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Jonathan Edwards Sr.
by Richard Anderson | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
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.

Samuel Finley
by Shelby Lohr and R. Isabela Morales | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
Presbyterian minister Samuel Finley (1715-1766) was one of the College of New Jersey’s founding trustees and its fifth president. Upon his death in 1766, six of his slaves were sold at the President’s House on campus.

A Moment in Nassau Hall
by Gary Nash | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
In 1783, four somberly dressed men rode into town to petition Congress: End slavery.

Princeton’s Founding Trustees
by Michael R. Glass | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
A firm majority of Princeton's founding trustees (sixteen out of twenty-three) bought, sold, traded, or inherited slaves during their lifetimes.

The Manumission of Prime
by Izzy Kasdin | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
In 1786, an enslaved man named Prime became one of only three enslaved people to be manumitted by act of the New Jersey legislature in exchange for his service during the Revolutionary War.
Primary Sources

"Negro Boy" to be sold by Samuel Stanhope Smith
November 20, 1780 | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
Newspaper advertisement for a slave sale by Professor Samuel Stanhope Smith

"Brandy ... 100 pipes Brandy"
1803 | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
1803 New York Evening Post ad detailing trustee Robert Lenox's goods from around the globe.

1800 Federal Census Entry for Robert Lenox
1800 | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
1800 Federal Census entry for trustee Robert Lenox.

Manumission Papers for Will
1796 | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
1796 manumission papers for Will, a slave bound in service to trustee Charles Ewing's family.

Grave of Jonathan Edwards Sr.
2017 | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
Grave of Princeton president Jonathan Edwards Sr. in the Princeton Cemetery.