Reexamining Hopkins History

In December 2020, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor Martha S. Jones, who directs Johns Hopkins University’s Hard Histories project, reported “preliminary but important” observations [pdf] stemming from newly discovered and validated census documents listing one enslaved man in Johns Hopkins’ household in 1840 and four enslaved men in 1850, with the latter document denoting Johns Hopkins as the slaveholder. Other research found a number of additional links between the Hopkins family and slavery. Dr. Jones shared, “This evidence ran counter to the long-told story about Johns Hopkins, one that posited him as the son of a man, Samuel Hopkins, who had manumitted the family’s slaves in 1807,” and who “himself was said to have been an abolitionist and Quaker, the implication being that he opposed slavery and never owned enslaved people.”

Ongoing research includes an investigation of whether, when, and how members of the Hopkins family manumitted, or set free, their enslaved laborers. For many years, the chief source of biographical information about Johns Hopkins was a book by his grand-niece, Helen Thom, which asserted that Johns Hopkins’ parents manumitted their enslaved persons in 1807. There are no extant manumission records in Maryland that show Johns’ parents, Hannah and Samuel, freed enslaved individuals in that year.

Rather, a search of land records from Anne Arundel County indicates that Johns Hopkins the elder (the founder’s grandfather) manumitted nine enslaved individuals in 1778, while converting 33 others to term slaves, meaning they would remain enslaved until the age of 21 for girls and 25 for boys. The records indicate that one of these enslaved individuals, a woman named Affy, received a certificate of freedom in 1814 and in that record she was listed as about “thirty eight years of age.” This record shows that her manumission was carried out legally and she had been living as a free woman since the age of 21. When the elder Johns Hopkins died, he still held 14 enslaved people, whom he bequeathed to his children through his last will and testament. One of these enslaved individuals, a boy named John, was given to Samuel Hopkins, the founder’s father. If Samuel followed the terms of his father’s will, John, who was born in 1771, would have become free only in 1796.

Additional records show that slavery and freedom co-existed within the Hopkins family. Records show that other members of the Hopkins family manumitted enslaved individuals in the 1830s. Joseph J. Hopkins, Johns Hopkins’ the founder’s elder brother, manumitted two enslaved women in 1832 after being paid $100. These women, Minta (sometimes in records as Minty) and Louisa (sometimes with the last name Wells or Wills) received their certificates of freedom from the Anne Arundel County Court in 1832 and 1838. They were required by Maryland law to obtain these “freedom papers” after being manumitted.

• Certificate of Freedom for Affy
• Deed of Manumission for Minta and Louisa Wells
• Certificate of Freedom for Louisa Wills
• Certificate of Freedom for Minta
• African American Resources at the Maryland State Archives (Read about Certificates of Freedom and Manumissions)

Ongoing research includes investigations of contemporary writing about Mr. Hopkins; some of the records located so far include articles and obituaries found in newspapers, and one account from a diary entry of a peer.

A newspaper article in the Baltimore Sun from April 1873,“The Johns Hopkins Charity” reported on a meeting of Black civic leaders (local Baltimoreans and others) at the Douglass Institute. The meeting was described by the writer as an opportunity for attendees to speak about Johns Hopkins’ charitable gifts – a hospital, an orphans’ asylum, and a college. The speeches included references to Hopkins’ philanthropy and support for Black Baltimoreans. According to the report, one speaker was quoted as saying Johns Hopkins “will ever be regarded as the friend of the colored race.” Further research is needed to discern how or whether the event was covered by other local newspapers and to fully identify the  speakers and their relationships or interactions with Johns Hopkins prior to his death.

A diary entry from President Lincoln’s Secretary of Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, in 1863 discussed Mr. Hopkins’ support for the Union during the Civil War. In September 1863 Chase traveled to Baltimore and he reflected in his personal writings on what it was like to walk the grounds of Clifton and to dine with Johns Hopkins. Chase wrote, “The guests were intelligent and substantial men, consisting, as Mr. Hopkins said, the best part of the Baltimore merchants and capitalists. And all of them earnest Union men. And nearly all, if not all, decided Emancipationists.”

Later, one obituary from the Baltimore Commerical and Advertiser also noted Johns Hopkins’ support for the Union: “We shall only allude to the late civil war to say that Mr. Hopkins was a firm supporter of the Government. In founding the charitable institution with which his name is inseparably connected, he took pains to have the charters framed in accordance with his humane and liberal views concerning the common brotherhood of man. There can be no discrimination on account of color in the Johns Hopkins Hospital.” We continue to seek reflections from other individuals at the time on Johns Hopkins’ actions and characteristics.

• “The Johns Hopkins Charity: Enthusiastic Mass Meeting of Colored Citizens — Resolutions and Speeches,” Baltimore Sun
• Diary entry from Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln
• Editorial Column about Johns Hopkins “Death of a Useful Man”

Two specific records show the Hopkins family’s reliance on an additional form of the unfree labor of Black people. Samuel Hopkins, Johns’ father, entered into an indenture contract in 1807 with a woman named Phillis for the labor of her children, Jeremiah and Thomas (ages 10 and 7). Samuel contracted to teach them the “art of planting” and provide food, clothing, and lodging for the duration of their apprenticeship. After Samuel’s death, his wife Hannah, our founder’s mother, and Samuel’s older brother Joseph J. Hopkins entered into an indenture contract in 1821 with an unnamed mother to teach the “art of planting” to her 5 children – Henry, John, Arch, William, and Lydia (all between the ages of 7 and 11). Ongoing research seeks to illuminate how the Hopkins family, writ large, depended on indentured labor given the context of the spectrum of slavery and freedom in 19^th century Maryland and the parameters of Quaker beliefs about slavery.

