Since August of 2020, a group of dedicated student researchers, under the guidance of Dr. Christopher Wilkins, associate professor and chair of the history department at William Jewell College, has been researching the history of slavery in relation to Jewell. The research group that the students and Wilkins created – the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project – had its origins in an introductory history seminar held last fall. This semester, project members primarily convene during the HIS 204: Slavery, Memory, and Justice course that Wilkins teaches.

The project plans to conduct research for as long as it takes to bring the truth about the College’s relationship with slavery to light. This will ultimately conclude with the group publishing their research – writing a more accurate account of Jewell’s history in the hopes of creating a more inclusive college community. 

As the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project compiles and verifies their research, The Hilltop Monitor will publish their findings. This is the second in a series of investigations into the history of slavery at William Jewell College. 

Alexander Doniphan, one of the most influential Clay Countians, played a key role in the founding of William Jewell College. While Doniphan is not as well known as Dr. William Jewell, his contributions to the College are unmatched.

In 1849, Baptist leaders met in Boone County to discuss the location of a new Baptist college in Missouri. Doniphan’s famed oratorical skills and $7,000 – the equivalent of over $240,000 today – he helped raise from the citizens of Clay County secured Liberty as the College’s new home and helped ensure that the new institution would be named after Jewell. Thus, William Jewell College was born. 

Doniphan is also celebrated for his bravery in defense of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued the Mormon Extermination Order. Missouri Militia Major General Samuel Lucas captured Latter-day prophet Joseph Smith and other church leaders and sentenced them to public execution for treason, a sentence Lucas ordered Doniphan to carry out. Doniphan refused the order.

“It is cold-blooded murder. I will not obey your order… If you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God,” Doniphan said.

People have viewed Doniphan’s saving of Smith and others as evidence of his willingness to stand up against popular belief and his dedication to the rule of law. The church recently renamed a local ward in Liberty after him to show their respect and appreciation. 

Doniphan’s military leadership in the Mexican-American War has also been praised. He led his men on one of the longest marches in U.S. military history, winning key battles over much larger Mexican forces, and played a crucial role in the U.S. victory over Mexico. One source wrote, “None of the other campaigns — Zachary Taylor’s, Winfield Scott’s, or John C. Fremont’s — accomplished as much with such a small force or with as little difficulty.” 

In the 1850s, Doniphan’s success as a defense attorney, businessman, philanthropist and member of the State Legislature continued to make him a widely respected figure in Missouri life.

Narratives focusing on Doniphan and the Civil War emphasize his support for the Union and opposition to Missouri’s potential secession. Doniphan organized Union rallies in Clay County and advocated for keeping Missouri in the Union.

He served as a delegate to the 1861 Peace Conference in Washington, D.C., which sought a compromise to keep the Union together. When secessionist Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson sought to convince Doniphan to serve as a Brigadier General in Missouri’s Confederate forces, Doniphan declined. Most Clay County citizens supported the Confederacy, so Doniphan, as a Unionist, had to stand firm against the majority opinion, which contributed to his reputation for bravery. 

While the preceding information is accurate, one of the most disturbing and important aspects of Doniphan’s history – his connection to slavery – has received very little attention. That is, until now. 

The research carried out by the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project shows that slavery was not a minor element of Doniphan’s life; it was among the most central. From his earliest years until the abolition of slavery, Doniphan owned enslaved people and benefited from their labor. He used the wealth he acquired from them to give money to William Jewell College. Although he earned much of his fortune from his legal work and business investments, Doniphan greatly profited from the labor of enslaved people.

Federal census records show that Doniphan owned three enslaved people in 1840. Other sources demonstrate that he owned at least two enslaved people in the late 1840s. In 1850, he likely owned more than two enslaved people, as demonstrated by his farm’s production of 11 tons of hemp. The crop was cultivated almost exclusively by enslaved people, proving once again the economic benefits Doniphan reaped from forced labor. In 1860, census records again showed that the number of enslaved people he owned increased to five, indicating his strong commitment to the institution of slavery. 

In addition to his economic stake in slavery, Doniphan’s political commitment to defending slavery was profound. In 1837, while serving in the state legislature, Doniphan supported a bill making it a crime to publicly advocate for abolition, punishable by imprisonment in the state penitentiary. 

The bill as originally written would have punished violators with imprisonment in county jail, but Doniphan amended it to be the state penitentiary to further dissuade abolitionists from undermining slavery in Missouri. Doniphan also supported making Kansas a slave state – he served as a director of and donated money to the Clay County Pro-Slavery Society. 

