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Yale and Slavery: Home

Bibliographic list of source materials on Yale and slavery.

Welcome to the Yale and Slavery Subject Guide.

On October 14, 2020, Yale University president Peter Salovey announced the formation of the Yale and Slavery Working Group and charged it to "investigate Yale’s historic entanglements and associations with slavery, the slave trade, and abolition".  The assembled group of Yale faculty, archivists, local New Haven scholars, and research assistants have meticulously combed through the Yale University Archives and many other online resources which have gone into the creation of this subject guide.

The subject guide is arranged chronologically by century to reflect the research methodology employed by the Yale and Slavery Working Group.  Research assistants were divided into three teams with each taking a century of Yale's history to research any connections to the institution and slavery from each period.  Subjects of particular interest and significance to the members of the Yale and Slavery Working Group were given their own sections within the subject guide to highlight the discovered materials.  

Within each chronological section of the subject guide, users will discover many digitized resources including book chapters, journal and newspaper articles, doctoral dissertations, and many more.  Also included are digitized primary source materials including sermons, bulletins and pamphlets, and documents from various archival collections.  The Yale and Slavery Working Group welcomes users to recommend any additions to the subject guide or suggestions for updates.  Please contact the administrator of the subject guide: Michael Lotstein, University Archivist, at archives@yale.edu.