Columbia Study Analyzes University's Relationship With Slavery

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — Columbia University released a report titled "Columbia and Slavery," analyzing the ivy-league institution's relationship to the African slave trade the university's founding in 1754 to the Civil War.

The 68-page report conducted by Columbia history professor Eric Foner, history department faculty and students found that since Columbia's early days " slavery was intertwined with the life of the college." Of Columbia's 10 presidents from its founding to the end of the Civil War half owned slaves and the school's first four treasurers were also slave-owners, the report found.

But Columbia's ties to slavery shouldn't come as a surprise, Foner wrote in the report. Ever since New York City was known as New Amsterdam it was a hotbed for the British slave trade. Slave auctions were held in New York's streets and goods produced by slaves in the Caribbean were imported into New York's harbor, the report states.

"King’s and Columbia have always been powerfully affected by the city around them and slavery had been a presence since the earliest settlement of New Amsterdam," Foner writes in the report.

To hear a summary of the report in Foner's own words, check out the video below:

Read the full 68-page "Columbia and Slavery" report here:

Photo by Clive Dudley via Flickr/Creative Commons