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Silent Sam's Reckoning Profile picture
Silent Sam's Reckoning
@sams_reckoning
#SilentSam memorialized 287 #UNC Confederate dead. Their families bought, sold and enslaved men, women, and children. Here are the receipts: #samsreckoning
Sep 9, 2020 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
.@UNC likely would not have survived after the Civil War, and @NCSU may never have existed at all, had the Univ. not profited from the sale of 270,000 acres of expropriated Indigenous land. This thread builds on the groundbreaking work of Native scholars, esp. “Land-Grab University.” In solidarity with #ScholarStrike we uplift their work, as a reminder that U.S. universities must reckon with their past and present role in the settler state. landgrabu.org
Jul 23, 2020 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
This week @UNC sent out a fundraiser asking folks to donate money for bottles of “Old Well water"... that don't actually have water from the Old Well in them.

So, it's time to talk about how the Old Well’s history, symbolism & traditions are rooted in white supremacy.

(thread) Most campus histories like to start with this 1792 founding myth. As the story goes, a major reason Davie chose the site was due to an abundance of natural springs in the area.
Dec 3, 2019 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Many alums are saying they'll never again donate $ to @UNC because of the Board of Governors' shameful $2.5million payout to the SCV.

You reap what you sow.

All three of UNC's Confederate memorials were development and alumni relations initiatives.

1/ Silent Sam was proposed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, but it was the University that raised the bulk of the money for the monument. UDC donated only 1/3rd of the cost, the rest was raised from UNC alums and Trustees.

2/
Aug 31, 2019 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
The very 1st financial donation to the University of North Carolina came in the form of 20,000 acres of stolen Chickasaw land located in what is now northwest Tennessee.

The gift was made in 1789 by Benjamin Smith, a founding @UNC trustee & the largest slaveholder in NC by 1790. Benjamin Smith was born in 1756 in SC into a dynasty of major slavers. (He was named for his uncle, who was a slave trader in Charleston). In the 1790 Census, Smith is listed as enslaver of 221 men, women & children in Brunswick County, NC.
Jan 26, 2019 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
James Johnston Pettigrew, #UNC Class of 1849. Born 1828 to Ebenezer and Ann Shepard Pettigrew. Pettigrew Hall on UNC’s campus is named for him (building adjacent to where #SilentSam stood). His family’s involvement in the slave trade is deep and well-documented. #samsreckoning James Johnston’s grandfather Charles was an Anglican minister in Edenton, N.C. Finding it difficult to make ends meet as a religious leader, he decided to start a plantation. In 1778 Charles married Mary Blount, a wealthy heiress, and received 9 slaves and land from her family.
Jan 20, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Let's take a moment to consider the main way #UNC, as an institution, participated in the slave trade - not just implicated in the actions of slaveowning students/faculty/administrators - but the actual buying and selling of human beings. Let's talk about the "escheat" system. Back to 1776...the NC Provincial Congress mandates establishment of a university "paid by the public." UNC chartered in 1789 by act of Gen. Assembly, but no funding appropriated, instead gave Board of Trustees right to profit from "all property that shall escheat to the state."