Goucher College has launched the Hallowed Ground Project to study the role of slavery and racism in the history of the land it currently occupies.
Plans to launch the project took various iterations over the years. However, last September, Dr. José Antonio Bowen, Goucher’s former president, created a committee to develop research proposals in order to study the history of the land.
Dr. James Dator, assistant professor of history at Goucher and chair of the Hallowed Ground Project, led the committee which consisted of 20 students, faculty and staff members.
“We felt like previous studies had been sort of insular or in many ways did not center around the lives of the enslaved people,” said Dator. “We really wanted to begin to try tell their stories, center around their stories and remember their stories for the community.”
The school will uncover the history and untold stories through predominately student-led research.
Goucher College sits on land previously known as Epsom, an estate owned by former Maryland Governor Charles Carnan Ridgely. After Ridgely’s death in 1829, the land and around 20 enslaved men, women and children were inherited by his daughter Harriet Ridgely Chew and her husband Henry B. Chew.
In 1921, descendants of the Chew family sold the 421 acres of land to Goucher. However, within the land deed, a clause was added that stated, “no part of said land or premises shall ever be leased, sold, transferred to or occupied by any person of the African race,” according to a university press release.
