List of Negroes at College (ca 1780) An inventory of those enslaved to the College of
William & Mary, including those held on the college grounds as well as those hired out
to labor at neighboring farms and other concerns. The inventory, numbering twenty-one,  is housed at the University Archives, and available to view in digital and hard
copy.

See: “Slaves Owned by the College” [Folder]. Special Collections Research Center,
Earl Gregg Swem Library. College of William & Mary.

Lemon      Laborer enslaved to the College of William & Mary, initially to work the
tobacco plantation, and later as a general servant, handyman and repairman at the
college proper. Upon his death in 1817, the college paid for his coffin. The little known

of his life, family or other relations, is apparently more than is known of the other
twenty enslaved whose names appear in the List.

In the wake of student and faculty appeals, the university administration acknowledged
its historical support for the institution of slavery and its history of slave ownership
and exploitation of slave labor from 1693 until 1865. In 2009, the Lemon Project:
A Journey of Reconciliation was established to generate scholarship on the topic in
an “attempt to rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by the College
through action or inaction.”

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