Articles by and about the SMJP — Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project

NOTE:

Throughout its work, the SMJP focused on intellectually rigorous, exceptionally thorough historical research; honest and unyielding historical interpretations; efforts to center student-scholars’ independent voices, free from administration influence; and taking a truly democratic approach to shaping college policy in ways that upheld academic freedom. In keeping with those guiding principles and values, the SMJP criticized significant elements of the Jewell administration’s efforts to address the college’s pro-slavery past. As a result, in 2022, the SMJP’s student, alumni, and faculty members voted 28 against, and only two in favor, of affiliating with the college administration in any way.

Reading the newspaper articles listed below will show that the SMJP strongly objected to efforts to sideline students’ voices and criticized the lack of research access rights held by students, alumni, and faculty seeking to examine historical records in the college’s archives and nineteenth-century sources held by the office of the president.

It is also important to note that although the SMJP’s work has recently been highlighted on the college’s website, any impression that the SMJP received support from the college administration, or that the SMJP was in some way affiliated with the RRC, is false.

For more information, please watch the documentaries and lectures available on the SMJP’s YouTube channel.

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Between 2020 and 2023, SMJP members wrote articles, lectured at academic conferences, and spoke to audiences at Jewell, seeking to educate our community about its pro-slavery past and calling for meaningful policies to address that history. The SMJP’s work has also received attention from Kansas City-area media, demonstrating an encouraging level of interest in our effort to promote an honest reckoning with slavery’s profound influence on Jewell’s founding.
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Articles about the SMJP’s work

“William Jewell Students to Launch Documentary Series on College Ties to Slavery”
Kansas City Beacon [5.5.2023]

“William Jewell Administration Says Only it Can Determine the Truth. Student Researchers Say Otherwise”
The Pitch [5.9.2022]

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“William Jewell Has Two Groups Doing Slavery Research. Some Say That’s a Problem.”
Kansas City Beacon [5.4.2022]
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“William Jewell Students Uncover College’s Pro-Slavery Past but Face Opposition from School Administration”
The Pitch [4.12, 2022]
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“Our founders owned slaves’: William Jewell project
reveals truths, prompts calls for change'“
Kansas City Beacon/Kansas City Star/KCUR’s website [8.24.2021]
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SMJP-authored work

“How Jewell’s Slaveholding Past Shapes Jewell’s Future”
Tavarus Pennington
SMJP_1849 YouTube channel/Duke Colloquium [4.22.2022]

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“Community Reflections on the SMJP’s Research on Jewell’s Pro-Slavery Past”
Christian Santiago
SMJP_1849 YouTube channel/Duke Colloquium [4.22.2022]
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“The Truth about Dr. William Jewell’s and Alexander Doniphan’s Pro-Slavery Past”
Hayley Michael
SMJP_1849 YouTube channel/Duke Colloquium [4.22.2022]
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SMJP Students’ Question and Answer Session
Hayley Michael, Tavarus Pennington, and Christian Santiago
SMJP_1849 YouTube channel/Duke Colloquium [4.22.2022]
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“Slavery, Historical Memory, and Academic Freedom” (part 1) (part 2)
Christopher Wilkins
SMJP_1849 YouTube channel [4.7 and 4.22.2022]

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“Slavery and the Legacy of Dr. William Jewell”
Christian Santiago
Missouri Conference on History [3.18.2022]
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“Alexander Doniphan’s Pro-Slavery Record”
Hayley Michael
Missouri Conference on History [3.18.2022]
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“Big Data, Digital Storytelling, and Augmented Reality:
Constructing New Histories of Slavery and Higher Education”
Christopher Wilkins
Missouri Conference on History [3.17.2022]
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“Reckoning with the Pro-Slavery Past of William Jewell College and Clay County,”
Christopher Wilkins
SMJP Youtube channel, in support of Clay Countians for Inclusion [10.28.21]
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Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project Investigates Clay County History’
Savannah Hawley, Hannah Koehler, Hayley Michael, Kyler Schardein
Hilltop Monitor [5.7.21]
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‘Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project Uncovers Details about Dr. William Jewell’s Slaveholding Past’
Savannah Hawley, Hannah Koehler, Hayley Michael, Kyler Schardein
Hilltop Monitor [4.30.21]
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‘Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project Uncovers, Illuminates Alexander Doniphan’s Pro-Slavery Stances’
Savannah Hawley, Hannah Koehler, Hayley Michael, Kyler Schardein
Hilltop Monitor [4.23.21]
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‘New Research Uncovers Ties between Jewell and Slavery’
Savannah Hawley, Hannah Koehler, Hayley Michael, Kyler Schardein
Hilltop Monitor [4.16.21]
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‘Slavery, Memory and Justice Course Seeks to Investigate Jewell’s Past’
Savannah Hawley
Hilltop Monitor [2.12.21]

