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The lives and careers of Princeton’s early students from Georgia, who went on to hold prominent political positions during the colonial and Revolutionary periods, illustrate one of the key paradoxes of American history: the interconnection of slavery and liberty from the time of the country's founding.

Aaron Burr Sr. (1716-1757), an influential scholar and religious leader of the colonial period, served as Princeton’s second president from 1748 to 1757. He oversaw the college’s move to its permanent campus in Princeton, and owned slaves while living in the President’s House.

Jonathan Edwards Sr. (1703-58), who served as Princeton’s third president for less than two months, exercised an immense influence on religious and intellectual thought in colonial North America. Though he recognized the cruelty of the slave trade and considered enslaved people his spiritual equals, Edwards himself owned slaves throughout his life and career.

Jonathan Edwards Jr. (1746-1801), the son of early America’s preeminent theologian and Princeton’s third president, strongly opposed slavery throughout his life and career as a minister—becoming a leading antislavery activist of the 18th century and one of the few abolitionists Princeton ever produced.

Samuel Davies, Princeton’s fourth president (1759-61), was a pioneering Presbyterian minister on Virginia’s western frontier and one of the earliest missionaries to enslaved people in the British colonies.  Davies preached the spiritual equality of Africans and African Americans and supported the education of enslaved people, but owned at least two slaves during his life.