed in his household in 1840 and four slaves listed in 1850, according to the newly discovered census information. By the 1860 census, no slaves were listed as being in his household. Maryland abolished slavery in 1864. [ . . . ]
they located an additional obituary detailing Hopkins as holding “antislavery political views” and as purchasing a slave for the purpose of later freeing him.
Questions remain over the slaves who were listed on the census forms. There is no other information about their circumstances or the nature of their relationship with Johns Hopkins.
If the enslaved person who was in the household in 1840 is one of the four listed in 1850, however, ‘purchasing for the purpose of later freeing’ would seem to put quite a large stretch on the word ‘later’.
Much of Latin America employed a peonage system of forced labor under large landowners. During the colonial period, in some places colonists might be awarded a grant of Indian laborers.
Shortly after Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, Maryland and several other states passed laws that required most newly freed slaves to leave the state. Generally, those born free and those freed before 1831 were allowed to stay. In Maryland, those freed after 1831 had to have a special dispensation issued by a court to remain in the state. In slave states with similar rules, it was not unheard of for people opposed to slavery (Quakers, free persons of color, and other abolitionists) to become the fictive owners of people who were legally slaves but practically free. These quasi-slaves were often reluctant to leave the states of their birth because of family ties to people still really enslaved. They might, for instance, work and save for years in order to buy the freedom of their loved ones. See Slaves without Masters : The Free Negro in the Antebellum South by Ira Berlin.
I have no idea if that sort of arrangement applied to the slaves owned by Johns Hopkins, but it’s a possibility to consider.
Interesting; I didn’t know that.
The problem, from the point of view of Johns Hopkins the institution, may be that even if there was some such explanation there may now be no remaining evidence of it. The only thing I can think of is if current publicity turns up some old letters or diaries by such persons; and if such ever existed, they might well have been lost or destroyed.
Yep. I have ancestors on both sides of that system, including some natives who were “permanently indentured”. The 1600s in the Americas was an interesting time.