譯/李京倫
Take a tour of the idyllic campus of Princeton University, and your guide is likely to stop in front of the 18th-century clapboard building, fronted by two graceful sycamore trees, that housed the school's early presidents. The trees were planted in the spring of 1766, the legend has it, by the school's fifth president, Samuel Finley, to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act.
But a few months later, they were chosen as the backdrop for a rather different event: the auction of Finley's slaves.
到美國普林斯頓大學如詩如畫的校園一遊，導遊很可能會停在一棟18世紀的護牆板建築前，這是學校早期校長的宿舍。宿舍對面是兩株優雅的美國梧桐，在1766年春天種下，據說是學校第五位校長芬利親植，以慶祝印花稅法撤銷。
不過，幾個月後，這兩株樹就被選為一場相當不同的活動的背景：芬利的奴隸拍賣會。
That sale is not part of Princeton's official history. It was all but unknown until a few years ago, when researchers came across a newspaper advertisement listing the liquidation of Finley's human property, along with horses, cattle, furniture and "a choice collection of books." Now, it is one of many forgotten stories being brought to light as part of an ambitious effort to acknowledge and explore the darker aspects of Princeton's past.
In recent years, more than a dozen universities — including Brown, Harvard, Georgetown and the University of Virginia — have acknowledged their historical ties to slavery. But the Princeton and Slavery Project, officially unveiled on Monday, stands out for the depth of its research.
拍賣會並未載入普林斯頓的正式校史，原本幾乎無人知曉，直到幾年前，研究者偶然發現一份報紙廣告，列出芬利變賣的人類資產、馬、牛、家具和「精選藏書」。現在，芬利賣奴已跟許多被遺忘的故事一同攤在陽光下，成為承認並探索普林斯頓過往黑暗面這宏大工作的一環。
最近幾年，有十幾所大學坦承自己與黑奴有過歷史關係，包括布朗、哈佛、喬治城與維吉尼亞大學。不過，周一（六日）正式公開的「普林斯頓與奴隸研究計畫」卻因為格外深刻而顯得突出。
The project's website includes hundreds of primary source documents and more than 80 articles exploring topics like early slavery-related university funding, student demographics and the sometimes shocking history of racial violence on a campus long known as the most culturally "Southern" in the Ivy League.
Princeton's heavily Southern antebellum student body — and its desire to keep the sons of slaveholders comfortable — may have set it apart. But its deep entanglements with slavery did not.
這個計畫的網站列有數百份第一手資料文件與80多篇文章，探究的主題包括學校早期與奴隸有關的辦學資金、學生人口結構，以及在這所素以最富「南方」文化色彩出名的長春藤學校中，時而令人震驚的種族暴力史。
南北戰爭前普林斯頓的學生以南方人為主，而且普林斯頓想讓奴隸主的兒子們過得自在，這或許讓普林斯頓跟別的大學不同。不過普林斯頓與奴隸的糾葛很深，這又與其他大學無異。
"Princeton's history is American history writ small," said Martha Sandweiss, the history professor who led the project. "From the beginning, liberty and slavery were intertwined."
The Princeton research is being released amid renewed debate about slavery, the Civil War and national memory. It also arrives nearly two years after a student group at Princeton called the Black Justice League occupied the president's office and demanded, among other things, that Woodrow Wilson's name be removed from places of honor on campus because of his racist ideas and actions.
瑪莎．桑德懷斯是主持奴隸研究計畫的歷史學教授，她說：「普林斯頓的歷史是美國歷史縮影，一開始，自由和奴役就交織在一起。」
普林斯頓研究結果釋出之際，關於奴隸、美國內戰和國家記憶的論辯正重新躍上檯面。將近兩年前，普林斯頓一個名為「黑色正義」的學生團體占領了校長辦公室，並提出一些要求，其中之一是將前總統威爾遜的名字從校園裡紀念他的一些處所移除，因為他的觀念和行為帶有種族偏見。
Wilson, a Princeton graduate and former president of the university, kept his place, and that controversy quieted down. The new research does not come with any recommendations for action. But Sandweiss said she hoped it would foster a broader, more fully informed conversation about history and racial justice.
威爾遜是普林斯頓校友和前校長，他的名字仍留在原地，那場爭論後來平息了。這次的新研究並不附帶行動建議，不過桑德懷斯說，希望新研究能促進關於歷史和種族正義範圍更廣、背景知識更充實的討論。
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文/李京倫
本文關鍵詞是美國的奴隸制度（slavery）。美國的奴隸制起於17世紀初期，延續了250年，奴隸大多來自非洲，先是負責種植菸草，後來是棉花。隨著1793年使軋棉效率提高50倍的軋棉機（cotton gin）發明與歐洲對棉花需求增加，奴隸制成了美國南方的經濟基礎。
18世紀晚期，廢奴運動（abolitionist movement）在美國北方展開，南北開始為奴隸制的存廢爭執。1860年，反對蓄奴的共和黨人林肯當選總統，許多南方人預期奴隸制會被廢除，南方各州退出聯邦，導致1861年南北戰爭（Civil War）爆發。
印花稅法（Stamp Act）是英國政府於1765年頒布的對北美殖民地人民徵稅的法令，規定殖民地所有印刷品都要課稅。殖民地居民不滿被遙遠、自己不能參與的立法機關課稅，同年10月，來自9處殖民地的27名代表在紐約集會，合力撤銷印花稅法。
在南北戰爭前，普林斯頓大學約有四成學生來自蓄奴的（slaveholding）南方，1850年代初期更高達近三分之二，同期哈佛與耶魯的南方學生僅9%。
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