[pls. excuse cross-postings]

	For those perhaps interested in the College of William and Mary and  
its involvement in slavery, I've posted at SSRN an essay that will  
appear (in shortened form) in an inaugural volume of Occasional  
Papers to be issued by the Lemon Project (http://www.wm.edu/sites/ 
lemonproject/?svr=web), an effort at the College to investigate its  
history with regard to slavery and race.   In the meantime, the pre- 
print is available:

Meyers, Terry L. , Thinking About Slavery at the College of William  
and Mary (April 3, 2012). College of William & Mary Lemon Project  
Occasional Paper, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/ 
abstract=2033882

	"Thinking about Slavery at William and Mary" documents a more  
extensive uneasiness about slavery at William and Mary in the 18th  
and early 19th C than has generally been noticed.

	Seeing that uneasiness, I suggest, was made difficult by cultural  
imperatives at the College and in Williamsburg from the post- 
Reconstruction years into the 20th Century.  The result was an  
institutional memory that suppressed not only ownership of a tobacco  
plantation from 1718 to the end of the century but also the College's  
foundational affiliation from 1760 with a school for the religious  
education of black children free and enslaved; its awarding in 1791  
an honorary degree to Granville Sharp; and its first application, in  
1807, from a black to attend lectures.*

	Adding fuel to current fires, I trace Jefferson's hopes to get Notes  
on the State of Virginia (1785) into the hands of every student at  
the College even as he wished not to attract larger attention to his  
position on ultimately emancipating the enslaved.


_________________________________________


	* That letter itself may be of interest:  https:// 
digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/16301

	

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------------------------------------
Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, College of William  
and Mary, Williamsburg Virginia  23187              757-221-3932

		http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/

		http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
---------------------------------
        Have we got a college?  Have we got a football team?....Well,  
we can't afford both.   Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
             															 --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."
















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