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Courtesy of Tigerlily Hopson
Bishop George Berkeley stands outside the Berkeley Dining Hall, frozen in faded red paint. When the students enter, they look at him and his long black robes. He looks down, silent in the din of laughter, conversation, and the clatter of silverware. Her solemn gaze serves as a pervasive reminder of the dark depths of Yale’s past.
The namesake of Berkeley College was a slave owner, supporter of slavery and a believer, in the case of native peoples, that “no part of the Gentile world is so inhuman and barbaric as the savages of America.” For decades, the question of who has honored Yale on and off campus. In 2017, Calhoun College, named after a vicious supporter of slavery, was renamed Grace Hopper College, and yet eight of 14 residential colleges are named after slave holders or defenders of slavery.
“It’s really uncomfortable to know that you live, you eat, you play, you exercise in a place that was founded by someone who had beliefs that don’t match yours,” Michaela said. Wang ’25. When Berkeley students enter campus, they are immersed in a world in which they are expected to wear the Berkeley name on shirts and cords, proudly shout her name in the hallways, and smile at her. ubiquitous name stuck on posters and carved into the walls. Should students learn the story behind the name they so quickly learn to adopt?
George Berkeley – Dean of Derry, Bishop of Cyclone in Ireland, and famous 18th-century idealistic philosopher – began his journey to the United States with the goal of establishing a seminary in Bermuda to “educate” and Christianize indigenous peoples. In his 1725 proposal, he described his strategy of kidnapping Native American children to win over students; he planned to procure indigenous youth “by peaceful means” when possible, “or by taking the children of our enemies into captivity.” It was the colonizer’s duty, Berkeley believed, to “get these unfortunate people back.” However, only “such savages” under the age of 10 would be allowed to enter seminary, “before bad habits took hold.”
Likewise, Berkeley believed that slavery was the best way to Christianize blacks and vigorously stated in his Bermuda proposal that people enslaved “to the infamy of England and the scandal of the world, continue the pagans under the Christian masters ”, because they had not been converted. . Baptizing slaves, he writes, would be to the advantage of “their masters.” He concluded that “their slaves would only become better slaves by being Christians.”
According to “Yale College: A Sketch of Its History” of 1879, edited by William L. Kingsley, Berkeley’s Proposal of 1725 “is the most extraordinary production of its kind ever published. It reads like a chapter in a romance. In Berkeley Butter, carved into the black stone panels that line the floor, it is written that the Berkeley seminary attempt was a “great missionary effort.”
Of the five Berkeley students interviewed, none knew the details of George Berkeley or his beliefs. However, many said they were sailing Yale assuming the buildings are named after those with troubling heritage.
“Judging by the fact that this is Yale and that person was probably very old,” said Jason Jiang ’25, “he was probably an asshole.
While Berkeley awaited the appropriate funds from the British Parliament for his seminary, he purchased 96 acres of land in Newport, Rhode Island which he describe as “fit for cows and sheep and may be of use in supplying our college in Bermuda”. In October 1730, he purchased three people enslaved: Philip, 14, Edward, 20 (later called Anthony) and Agnes, whose ages are not specified. Philip, Anthony and Agnes lived and worked on the farm, sleeping on stone pallets in the cellar near the cooking fireplace.
“It’s really important to address these things rather than hiding them or sweeping them under the rug,” Michael Ying ’24 said of Yale’s dark past.
But, no one ever tells students the story behind their college’s name, explained Charlotte Emerson ’22, who is a Berkley FroCo and herself knew little about Berkeley itself. Emerson felt that this story “could be easily incorporated” into an opening speech in the early years of Berkeley, such as how Dean Marvin Chun started his freshman speech with land recognition, something new to Yale and quickly becoming commonplace.
College Principal David Evans’ speech at the freshman dinner on August 31 devoted a few paragraphs to discussing George Berkeley – the Americanization of his originally pronounced “Barkley” name, his beliefs and of his philosophical successes, his pointy bishop’s hat, and his contributions to higher education – there was no mention of anything beyond that.
“We occupy this space under the watchful eye of our Benefactor and Patron Saint George ‘Barkley’,” Evans said as Berkeley watched from the wall.
Wang asked if the freshman dinner was the space to call up the bloody aspects of Berkeley’s past, but stressed that Berkeley students shouldn’t “live in oblivion” in their college history. Wang offered to have a community conversation on this topic as a starting point, perhaps conducted in conjunction with a cultural center that “knows the language and talks about these issues.”
Evans has a lot to balance and take into account when evoking these conversations, including the perspectives of alumni and alumni as well as those of the current Berkeley community, but recognized “a form recognition is needed at the university level “to recognize Yale’s role in” American Genocide and Slavery. “
Ezra Stiles College in 2016 installed a plaque commemorating the life of a person enslaved by Stiles and two indentured servants. As for Berkeley, he suspects that a plaque could be put up “without too much bureaucracy”.
In November 2016, a Yale report was released establishing the principles of name change, which was used to rename Calhoun College to Hopper College. Several students expressed confusion as to why the names of other colleges were not changed at the same time. The report stresses that the name change should be a very exceptional event and states that “the presumption against the name change is at its peak when a building has been named in honor of someone who brought a major contribution to the university “. Berkeley is known as one of Yale’s most generous early benefactors.
In 1731, after still not having received the proper funding for his planned seminary, Berkeley returned to Europe. Before leaving he baptized the three people he held enslaved, but did not release them, and donated his land to the Yale Corporation. He also donated a collection of 880 pounds, increasing the Yale library by half at the time. In 1762, Yale rented the farm to Captain John Whiting for 999 years; the lease passed through many hands until it settled with the Colonial Dames of America of Rhode Island in 1899. The annual profits earned by Yale were used to fund the education of a few selected fluent Yale scholars. Greek and Latin. In 1972, Yale relinquished the title of the house, but still owns Whitehall Farm. When the lease expires in 2761, Yale will regain full control of the property.
The first Yale scholarships were funded by slaves. Those who leased the Whitehall land in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Captain Silas Cooke who held the lease from 1776 to 1780, had enslaved people who worked and looked after the land. When a slave who worked as a still at the Whitehall farm ran away, Cooke sought to have him arrested and exclaimed that “if an organization in Providence wants such a man [I] will sell it cheap. In the Rhode Island census of 1774, Charles Handy, who owned the lease before Cooke, has four black people living in his household, and he may be assumed these people were held in slavery.
Outside of Yale, Berkeley’s name is on buildings around the world, including the city’s most famous and University in California. Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, alma mater of Berkeley, publicly debated remove Berkeley’s name from one of its libraries last year. Evans noted that the name change is beyond his level of authority and must be guided by the newly established renaming principles, but that ultimately, if Yale decides to rename Berkeley College, “such action would not occur. would not produce overnight “.
“In the meantime, each day I will do what I can to promote the association of our name with diversity, belonging and mutual respect,” Evans said.
For many at Yale, the name Berkeley stood out from the person. Yet the image of George Berkeley still haunts us as the Berekelyites attempt to reform and redefine the college beyond a name.
“I separate the name from the place,” explained Kim Lagunas ’25. “We certainly don’t have those beliefs, and that’s what matters to me.”
As Emerson chatted with the News, she kept looking up at the hanging Berkeley portrait, still in the midst of the endless movement of the dining room. What would recognition and action on this past really look like?
“Maybe her portrait shouldn’t be hung in our dining room,” she announced. Perhaps there is an opportunity to “find another Berkeley”.
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