Princeton Seminary and Slavery: Historical Timeline

1797- SAMUEL MILLER CONDEMNS SLAVERY

Samuel Miller condemns slavery in a speech to the New York Society for Promoting Manumission of Slaves. Miller, then a New York City pastor who would later become the Seminary’s second professor, called it a “humiliating tale…that in this free country…in this country, from which has been proclaimed to distant lands, as the basis of our political existence, that ‘ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL,’—in this country there are found slaves!”

1804- NEW JERSEY PASSES GRADUAL EMANICIPATION ACT

The law provided that children born into slavery after 1804 would be emancipated after serving their mother’s master until age 21 for women and age 25 for men. The law declared that those born into slavery before 1804 would remain slaves for their lifetime. Slavery remained very much part of life in New Jersey in the early and mid-19th century.

1812- PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FOUNDED

At the time Princeton Theological Seminary was founded by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, slavery in New Jersey remained very much alive.

1816- THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY FOUNDED

The Society was founded in Washington, DC, but the first public meeting to discuss colonization reportedly occurred in Princeton. The Princeton gathering was led by Presbyterian pastor Robert Finley and included most of the professors from the Seminary and the College of New Jersey. The American Colonization Society remained in operation until 1964.

1818- PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH CONDEMNS SLAVERY

Ashbel Green chaired the committee of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly regarding slavery. The committee’s report condemned slavery as “a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God.” Green, who had owned slaves himself, was the first president of the Seminary’s board and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

1822- BETSEY STOCKTON’S MISSIONARY WORK BEGINS

Betsey Stockton traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) for missionary service. Betsey Stockton had been a slave in Ashbel Green’s household since the time she was a young girl and was emancipated in 1817. She taught in a mission school in the Sandwich Islands and later established a school for African American children in Princeton.

1823- SAMUEL MILLER COMMENDS COLONIZATION

Addressing the Presbyterian synod in New Jersey, Samuel Miller condemned slavery in strong terms similar to his 1797 address, yet he also promoted colonization as the only means to rectify the evils of slavery by severing the white and black populations, sending former slaves “to some distant part of the world.”

1823- ALBERT BARNES GRADUATES FROM THE SEMINARY

Barnes served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia for over forty years and was one of the most vocal Presbyterian pastors in the anti-slavery movement. He authored Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (1846; 1857) and other writings that argued strongly that slavery was “contrary to the spirit of the Christian religion.”

1824- NJ COLONIZATION SOCIETY FOUNDED

Robert Stockton served as the founding president of the New Jersey Colonization Society. Stockton, who secured the land that eventually became Liberia, was the son of a prominent Princeton family and a commodore in the US Navy. The entire Seminary faculty and several members of the board were present at the founding meeting and many served in leadership roles in the society.

1827- JOHN MILLER DICKEY GRADUATES FROM THE SEMINARY

John Miller Dickey engaged in missionary work to slaves in Georgia and Florida and later was instrumental in founding Ashmun Institute (now Lincoln University), the first degree-granting historically black institution in North America.

1828- THEODORE SEDGWICK WRIGHT GRADUATES FROM THE SEMINARY

Theodore Sedgwick Wright was the first African American to attend and graduate from Princeton Seminary and likely the first African American student enrolled in any theological seminary in North America. Wright became a prominent pastor and abolitionist. He advocated against the colonization movement and was a founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

1834- ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY GRADUATES FROM THE SEMINARY

Elijah Parish Lovejoy published articles for his newspaper concerning the mistreatment of African Americans and opposing slavery. He became a martyr of the abolitionist movement when he was killed by a mob outside of his newspaper press in 1837.

1844- CORTLANDT VAN RENSSELAER BEGINS FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

Cortlandt van Rensselaer visited churches and donors across the Northern and Southern states to raise funds to support the Seminary. Van Rensselaer had studied at Princeton Seminary for two years before finishing his degree at Union Seminary in Virginia and then serving as a missionary to slaves in the 1830s.

1865- 13TH AMENDMENT RATIFIED

The 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States.

1865- ISABELLA BROWN GIVES FUNDS FOR STUDENT HOUSING

Brown Hall was completed in 1865 and was the only building constructed in Princeton during the Civil War. The Brown family did not own slaves, though their wealth derived in some measure from participation in the slave economy, including the export of cotton by the family merchant business in the 1820s, which provided some of the capital that Isabella Brown’s husband later invested in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The entire global economy was deeply entangled with slavery.

1877- ALEXANDER TAGGERT MCGILL ADDRESSES THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY

Alexander Taggert McGill was a professor of practical theology and served as the functional president of the Seminary. Even 12 years after the conclusion of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment, the leader of the faculty continued to raise money and speak publicly in support of the colonization effort.

1878- FRANCIS GRIMKE GRADUATES FROM THE SEMINARY

Francis Grimke, who had grown up in the system of slavery, became a leading voice in the African American community and condemned the abuses of the Reconstructionist period. He was pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, as well as a prolific author and preacher and one of the founders of the movement that eventually gave birth to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).