Rutgers Confronts Historical Ties To Slavery With Campus Plaques

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Many New Jersey residents may be surprised to learn that some of Rutgers' earliest benefactors came from families who made their fortunes as part of America's slave economy in the 1700 and 1800s.

For example, did you know that Hardenbergh Hall dormitory is named after the family that once owned famous abolitionist Sojourner Truth? Or that the entire Livingston Campus is named after the first governor of New Jersey, William Livingston, whose family made a fortune trafficking people from Africa in the Atlantic slave trade? While Livingston later advocated for gradual abolition, he continued to represent the legal interests of his slave-trading family’s wealth throughout his career, according to Rutgers historians.

That's why this February, which is Black History Month, Rutgers added four historical markers throughout its main campus in New Brunswick, to acknowledge and tell the whole story of its often painful connection to American slavery.

Eight additional historical markers may be added around campus in the future, including one acknowledging Colonel Henry Rutgers, the university’s namesake and the son of a slave-owning family. He is remembered for donating the interest on a $5,000 bond in 1826 that put the college on a solid financial footing.

“These markers are an invitation for us to talk about the complicated legacies of namesakes and the complicated ways in which blood money from slavery is woven into old institutions like Rutgers,” Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said at the Board of Governors meeting Tuesday. “They are a result of the excellent research that acknowledge our own legacy.”

Holloway is Rutgers’ first African American president in its 254-year history. He is also a leading U.S. Black history scholar, and recently published The Cause of Freedom, an examination of Black history starting with the arrival of the first slave ship on the shores of Jamestown in 1619 through the Black Lives Matter movement of today.

The metal plaques are not up yet, but they will be placed in front of their respective campus buildings this spring. They will read as follows:

Hardenbergh Hall, built in 1956 and named for Jacob Rusten Hardenbergh, the founder of Queen’s College, later renamed Rutgers College, who was appointed its first president. Research for the Scarlet and Black Project revealed Hardenbergh’s family owned abolitionist Sojourner Truth and her parents, Bomefree and Mau-Mau Bett. The Dutch Reformed minister, who came from a prominent slaveholding family in Ulster, New York, forced enslaved people to work in his house.

Frelinghuysen Hall, also built in 1956, was named for the Frelinghuysen family, including Frederick Frelinghuysen, a United States senator and state legislator, who enslaved Black people. He was a trustee and the first instructor at Queen’s College (later renamed Rutgers College). His grandfather, Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, who also owned slaves, was instrumental in Rutgers’ founding. Frederick’s son, Theodore Frelinghuysen, a congressman and leader in the American Colonization Society, advocated for the forced removal of African Americans. While most of the names of those the family enslaved are not known, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, who was captured in West Africa and brought to Raritan Valley, told the story of his bondage in his 1772 world-renowned autobiography.

Wood Lawn Mansion, built in 1830 for Col. James Neilson, an early trustee who profited from enslaving Black people and whose family funded the estate through inherited wealth created over generations of deep involvement with slavery. The marker honors 13 African Americans enslaved by the Neilson family and the countless others whose names are unknown.

Livingston Campus, site of the former Livingston College, was named after William Livingston, the first governor of New Jersey whose family made a fortune trafficking human beings in the transatlantic slave trade. The family collectively enslaved hundreds of people and William’s brothers, Philip and Robert, two of Rutgers’ founding trustees, bought and sold hundreds more. When William Livingston moved to New Jersey, he enslaved at least two people, a woman named Bell and her son Lambert.

These four plaques will join other signs around campus that tell Rutgers' whole story, including Will’s Way, the walkway from the Old Queens building to the Voorhees Mall, named for an enslaved man who laid the building’s foundation in 1808; the Sojourner Truth Apartments, named for the abolitionist who, as a child, was owned by the Hardenbergh family; and the James Dickson Carr Library, named for Rutgers’ first African American graduate.

The legacy of racial injustice is long and must be addressed by colleges and universities throughout the country including Rutgers, among the oldest land-grant universities in the United States, Holloway said.

“It is a process," said Deborah Gray White, a history professor at Rutgers. "This is not something that is a be-all and end-all, but an acknowledgement that African Americans not only contributed to the founding and the building of Rutgers but also a recognition that we have been here all along even though we have been shut out of classrooms."

Rutgers launched its Scarlet and Black Project in 2015, to explore the history of two disenfranchised populations at Rutgers: African Americans and Native Americans. They recorded the history of how, in the 1950s, Rutgers’ Black and Puerto Rican students revolted against the university’s admission policies, its Eurocentric curriculum, and its primarily white faculty and insisted that Rutgers diversify. This was during the Black campus revolution that swept across the nation in the 1960s and changed the student population, curriculum, faculty and cultural environment to reflect the diversity of American culture.

This comes at a time when the Black Lives Matter movement is creating a space where people seem to have more of a desire to learn about African American history, said White.

“As the pandemic has given all people more time to think and reflect on the way law enforcement deals with Black lives, books and videos reflecting Black life have increased in consumption,” White said. “For New Jersey residents, Rutgers is a local story and what better way to begin to learn about Black lives than waking up to what is happening and has happened in one’s own backyard."

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