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[See the full article here]“Over the past month, The Hilltop Monitor has detailed the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project’s investigation into the founders and early trustees’ ties to slavery more broadly, and introduced their research on&nbsp… — [See the full article here]
“Over the past month, The Hilltop Monitor has detailed the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project’s investigation into the founders and early trustees’ ties to slavery more broadly, and introduced their research on Dr. Jewell and Alexander Doniphan. In this final installment of the investigation, the Monitor reviews the society these figures were embedded in and where the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project endeavors to go next.
Alexander Doniphan, James T.V. Thompson and other founders and trustees from Clay County were rooted in the society of early Liberty and Clay County. To gain a more comprehensive picture of Jewell’s founding, the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project continues to investigate Liberty and Clay County’s historical ties to slavery.
Over the course of this research, the SMJP began assembling evidence that reveals the terrible irony in the name of Liberty. Despite a name proclaiming freedom, both Liberty and Clay County broadly supported slavery and economically depended upon it.”

On April 16, 2021, The Hilltop Monitor, William Jewell College’s student-run newspaper, published the first in an investigative series of articles summarizing some of the research conducted by the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project. [full text] Among the key findings were:
“Of the 33 early trustees, 90% of them were slaveholders. By looking through slave schedules and census records, Wilkins determined that the 1849-50 trustees held, at minimum, 307 enslaved people. Only three of the 33 founders did not directly own enslaved people. Two of them may have directly benefitted from slavery, but there is insufficient evidence to prove such. The third, R.R. Craig lived in a household that owned 16 enslaved people and benefited from their labor. Between 1851 and 1865, 24 additional trustees joined the board of William Jewell College. Of the group of 24, 19 were slaveholders. Wilkins found that this group owned a minimum of 153 enslaved people. Two of the five that, as far as research shows, did not personally own enslaved people, lived in slaveholding households. According to the research of the Project members, the founders and trustees owned more than 400 enslaved people. These founders directly benefited from the exploitation of enslaved people and used, at least in part, the profits from their forced labor to fund the College.”

The Hilltop Monitor’s second investigative article examining Jewell’s founders’ ties to slavery focuses on Alexander Doniphan, the college’s second most significant founder. [full text] An excerpt: “The research carried out by the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project shows that slavery was not a minor element of Doniphan’s life; it was among the most central. From his earliest years until the abolition of slavery, Doniphan owned enslaved people and benefited from their labor. He used the wealth he acquired from them to give money to William Jewell College. Although he earned much of his fortune from his legal work and business investments, Doniphan greatly profited from the labor of enslaved people. Federal census records show that Doniphan owned three enslaved people in 1840. Other sources demonstrate that he owned at least two enslaved people in the late 1840s. In 1850, he likely owned more than two enslaved people, as demonstrated by his farm’s production of 11 tons of hemp. The crop was cultivated almost exclusively by enslaved people, proving once again the economic benefits Doniphan reaped from forced labor. In 1860, census records again showed that the number of enslaved people he owned increased to five, indicating his strong commitment to the institution of slavery.  In addition to his economic stake in slavery, Doniphan’s political commitment to defending slavery was profound. In 1837, while serving in the state legislature, Doniphan supported a bill making it a crime to publicly advocate for abolition, punishable by imprisonment in the state penitentiary.” — The Hilltop Monitor’s second investigative article examining Jewell’s founders’ ties to slavery focuses on Alexander Doniphan, the college’s second most significant founder. [full text] An excerpt:
“The research carried out by the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project shows that slavery was not a minor element of Doniphan’s life; it was among the most central. From his earliest years until the abolition of slavery, Doniphan owned enslaved people and benefited from their labor. He used the wealth he acquired from them to give money to William Jewell College. Although he earned much of his fortune from his legal work and business investments, Doniphan greatly profited from the labor of enslaved people. Federal census records show that Doniphan owned three enslaved people in 1840. Other sources demonstrate that he owned at least two enslaved people in the late 1840s. In 1850, he likely owned more than two enslaved people, as demonstrated by his farm’s production of 11 tons of hemp. The crop was cultivated almost exclusively by enslaved people, proving once again the economic benefits Doniphan reaped from forced labor. In 1860, census records again showed that the number of enslaved people he owned increased to five, indicating his strong commitment to the institution of slavery. In addition to his economic stake in slavery, Doniphan’s political commitment to defending slavery was profound. In 1837, while serving in the state legislature, Doniphan supported a bill making it a crime to publicly advocate for abolition, punishable by imprisonment in the state penitentiary.”

