April 26 (UPI) -- Harvard University announced Tuesday it would dedicate $100 million to address the corrosive effects of slavery detailed in a report that found leaders, faculty and staff of the institution enslaved more than 70 people, allowing the university to build wealth from the slavery economy.
The report, titled "Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery," showed that although the prestigious Ivy League research university was founded in 1636 in the New England region, it's location in the northeastern United States did not exempt it from having a role in human bondage.
"During the 17th and 18th centuries, the sale and trafficking of human beings -- in slavery -- and the industries rooted in the labor of enslaved women, men, and children were pervasive around the world, comprised a part of the New England economy, and powerfully shaped Harvard University," the report stated. "Harvard leaders, faculty, staff, and benefactors enslaved people, some of whom labored at the university; accrued wealth through the slave trade and slave labor; and defended the institution of slavery."
Over nearly 150 years since its founding in Massachusetts, Harvard leaders, faculty and staff enslaved more than 70 people, including some who labored on campus, and served students, according to the report.
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The report also acknowledged other racial injustices promoted by university officials, including Charles William Eliot, Harvard's longest serving president, from 1869 to 1909, who supported eugenic sterilization and racial segregation based on white supremacist ideas.
Current Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, who convened a faculty committee that produced the report, announced in a statement that the university will set aside $100 million for implementation of the report's recommendations to redress injustices laid out in the report.
"I do believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent and corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard and on our society," Bacow said in a statement.
Among the recommendations, the report proposed the university expand learning opportunities in partnership with other schools and nonprofit organizations to address ongoing educational inequities that impact descendants of the enslaved in the United States.
In particular, it recommended expanding partnership with historically Black colleges and universities, including summer or semester exchanges for faculty members and students.
"Despite their benefits to the country, HBCUs have been underfunded ... and that itself is a reflection of slavery and its legacies," Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, who chaired the committee that produced the report, told The Washington Post.
The report also recommended honoring enslaved people through memorialization, research, and knowledge dissemination, and identifying, engaging and supporting direct descendants.
The first enslaved person known to serve students at Harvard was called "The Moor" and could have arrived aboard the Desire, believed to be one of the first ships to bring enslaved People of Color into the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
"The Moor" served Harvard's earliest students, having been enslaved by Harvard's first schoolmaster, Nathaniel Eaton.
Some other people, known as Titus, Venus, Juba, and Bilhah, were enslaved under Harvard Presidents Benjamin Wadsworth (1725-1737) and Edward Holyoke (1737-1769), and more people were enslaved by Harvard's stewards, who were responsible for student services.
Among the stewards, the report emphasized Andrew Bordman, who enslaved at least eight people. In his notebook, Bordman recorded the names of four children born to Rose, an enslaved woman who died at age 22. The children's names were Flora, Jeffrey, Cesar and Jane.
Slavery officially ended in Massachusetts in the late 18th century, but Harvard continued to benefit from the slavery economy after the end of slavery.
"During the first half of the 19th century, more than a third of the money donated or promised to Harvard by private individuals came from just five men who made their fortunes from slavery and slave-produced commodities," the report stated.
