Sep 16
12:00PM – 1:15PM
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2026-09-16T12:00:00
2026-09-16T13:15:00
America/New_York
GLC@Lunch: “Making Slavery Pay: Something Happened at Harvard”
Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00pm—1:15pm | Hybrid
In person at Yale University, Rosenkranz Hall, Room 241, 115 Prospect Street, New Haven
Online via zoom
Note: In-person seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Richard J. Cellini (GLC Research Affiliate, September 2026; Research Associate, Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice, Brown University)
In 19th century New England, slavery was good business, powered by vast commercial, legal, and financial networks that spanned the Atlantic World. Enslaved people were a source of cheap labor for the South, and a source of credit that was securitized, packaged, sold, and re-sold at a profit throughout the Atlantic World. As part of an archival investigation of the New England elites who financed antebellum slavery, and how slavery financed New England elites in return, this talk focuses on Harvard University’s antebellum investments in the business of slavery.
By the late 1820s, Harvard was broke. Harvard leaders turned to slavery financing and played a critical role in establishing one of the nation’s largest plantation banks. Thousands of slaves (identified by name) were taken as collateral on mortgages. Hundreds were sold in foreclosure to protect the returns investors demanded. Ninety-one of these people were auctioned off in March 1855. For almost 175 years, scholars thought their fate was lost to history. The mystery was solved this summer in Yale ‘s Beinecke library when a manuscript was discovered that unlocks their story through Emancipation and beyond
Online / On Campus — 115 Prospect Street
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