Dilsey Craig’s stone is the only place in the old Chapel Hill cemetery where you’ll find the word “slave.” Photo by Jason Smith; ©2007 Endeavors. Click to enlarge.
The Hard Facts
by Colie Hoffman
Slaves built Old East (in 1793) and also worked on Old West (1823) and Gerrard Hall (1837). In fact, slaves built or worked on every antebellum building on campus.
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After the university opened in 1795, slaves cooked, cleaned buildings, and tended fires. In 1845, trustees forbade students to bring their own slaves to campus.
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Trustee Thomas Ruffin, for whom Ruffin dorm is named, served on the North Carolina Supreme Court, where he wrote one of the most notorious decisions in the law of American slavery. In the case of State v. Mann (1829), he ruled that masters could not be prosecuted for mistreating slaves because “the power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect.”
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Sexual abuse was common in slavery. Harriet, a slave of university trustee James Strudwick Smith, married a free man of color, but her white mistress’s brother Sidney forced the couple apart. Later, Harriet gave birth to Sidney’s daughter, and then was abused by Sidney’s brother Francis.
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George Moses Horton (1798–1883), a slave in Chatham County, taught himself to read and write. Horton was also a poet-for-hire: he penned love poems for university students to give to their sweethearts. He charged 25 cents for an average poem, 50 cents for a good poem, and 75 cents for a great poem.
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In 2005, the university dedicated a memorial in McCorkle Place to the slaves and free people of color who built UNC. Called Unsung Founders, the piece features bronze figures supporting a round stone tablet.
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To learn more, visit the Virtual Museum of University History (http://museum.unc.edu) and Slavery and the Making of the University (www.lib.unc.edu/mss/exhibits/slavery/).
Sources: Virtual Museum of University History and Tim McMillan