When Doniphan was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1854, he was viewed, according to a later account from Missouri Congressman James C. Rollins, as not only pro-slavery, but as someone whose dedicated defense of slavery had made him the “favorite” candidate for the “strongest pro-slavery district in Missouri.”

In 1861, Doniphan supported the Crittenden Compromise, an amendment that would have permanently enshrined slavery in the U.S. Constitution in exchange for ending Southern secession. In 1863, Doniphan only reluctantly endorsed the gradual emancipation of Missouri’s slaves because he feared Missouri Republicans’ plans for the immediate abolition of slavery. In July 1863, Doniphan told an audience in Clay County that even though he now supported gradual emancipation, he would always be pro-slavery “in his feelings and sentiments.” 

Doniphan’s ties to slavery are exemplified through the economic benefits gained from his ownership of enslaved people and the legislation he supported to protect and expand the institution of slavery. Doniphan was deeply pro-slavery, which is important to note when honoring his legacy with statues, street names, societies, and awards.

Since August of 2020, a group of dedicated student researchers, under the guidance of Dr. Christopher Wilkins, associate professor and chair of the department of history at William Jewell College, has been researching the history of slavery in relationship to Jewell. The research group that the students and Wilkins created, the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project, had its origins in an introductory history seminar last fall. This semester, Project members mainly convene during the HIS 204: Slavery, Memory, and Justice course that Wilkins teaches. They plan to conduct research for as long as it takes to bring the truth about the College’s relationship with slavery to light. This will ultimately conclude with the group publishing their research – writing a more accurate account of Jewell’s history in the hopes of creating a more inclusive college community. 

As the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project compiles and verifies their research, The Hilltop Monitor will publish their findings. This is the first in a series of investigations into the history of slavery at William Jewell College. 

In 1849, leading Missouri Baptists garnered enough money to establish the college they’d been planning for more than a decade. The only question left was where the college should be constructed. Many counties in Missouri wanted the prestige of a new, Baptist-centered school, and in August of 1849, a group of Baptists and prominent non-Baptist men met in Boonville to decide the fate of the school. 

There was much debate on where to establish the college, and several Missouri counties competed for the college. Despite a large gift of $7,000 (approximately $240,797 in today’s money) from the citizens of Clay County to the college’s endowment, Liberty did not yet have the majority of the votes. It was Alexander Doniphan’s “brilliant and enthusiastic speech” that ensured the college would be built in Liberty, Missouri, and named after Dr. William Jewell. 

Construction on Jewell Hall began in 1850. Classes were held in rented rooms in Liberty in January of 1850, the same year that construction on Jewell Hall began. Classes began meeting in the building, the oldest building on the campus, in 1853, and it was fully completed in 1858. 

Wealthy farmers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, ministers and politicians made up the founders and trustees of Jewell. Notable founders include Jewell and Doniphan, who were responsible for the funding and location of Jewell; James T.V. Thompson, who donated the land for Jewell; Roland Hughes, the first president of the Board of Trustees; and Wade M. Jackson, Jesse E. Bryant, David H. Hickman, and R.E. McDaniel, the second through fifth presidents of the Board of Trustees, respectively. W.C. Ligon, another trustee, was also crucial in bringing the college to Liberty and raising the funds for the college in its early years. 

There were 33 total original founders and trustees of William Jewell College from 1849-1850, as detailed in James G. Clark’s 1893 “History of William Jewell College.” Of the 33 earliest trustees, Clark lists 26 as “charter members” and seven who joined the Board of Trustees in 1850 as “additional members.” However, the seven additional members were vital to the founding and building of Jewell and are thus being included with the others as founding trustees. 

This part of William Jewell College’s history is well-recorded and celebrated in many different history books. What is virtually not included in these histories is the relationship that the early founders and trustees had to slavery. 

Of the 33 early trustees, 90% of them were slaveholders. 

By looking through slave schedules and census records, Wilkins determined that the 1849-50 trustees held, at minimum, 307 enslaved people. Only three of the 33 founders did not directly own enslaved people. Two of them may have directly benefitted from slavery, but there is insufficient evidence to prove such. The third, R.R. Craig lived in a household that owned 16 enslaved people and benefited from their labor. 

