The most thorough, detailed, and well-researched account of slavery’s influence on WJC’s history can be found in the SMJP’s first documentary episode (‘Slavery and the Founders’). Findings including evidence that significant numbers of Jewell’s founding trustees sold enslaved people and that at least one Jewell president sold enslaved people while leading the college.
In 1850, Dr. William Jewell held five individuals in slavery.
See the Federal Census 1850 ‘slave schedule’ (p. 10) for the age and gender of the enslaved individuals owned by Dr. Jewell.
In the mid-1850s, Alexander Doniphan, Jewell’s second most important founder, served as a director of the ‘Pro-Slavery Association of Clay County,’ a group whose mission was to make Kansas a slave state.
Through his leadership in the Pro-Slavery Association of Clay County, Doniphan personally provided money to make Kansas a state where buying, selling, and brutalizing human beings was legal. The PSA’s founding articles can be viewed here.
In 1860, Alexander Doniphan held five individuals in slavery.
See the Federal Census 1860 ‘slave schedule’ (p. 26) for the age and gender of the enslaved individuals owned by Alexander Doniphan.
In 1850, James T.V. Thompson, the Jewell founding trustee who donated the land upon which Jewell’s campus sits, held 39 individuals in slavery.
See the Federal Census 1850 ‘slave schedule’ (p. 17) for the age and gender of the individuals held in slavery by Thompson.
