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Under the leadership of President Witherspoon, the College of New Jersey launched an ill-fated campaign to secure donations from slaveholding planter elites in the West Indies.

Peter Scudder rose from humble beginnings to become a successful businessman and a notable member of the free black community in Princeton.

A firm majority of Princeton's founding trustees (sixteen out of twenty-three) bought, sold, traded, or inherited slaves during their lifetimes.

Lydia, Sal, and Charles were enslaved people who lived in early 19th-century Princeton. John Maclean Sr., a Princeton professor and the father of one of the college’s future presidents, owned all three.

Samuel Stanhope Smith, Princeton’s seventh president (1795-1812), was an early defender of the unity of mankind—arguing that environment, not innate biological differences, determined one’s race.  His convictions, however, did not prevent him from owning slaves himself, and his teachings ultimately influenced Princeton alumni to establish the American Colonization Society.