Between 1851 and 1865, 24 additional trustees joined the board of William Jewell College. Of the group of 24, 19 were slaveholders. Wilkins found that this group owned a minimum of 153 enslaved people. Two of the five that, as far as research shows, did not personally own enslaved people, lived in slaveholding households.

According to the research of the Project members, the founders and trustees owned more than 400 enslaved people. These founders directly benefited from the exploitation of enslaved people and used, at least in part, the profits from their forced labor to fund the College. 

Stephen, Ellen, Emmanuel, Nelson, Harrison, Steven, Emory, John Anderson, Joe Decoursey, Maria Decoursey, Hannah Coger, Samuel, Polina, Merit Withers, James Moss, Joseph Hughes, Alexander Trant, John Trant, Lewis Washington, Benjamin Carr, Moses Combs, and Washington Combs. 

Those are the names of 22 enslaved people who were owned by William Jewell College’s founders and early trustees. There are more than 380 names of people enslaved by the early founders and trustees yet to be found. The Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project will work to find as many of their names as possible. 

Beyond the founders and trustees, Jewell’s first four presidents were all slaveholders. 

Rev. E.S. Dulin, president from 1850-52, owned one enslaved woman in 1850. Rev. R.S. Thomas, who was president from 1853-55, owned six enslaved people in 1850. The third president, Rev. William Thompson, owned two enslaved people in 1860. Rev. Thomas Rambaut, president from 1867-74, owned two enslaved people as of 1850. 

Wilkins found evidence that Dulin and Thompson, the first and third presidents, respectively, owned enslaved people while serving at the College. 

None of this history could be found in the William Jewell archives – which couldn’t be accessed by students this year because of COVID-19 – or the three published histories of the College. In fact, in the three books about William Jewell College, slavery or some iteration of the word is mentioned only five times.  

Slavery is mentioned just once in Clark’s 1893 “History of William Jewell College” when talking about Dr. Adiel Sherwood, whose father owned enslaved people. Sherwood helped raise funds, more than likely including wealth from slave labor, for an endowment for William Jewell College. For this gift, a departmental chair was named after him. 

In “Jewell is her name: a history of William Jewell College,” written by Hubert Inman Hester in 1967, there are two references to slaves. Both references discuss Dr. William Jewell owning enslaved people and later manumitting some and freeing the rest in his will. Jewell did own at least 5 enslaved people in 1850 and manumitted some during his lifetime. 

But the idea that he freed all of them in his will is not true. 

One student researcher, Christian Santiago, found that Jewell manumitted nearly all of the enslaved people he owned in his will – except for one. Ellen, an enslaved woman, would only be freed upon highly specific conditions. Even then, any children she had would be kept in slavery. These details will be discussed in a later article. 

The most recent history of the College – “Cardinal Is Her Color: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Achievement at William Jewell College,” published in 1999 by William Jewell College – mentions slavery twice. 

The first reference discusses the now disproved notion that Jewell freed all the enslaved people he owned upon his death. The second reference discusses the now-disbanded Beta Xi chapter of Sigma Nu, which formed at the College in 1894. The Sigma Nu chapter moved into the Major Alvin Lightburne house on The Liberty Square in 1899. The house, according to the book, was rumored to be part of the Underground Railroad. The Project has been unable to find any evidence to substantiate this claim.

None of these history books, all of which are linked on Jewell’s website, discuss slavery much at all. Information on the extensive slaveholding of nearly all of the early founders, trustees and presidents – which is detailed in primary documents from the time – was never included in the official histories or mythologies related to the College. 

Wilkins and his class located, gathered and substantiated this information. The fact that over 400 enslaved people were somehow tied to the founding and early years of the College cannot be stated enough. The five early founders and trustees who owned the most slaves were among the largest slaveholders in Missouri. James T.V. Thompson, who owned the land upon which Jewell now sits and donated it to the College, held 39 people in slavery in 1850, making him the largest slaveholder in Clay County. 

The story of William Jewell College – one of the oldest colleges west of the Mississippi River – is one that is inextricable from the brutal institution of slavery. This history has not been suppressed or erased, it’s never been written. 

Those students involved with the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project will continue to work to bring the truth about William Jewell’s past to light. The group will be presenting the research they’ve done up to this point April 23 at Jewell’s David Nelson Duke Colloquium. 

The College is now implementing a Racial Reconciliation Commission, to tell the truth about the racial history of the College from its founding until today. The student-led Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project is operating independently of the Commission and focusing its attention on Jewell’s early relation to slavery, rather than later eras in the College’s history.