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Princeton residents published at least 28 newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves between 1774 and 1818. Each tells a unique story of courage and resistance in the face of tremendous odds.

James Collins Johnson, a fugitive slave freed after an 1843 trial in Princeton, became a prominent figure in town and on campus over the course of his many decades working at the College of New Jersey.

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.

Erkuries Beatty (1759-1823), the second mayor of the Borough of Princeton, was one of a tight network of local elites who presided over college, church, and borough governance while continuing to benefit financially from slavery during an era of gradual emancipation.