• Indenture to Samuel Hopkins for children, Jeremiah and Thomas
• Indenture contract to Joseph J. Hopkins and Hannah Hopkins

In a Baltimore County tax record from 1841, Johns Hopkins was taxed for his Clifton property (166 acres), horses, and cows. He was not taxed for owning enslaved people in this 1841 record, nor was his grocer business, Hopkins & Brothers, taxed for ownership of enslaved people in 1842. Johns’ neighbors and other nearby businesses were taxed for enslaved people during these years. To date, county tax records have not been found and may not exist for any taxes paid by Johns Hopkins for the remaining years between the 1840 census and the 1850 census that lists Johns Hopkins as a slave owner on the slave schedule. Efforts to locate additional tax records are ongoing.

• Tax Record for Johns Hopkins, 1841
• Tax Record for Hopkins & Brothers, 1842

Archival documents provide additional clues about Johns Hopkins’ relationship with the institution of slavery. Records from the 1830s document two instances in which his business, Hopkins & Brothers, indicated they would accept enslaved people (property) as collateral for loans. One such record from St. Mary’s County Court in 1831 made reference to Johns Hopkins and his brother, Mahlon, looking to take possession of an enslaved person from one of their debtors, the Keech family. As detailed in a letter from the Hopkins Brothers to William B. Stone in 1838, the brothers’ firm agreed to accept an enslaved person as collateral for a debt and wrote: “the lien on the negroes is ample security for our debt.” Efforts to locate additional information about each of these scenarios are ongoing.

• William Keech v. Johns Hopkins and Mahlon Hopkins
• Hopkins Brothers letter to William B. Stone

In a message on December 9, 2020, Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels, Dean of the Medical Faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine Paul D. Rothman and President of the Johns Hopkins Health System Kevin W. Sowers shared with the Hopkins community the discovery of government census records listing enslaved persons in Johns Hopkins’ home in 1840 and 1850, and in the latter year, indicating that he was the owner of four enslaved men. Referring to the findings as “early and provisional,” Daniels, Rothman and Sowers committed to “continuing this research wherever it may lead and to illuminating a path that we hope will bring us closer to the truth, which is an indispensable foundation for all of our education, research, and service activities.”

In an op-ed published in The Baltimore Sun on June 7, 2021, President Daniels described JHU’s ongoing commitment to engage historians and researchers at the institution and beyond to delve deeply into the record and draw their own conclusions about the complicated nature of Johns Hopkins’ life and legacy. “Through this, we make manifest our enduring commitment to the rigorous research and free exchange of ideas that lie at the core of our university — a privilege bequeathed to us by the visionary generosity of a man who seems to have been both of, and beyond, his times.”

A group of senior colleagues—including Dr. Martha Jones, Sheridan Libraries Dean Winston Tabb, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Dean Chris Celenza, and Director of the Institute of the History of Medicine Jeremy Greene are advising on how best to explore the historical connections to slavery of Johns Hopkins, the Hopkins family, and other important figures associated with our institution’s founding. Their guidance will inform this multi-year initiative, closely linked to the Hopkins Retrospective, encompassing a broad range of scholarly activities and opportunities for direct participation and engagement, such as lectures and forums, academic courses, community conversations, commemorative events, and public art.

Johns Hopkins University joined the Universities Studying Slavery (USS) consortium in 2020 to collaborate with and learn from peer institutions.

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• Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, The Johns Hopkins Hospital Colored Orphan Asylum Collection.
• Homewood Museum, Guided Tours, “Homewood Museum embraces a more inclusive telling of its history.”
• Homewood Museum, Exhibition, “An ongoing exploration of Homewood’s untold history.”
• Hopkins Retrospective, “A Sense of Place: Hidden Stories of the Homewood Campus.”
• Hopkins Retrospective, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, “Piecing Together Hard History.”
• Hugh Hawkins Research Fellowship, Sarah Thomas, “A Message of Inclusion, A History of Exclusion: Racial Injustice at the Peabody Institute.”
• Johns Hopkins Magazine, “The Namesake.”
• Dr. Martha S. Jones, “Johns Hopkins and Slaveholding Preliminary Findings.”
• Dr. Martha S. Jones and Laura Free on Any Woman, Humanities New York Podcast.
• Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, “Whatever Happened to Birdie Shine?: Caring for the Children At The Johns Hopkins Colored Orphan Asylum, and its predecessors, 1867-1923.”
• Dr. Sydney Van Morgan, Stan Becker, Samuel B. Hopkins, and Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, “Seeking the Truth: Johns Hopkins and Slavery.”

Participants: Sarah Pearsall, Nathan Connolly, Sasha Turner, Jessica Marie Johnson

Participants: Minkah Makalani, Sydney Van Morgan, Adam Rothman, Ezelle Sanford III, Jeremy A. Greene.

Participants: Erin Rowe, Martha S. Jones.