Over the past several years, Harvard University has been
discussing the role slavery played in its history. Below is a letter sent to
the president of the University, Drew Faust. Rev. Harriman, this one's for you.
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| Graduation Day Photo on the steps of Widener Library |
(15 March 2017) Dear President Faust,
I have followed with interest Harvard’s exploration of its connection to slavery. Having read about your recent conference on the subject, I want to share
a story, one that connects me to Harvard, and to slavery.
I grew up in Minnesota, a descendent of Scandinavian
pioneers, Puritans who left England for religious freedom, and Yankees who fought for the revolutionary cause in the War for Independence and for union during
the Civil War. As such, I thought little of my own family’s role in the American
disgrace called slavery. Perhaps I walked in a dream, thinking “my people” bore
no personal responsibility, and that the moral crime belonged to others. Harvard
changed that.
My husband graduated from Harvard College, and not long ago
our daughter followed in his footsteps. She is our only child, and when she left
home her freshman year, my nest was empty. I filled my time studying family history.
In fact, while she studied in the Widener Library, I read books from long ago
New England, some of those books from that same library, now available online. As
a result, by the time I sat in Harvard Yard on graduation day, I had found to
my great surprise that, through my family tree, I had my own connections to Harvard.
By then I knew that adjacent to the Yard, buried in the
pavement of Massachusetts Avenue, there is a brass plate that marks the footing
of an important Harvard building. That building was owned by my ancestor
William Pantry, whose departure from Cambridge by 1637/8 gave the College its
first home. When our daughter joined her colleagues on the steps of the Widener
Library for their class photo, she stood on or near land first owned by my
ancestor Richard Goodman, whose life ended when he was “slain by the Indians”
during King Phillip’s War. Harvard Yard was Cow Yard when my ancestors lived
there, and when our daughter lived in Wigglesworth she walked near or on the “Cow
Yard Lane” used by family members 12 generations earlier. When she purchased
supplies at Dickson Bros. Hardware Store, she stood on land first owned by my
ancestor William Spencer, the first town clerk of Cambridge. "My people" helped found Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But of course the land was not theirs first. These
Englishmen helped colonize Cambridge in the early 1630s. Before that time, the
land served the region’s native peoples. For more than 250 years, white
Europeans spread across the American wilderness, taking native land as they
went. From the Pequot to the Dakota Wars, “my people” were there.
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| From Sibley's Harvard Biographies |
In my studies, I found yet another Harvard connection. My
ancestor John Harriman began his Harvard studies c.1662, and graduated with the
Class of 1667. While at Harvard, he would have studied with Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck,
who in 1665 became the only graduate produced by Harvard’s “Indian College”
project. In those years, Harvard’s class list was based on socio-economic
status. Caleb is last in his class list. John Harriman is first. After Harriman
graduated, he married into a rich New England merchant family, which suggests a
connection to the slave trade that created New England’s merchant wealth in the
17th century. Harriman was an entrepreneur. He was a surveyor and a
farmer, and he owned a flour mill and a cider press. He was also a minister. He
died on a summer Sunday afternoon in 1705, after telling his Elizabeth, New
Jersey parishioners he would not be long with them, and asking them to “stand
fast in the Covenant they had engaged themselves to.” A covenant made with God.
Harriman kept detailed accounts, and one of his account
books survives. It contains pages filled with debts owed by and to him, as well
as chattel sold and purchased. That book bears witness to the fact that
Harriman purchased part interest in “a Negro named Toney” and also bought “an
Indian girl named Hagar.” Harriman was of course not alone. His counterpart in
Boston, the famed Cotton Mather (Harvard 1678), with great ease declared in 1706 that it was by the “providence of God” that New Englanders, himself
included, owned slaves.
It is difficult to imagine one human being owning another as
common chattel. To imagine my ancestor, a man who attended Harvard with a
Native American, and who preached the Gospel of the Bible, also owning both a
Black and Native American slave. In April 2016 Congressman John R. Lewis spoke at Harvard about the legacy of slavery, and said “For 400 years, the voices of
generations have been calling us to remember… We are haunted by a past that is
shut up in our bones. But we have just learned the truth of what it is.” He was oh so right. A printed version of Lewis' address uses this phrase: "But we just can't stomach the truth of what it is." This is also right.
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| Cong. Lewis helps unveil a Harvard plaque addressing slavery |
Yet this truth – learned and
hard to stomach – has, in a sense, both bound me and set me free. The knowledge was unsettling and haunting. But it
also led to action. I now believe strongly that I want to make personal reparations.
The importance of righting past wrongs has
become very personal. I offer no opinion on Harvard’s need to make
reparations, as was discussed at your conference. I merely testify to my own
awakening.
What does this mean? I am no Samuel Sewall (Harvard 1671),
who wrote the first anti-slavery tract published in New England, but I too feel
compelled to speak out. This letter is a part of that. Our family’s charitable priorities
now more than ever include gifts to causes addressing social justice and racial
equality. Haphazard efforts are growing deliberate and focused. And, as an avid amateur genealogist, I gently encourage friends climbing their family trees to understand the roles their
ancestors played in the history of this nation – both the good and the bad. On
more than one occasion I have pointed to the name of a friend's white ancestor
on a slave schedule, and asked that friend to consider the fate of both slave and slave
owner. One might say I am on a personal journey of truth and reconciliation.
Where and when will my journey end? I have no idea. For now,
I simply try to do my best. Like everyone else, including everyone connected to
Harvard, and every person in my family tree, I am a product of my time and
place. I can only hope to do my best in that time and place.
I appreciate Harvard’s effort to grapple with its history.
The school has been very good to my family. It has helped form the character of
each of us, myself included. Your current efforts reflect the values presented
on Harvard’s shield: truth through learning. God speed Harvard on its journey,
and may it prove safe – but perhaps not feel safe.
Best wishes,
Deborah Patel
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
