A Response to the Historical Audit of Princeton Theological Seminary and Slavery

A Report of the Historical Audit on Slavery Recommendations Task Force

Adopted by the Princeton Theological Seminary Board of Trustees on October 18, 2019

Executive Summary

Our slavery audit points to the complexity and contradiction inherent in the Seminary’s story and in our national story. The wealth that funded the school in its early years was generated in an economy that was thoroughly driven by slave labor and production. Many of the school’s founding leaders both opposed slavery and advocated for a gradualism that in fact perpetuated it. At the same time, many of their students demonstrated greater theological imagination and moral clarity than their teachers. The history of the Seminary cannot be fully understood apart from the history of slavery, for it was part of the context that shaped theological study, economic development, and the mission of the church in society.

As an act of confession, the audit uncovered:

The Seminary did not own slaves and its buildings were not constructed with slave labor.

Yet the Seminary benefited from the slave economy, both through some investments in Southern banks in the mid-19th century and from donors who profited directly or indirectly from slavery.

Several of the first professors and board members either owned slaves or used slave labor at certain points in their lives.

The faculty and many board members were deeply involved in the American Colonization Society, which advocated sending free blacks to Liberia.

Even as the faculty advocated for a gradual end to slavery, there were many ardent abolitionists among the Seminary’s students and graduates.

The primary goal of the audit was to confess the ways in which our community of faith and learning, in spite of all of its historical contributions to theological scholarship, was complicit in the racism that continues to plague our society. Our concern was not just with what our founders said and did, but with the way in which their beliefs and actions created a legacy for what we may continue to say and do today.

From the beginning, the Board of Trustees has been committed to a thorough and deliberative process that will result in meaningful response, and the engagement of the Seminary community has been important to this ongoing process. The responses to the audit are intended as acts of repair, which seek both to redress historic wrongs and to help the Seminary be a more faithful witness to the reign of God as we carry out our mission as a school of the church.

As acts of repentance, we will: