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Thomas Carter Ruffin, Princeton alumnus and later Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, propounded the legal doctrine of slave-owners’ absolute power over their human property in the 1829 case State v. Mann.

As the institution of slavery slowly declined in 18th and 19th-century New Jersey, the Trustees of 1820 reflected the changing face of pro- and antislavery thought in the state—variously owning slaves, supporting gradual emancipation or African colonization, and advocating for immediate abolition.

African Americans were a constant presence at the College of New Jersey as servants, support staff, research and teaching assistants, and students. They labored under harsh conditions on a campus dominated by racism and white supremacy.

Princeton students performed in blackface in the 19th and 20th centuries, until as late as 1949. The legacy of Princeton’s minstrel traditions continues to live on in American culture through the popular folk song “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

Princeton’s faculty and students actively opposed abolition, creating a climate of fear and intimidation around the subject during the 19th century. Although some Princeton affiliates were critical of slavery, the institution demonstrated a catastrophic failure of leadership on the greatest moral question of the age.