Johns Hopkins University has found out that its founder and namesake, long believed to be an abolitionist, was in fact a slave owner

• Johns Hopkins University officials announced Wednesday that they had uncovered evidence that their founder and namesake was a slave owner.
• This contradicts the long-held story about Johns Hopkins as an abolitionist whose father freed all of the family's slaves in 1807.
• Upon his death in 1873, Hopkins donated $7 million to found a university, hospital, and orphanage in Baltimore. At the time, it was the largest philanthropic donation in American history.
• "Mr. Hopkins is a complex and contradictory person whose story holds within it multiple truths — both his participation in slaveholding and his extraordinary and specific gifts to the people of Baltimore," school officials said in a letter to the campus community Wednesday.

Johns Hopkins University has announced an unsettling fact about its founder - that he was a slave owner.

In a Wednesday letter to the campus community, school officials said that historians researching the school's history had uncovered the fact that their founder, 19th century businessman Johns Hopkins, owned slaves, disputing the long-held story about him as an ardent abolitionist whose father freed all of the family's slaves in 1807.

The letter said that in the late spring of 2020, researchers with the Hopkins Retrospective - a program started in 2013 to examine the university's history - were tipped off to the possible existence of an 1850 census document indicating that the school's founder was a slaveholder.

According to the letter, researchers tracked down government census records that showed that Hopkins had one enslaved person in his house in 1840 and four slaves in 1850.

By the 1860 census, there were no longer any enslaved persons listed in his household, the letter added.

Upon his death in 1873, Hopkins - who made his fortune as a merchant and in railroad investing - bequeathed $7 million to found a university, hospital, and orphanage in Baltimore. At the time, it was the largest philanthropic donation in American history.

School officials explained that most of what was known about Hopkins came from a short book published by Hopkins' grandniece, Helen Thom, in 1929 - more than 50 years about Hopkins' death.

"Thom's book collected and retold family memories, including the story that Johns Hopkins' parents, motivated by their Quaker convictions, freed all the 'able-bodied' enslaved people on their Anne Arundel plantation in 1807," the school said in its Wednesday letter.

"According to Thom, this act imposed significant financial hardship on the family and caused Johns to leave the plantation for Baltimore five years later, at age 17, to embark upon his commercial career. In Thom's words, Johns became 'a strong abolitionist.'"

The school says that researchers have not been able to find evidence backing up the assertion that Hopkins was an abolitionist, but that the evidence they have found about their founder so far paints a complicated picture.

While school officials could not back up the legend of Hopkins' father freeing the family's slaves in 1807, they were able to find records of Hopkins' grandfather freeing some of his slaves in 1778, the letter said. However, the family continued "slaveholding transactions involving enslaved persons for decades thereafter," the letter said.

But researchers also found an obituary describing Hopkins as having anti-slavery political views, and a letter where Hopkins expressed support for President Abraham Lincoln (who ended slavery in the US), and evidence that he bought a slave for the purpose of securing their freedom.

"Like so many others who have made meaningful contributions to our country's history, Mr. Hopkins is a complex and contradictory person whose story holds within it multiple truths - both his participation in slaveholding and his extraordinary and specific gifts to the people of Baltimore, particularly those gifts that supported Black Baltimoreans at a time when other white leaders of similar means did not," school officials said in the letter.

The school said it will continue to investigate Hopkins' connection to slavery, including finding out who his slaves were, the nature of their relationship with Hopkins, and why he no longer had slaves by 1860.

The announcement comes amid a national reckoning at college campuses across the country about connections to slavery and racism.

In June, Princeton University announced that it would be removing President Woodrow Wilson's name from campus buildings due to his "racist thinking and policies."

And in 2016, Harvard put up a plaque outside a building on campus, in honor of four slaves who worked there during the university's early days.

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