The Hilltop Monitor’s third investigative article focuses on Dr. William Jewell’s slaveholding past. “In a 2015 Hilltop Monitor article, “Who Was William Jewell,” a student writer continues this narrative and incorrectly describes Jewell as an abolitionist. The article, written with information found in the Charles F. Curry Library archives, notes that though Jewell initially owned enslaved people, he emancipated four of them in 1846 and granted freedom to two in his will.  These accounts of Jewell as a slaveholder make Jewell seem like a gentle man whose slaveholding was benign and even good. The research done by the Slavery, Memory and Justice Project has discovered that: Jewell owned more enslaved people than the College sources have indicated.Jewell did not unequivocally free all the enslaved people he owned.Jewell’s actual record regarding slavery is more complicated than current narratives portray, and claims that Dr. Jewell was anti-slavery must be reevaluated.The Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project researchers, using Federal census records, determined that Jewell owned 13 enslaved people in 1830, six enslaved people in 1840, and five enslaved people in 1850.Christian Santiago, sophomore history and political science major, has done significant research in the past year. While visiting the Boone County archives, Santiago uncovered a history of Jewell that is not currently reflected in the accounts of the College and its namesake.” — The Hilltop Monitor’s third investigative article focuses on Dr. William Jewell’s slaveholding past.
“In a 2015 Hilltop Monitor article, “Who Was William Jewell,” a student writer continues this narrative and incorrectly describes Jewell as an abolitionist. The article, written with information found in the Charles F. Curry Library archives, notes that though Jewell initially owned enslaved people, he emancipated four of them in 1846 and granted freedom to two in his will.
These accounts of Jewell as a slaveholder make Jewell seem like a gentle man whose slaveholding was benign and even good. The research done by the Slavery, Memory and Justice Project has discovered that:
Jewell owned more enslaved people than the College sources have indicated.
Jewell did not unequivocally free all the enslaved people he owned.
Jewell’s actual record regarding slavery is more complicated than current narratives portray, and claims that Dr. Jewell was anti-slavery must be reevaluated.
The Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project researchers, using Federal census records, determined that Jewell owned 13 enslaved people in 1830, six enslaved people in 1840, and five enslaved people in 1850.
Christian Santiago, sophomore history and political science major, has done significant research in the past year. While visiting the Boone County archives, Santiago uncovered a history of Jewell that is not currently reflected in the accounts of the College and its namesake.”

[full article]“…there are many people at Jewell who are deeply committed to learning more about slavery’s significance not only in U.S. history, but also in the history of Jewell, and who recognize that the way we think about our past matters a great deal for how we view the present and shape our aspirations for the future.” — [full article]
“…there are many people at Jewell who are deeply committed to learning more about slavery’s significance not only in U.S. history, but also in the history of Jewell, and who recognize that the way we think about our past matters a great deal for how we view the present and shape our aspirations for the future.”

Slavery and William Jewell College