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News about the College of New Jersey and its students—including their connections to the South—spread across the country through multiple forms of print media.

Local academies in Princeton helped maintain the relationship between the College of New Jersey and the South.

Runaway slaves from the Princeton area used sophisticated knowledge of the late-18th and early-19th century’s changing legal and political landscape when they planned their escapes, forcing slave-owners to acknowledge their resourcefulness and determination to liberate themselves.

In 1853, two Princeton alumni described an event in which anatomy students stole a body from the local black cemetery.  Though potentially fictional, their story illustrates how elite white men claimed authority over black bodies beyond the institution of slavery.

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.