The Yale university, New Haven, CT, that has a historical link with Chennai (Madras) city, Tamil Nadu, is one of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution with assets including an endowment valued at $27.2 billion as of June 2017. This popular university having the second largest endowment of any U.S. educational institution was in the middle of controversy and debate a few years ago because of its connection with slave holders or slave advocates in the colonial past. Elihu Yale, benefactor of Yale University was himself a slave trader in the Indian subcontinent. The story of Elihu Yale after whom the university is named is a tale of deceit, dishonesty and outright cheating. So is that of John Caldwell Calhoun, an old avatar of Klu Klux Klan, an American statesman on the Devil's side.
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| n.wikipedia.org |
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| John Calhoun quotesgram.com |
Above image: John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 - March 31, 1850), a Democrat and political theorist from South Carolina, served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. A pro-slavery politicians and racist. He is remembered for advancing the concept of minority rights in politics, in terms of protecting the interests of the white South. The southern pro slavery population was outnumbered by Northerners. He began his political career as a nationalist, moderniser, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, he strongly advocated states' rights, limited government, racial segregation, etc and wanted the Northern states to accept his policies as a condition of the South remaining in the ''Union''. His beliefs and warnings heavily impacted the South's secession from the Union in 1860–1861. He died at the Old Brick Capitol boarding house in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1850, of tuberculosis, at the age of 68. He was interred at the St. Philip's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina. Suspecting possible desecration of his grave by Federal troops, his close friends, during the night, removed his coffin to a hiding place under the stairs of the church. After1871, it was again exhumed and returned to its original place. ''The day that the balance between the two sections of the country - the slave holding States and the non-slave holding States - is destroyed is a day that will not be far removed from political revolution, anarchy, civil war, and widespread disaster''. John. C. Calhoun (brainyquote.com)................................
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| Calhoun College, a residential college at Yale. nytimes.com |
In 1933, the under graduate college was named after John Calhoun Their stories, that take us to the past dark colonial era, throw light on their connection with slavery and how they made heaps of money selling humans like cattle in a Mela or Fair. The former was the Governor of Madras Presidency, South India under the East India company; the latter a Yale valedictorian-turned-politician from South Carolina and one of the 19th century’s foremost white supremacists, who promoted slavery as “a positive good.”
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| Calhoun College (Yale univ.) carrying the new name. playbuzz.com |
Yale university had a tradition, apparently not rooted in slavery by which the heads of colleges should be addressed as masters. Decision was taken to do away with this tradition that subtly points out Yale's connection with slavery. In Feb 2017 the residence hall was named after Grace Murray Hopper, a Yale alumnus and computer scientist. It is to be noted that the Yale administrators pointed out 'this name change was not meant to obliterate history but to inscribe different values into Yale’s present'. Masking the history of a nation or an institution is not conducive to healthy atmosphere.
At the global level there had been relentless protests against slavery in the past by a section of people including whites. But they failed to create a big impact on lucrative slave trade. Unlike German and Dutch Quakers who in 1688 protested against slavery and later cut off their ties to slavery in the eighteenth century, people from southern states of America, England and other countries were actively involved in slave trade, not in the least realizing that they were degrading, ill-treating and humiliating fellow humans just because they happened to be not "White". That Yale university is deeply implicated in the institution of slavery can not be ignored and the institution is very much linked with the scourge of slavery in the past era and can not be erased that easily.
The name change was effected because John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and his view on slavery ''conflicts with Yale’s mission and values."
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/nyregion/yale-in-debate-over-calhoun-college-grapples-with-ties-to-slavery.html
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-yale
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