According to English professor Terry Meyers, the College has a lot of explaining to do about its associations with slavery.
In an upcoming article for the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, titled “A First Look at the Worst,” Meyers says that the College used slave labor to construct the President’s House, the Brafferton and the Wren Building. It also bought slaves with money from the state legislature. These slaves worked on plantations, Meyers argues, to fund scholarships for young men who were economically barred from coming to the institution.
Nor was it a rarity for the College to rent or auction off its slaves. Source
Meyers's article is apparently another version of the second article I linked to. If you followed that link you'd have seen this:
The early master builders were brought from England, but local contractors for the Wren Building supplied the laborers, who included, noted Lounsbury, two of President James Blair’s slaves.
We are in the dark about a lot of things that happened in the past. Hence my hesitation in coming to a conclusion. But so far, it does look like Brown wasn't the only college or university to use slave labor in constructing its first building or to have close ties to slave trading and slaveowning in its early years.
Stand watie? Learn something? Surely you jest.
First you say...”We are in the dark about a lot of things that happened in the past. Hence my hesitation in coming to a conclusion”.
But did you really hesitate? Of course not.
Then you said: “Brown wasn't the only college or university to use slave labor in constructing its first building”.
Interesting didactic, but factually challenged as it relates to William and Mary.
And before you run off and think that you have facts...you only have conclusions.
First, your “authority”, Mr. Terry L. Meyers is an english professor, not a historian. The papers he reports to have discovered provide no proof.
Then he quotes about your recently discredited source, Lounsbury the architect, as...”An architectural historian at Colonial Williamsburg, Carl Lounsbury, has recently speculated that the older buildings on campus were probably built with slave labor...”
Speculated? That is about as valid as that term paper you quoted several months ago to try to make a point, where in the student simply submitted and did not have a peer review.
Very lame.
Why don't you go ahead and write the College of Charleston and let's learn a little.