Brown University Won’t Acknowledge Columbus Day YET Was Founded In Part By a Slave Trader
Students at Brown University in Rhode Island have successfully lobbied the school’s administration to stop observing Columbus Day, opting instead to refer to Columbus Day weekend as “Fall Weekend.” WHY?
“Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence school to stop observing Columbus Day, citing the explorer’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered. Reiko (RAY’-koh) Koyama, a sophomore who led the effort, says celebrating Columbus Day seemed inconsistent with Brown’s values.”
REALLY……
Columbus mistreated Native Americans and that’s “inconsistent” with Brown’s values? Ms. Koyama is right. Had Christopher Columbus rounded up the Native Americans and SOLD THEM to the highest bidder, that would have been more consistent with Brown’s values.
You see, a little known fact that the university doesn’t like to talk about, is that one of its namesakes, Mr. John Brown 1786-1803, was a slave trader all his life. The Providence Journal reported in March of 2004:
“The history notes that Nicholas’ brother, John Brown, paid half the cost of the college’s first library. 
When Nicholas’ son, Nicholas Brown Jr., gave his alma mater $5,000 in 1804, the college changed its name to Brown — forever tying the prominent family to the institution.”
“The 88-page history neglects to mention, however, that John Brown was a slave trader as well as a merchant, and that ships from his family trading company, Nicholas Brown & Co., were used to transport slaves. He left the family business in 1771; the company of four Brown brothers dissolved a few years later. (Their father, Capt. James Brown, had sent the family’s first slave ship to Africa in 1736, according to a recent report by Brown University.)”
“John Brown continued to defend slavery until his death. Another brother, Moses Brown, and their nephew, Nicholas Brown Jr., however, became ardent abolitionists and worked to end slavery by pushing for a tougher prohibition against slave ships entering American ports. John Brown became the first Rhode Islander prosecuted under the federal Slave Trade Act of 1794 and had to forfeit his slave ship.”
So now the only questions that remain are when will students at Brown insist that the university change its name and what the new name should be?
Perhaps Brown University history should be an undergrad requirement.
