Villanova is located on a space of enslavement. The university should install a marker about this history on campus.
In late November 1751, two white men in the Pennsylvania countryside made an agreement. Samuel Morgan, a Quaker farmer from Radnor Township paid William Milchor, a blacksmith from Tredyffrin Township, 35£ for an enslaved Black woman he owned named Chloe. After the transaction, Morgan brought Chloe to his farm, a portion of which is now Villanova University’s campus.
I found the document that recorded this transaction of Chloe, called a bill of sale, in a folder at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia two years ago. I was at the archive conducting research for the Rooted Project. The Rooted Project is Villanova’s institutional history project — an ongoing initiative to study Villanova’s past and its connections to slavery, segregation, racism, gender prejudice, and religious discrimination.
When I found the bill of sale for Chloe, however, Villanova wasn’t on my mind. As I examined the fragile document, I was thinking about Samuel Morgan, Chloe, and the history slavery in the Philadelphia area. The connection to Villanova came when I tried to find more information about the Morgans. I knew they lived in Radnor Township during the eighteenth century but had no idea where. Family papers and Quaker records revealed Samuel Morgan, his wife Magdalene, and their son John enslaved (at different times) Chloe, a Black man named Jack, and Black boy named George, but I knew little about where this enslavement took place. Samuel Morgan’s estate inventory provided details about his farm — the number of sheep and household tools — but nothing else. I found myself stuck at a research impasse I’d been at before. I’d gathered a lot of evidence, but didn’t know where this history took place until I came across a book in Villanova’s library.
That book, A Rare and Pleasing Thing: Radnor Demography and Development, was written by local historian Katharine Hewitt Cummin in 1977. Cummin’s book was the product of years of research into Radnor and included a section about the Morgan family. Her profile of the Morgans referenced deed records, which revealed that a part of the Morgan’s land was eventually bought by the Augustinians who founded Villanova. These deeds provided me with critical new information. Now I was able to confirm where the Morgan family enslaved Chloe, Jack, and George. Villanova was located on a space of enslavement.
After finding this new evidence, I began to formalize my research findings and interpret the sources I’d assembled. Using the decades of literature about slavery in the United States and in the North, I began to write and speak about this history of slavery. I began to tell audiences in public talks that, on the Morgan’s farm, Chloe, Jack, and George would have worked alongside the Morgans and performed domestic and agricultural labor — raising sheep, harvesting wheat, cleaning pots, and scrubbing pans. Jack freed himself from John Morgan’s enslavement in 1770, although he was likely recaptured. Chloe survived enslavement until at least 1798.
Though I had this breakthrough, confirming that Villanova is located on a space of enslavement has brought new challenges. It’s hard to make this history relevant to Villanovans. The Morgans, Chloe, Jack, and George lived and labored before Villanova even existed. Why should Villanovans care?
This history matters because it means that Villanova is located on a complicated space marked by violence, survival, racism, and resistance. Just because the Morgans enslaved Chloe Jack and George before Villanova was founded doesn’t mean that this history isn’t connected. Chloe, Jack, and George improved the land, increased its value, and changed the space that became Villanova. They endured the harsh realities of the Morgans’ enslavement, freed themselves, and dreamed about what their lives could become. When the Augustinians bought the land to found Villanova, this history didn’t just disappear.
Yet, if you go to Villanova today it feels like this history did disappear. There are no traces of this history in the landscape — there’s no building or spot where I can say with certainty that’s where cows grazed or where Chloe pressed cheese. The space has changed dramatically in the past ten years, let alone two hundred.
That’s why Villanova needs to create a public marker about this history on campus to make it visible for everyone. A future marker could provide basic information about the Morgans, Chloe, Jack, and George, and tell Villanovans that these people moved and worked throughout what’s now the campus. To start this process, the university should assemble a group of faculty, students, and staff members to discuss the creation of a marker and work with professional designers to develop it.
The creation of one marker won’t mean that everyone at Villanova will immediately know or care about this history. But it could be a small start. It could help Villanovans learn more about this history and could put the Morgans, Chloe, Jack, and George, back into the landscape. It could also demonstrate that the university acknowledges slavery matters to its past and its present.
