Content Warning: !is paper contains references to documents in which African Americans are bought, sold, and 
referred to as chattel. !e documents were created by enslavers under an institutionalized system through which 
African Americans were reduced to monetary value and labor value, referred to by names assigned by enslavers. I 
am including this content to analyze the history of these "nancial transactions as de"nitive sources on university 
spending in its early history. I believe it is important to acknowledge the severe violence and gross violations of basic 
human dignity within these documents to develop a constructive path towards understanding the impact of this 
spending over time.

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!e Cost of Education: A Summary of Financial Transactions 
of Enslavement at the University of Alabama

by Ansel Smith

Introduction
 African American enslavement has played a 
fundamental role in the founding, maintenance, and 
legacy of the University of Alabama. Researchers of 
!e History of Enslavement at UA have noted that the 
"rst recorded purchase of an enslaved person, Ben, 
was in 1828, “three years before !e University of 
Alabama opened its doors to students,” and that Basil 
Manly, the president of the university from 1837 to 
1855, stated the university “could not do business for 
a single day without servants” (Overview · the History 
of Enslaved People at UA, 1828-1865 · the History of 
Enslaved People at UA, n.d.). James B. Sellers, in his 
History of the University of Alabama, notes that the 
construction of the President’s Mansion in 1841 
for $18,000, the construction of the university’s 
observatory, and work done for the original campus, 
estimated at a cost of $56,000 between 1828 and 
1831, was largely “performed by slaves” (Sellers, 
2014, p. 31). !ough the contributions of enslaved 
labor to the university are well-detailed, the "nancial 
value of the labor has not been precisely measured. 
Researchers at the Gorgas House Museum at the 
university have claimed “the University spent nearly 
$9,000 purchasing enslaved people,” but the “$9,000” 
is not adjusted for in#ation, nor does it account for 
the value of labor-power for university projects, the 
monetary amounts spent to feed and house enslaved 
people, or the pro"t of enslavers (Gorgas House 
Museum, 2024). Identifying the monetary amount 
the university spent on enslaved individuals before 
the Civil War is important for giving a number to 
the impact of this history that can quantitatively 

describe and track the repercussions of enslavement 
at the university.
 !e aim of this project is to collect and digitize 
"nancial transactions relating to enslavement at the 
university into a tidy collection of data that can be 
analyzed with statistical and data science methods.  
Because the primary goal was to prepare data for 
future analysis, the results are merely descriptive and 
do not answer statistical questions about the dataset. 
Research into the individual agents mentioned in 
transactions, including enslaved individuals and 
payees, is discussed in the History of Enslaved People 
at UA database (!eir Names · the History of Enslaved 
People at UA, 1828-1865 · the History of Enslaved 
People at UA, 2024), and so questions regarding the 
relationship between trends in data and individuals 
are discussed minimally.

Procedure
 Data for this analysis was collected from physical 
and digital primary source documents provided by 
the University of Alabama Hoole Special Collections. 
!ese documents can be found as part of the Early 
University of Alabama Administrative Records, 
Identi"er RG-001, Box 19801776-003:
• Folder 15 (Slave Labor, Financial Records 

1820s-1830s)
• Folder 16 (Slave Labor, Financial Records 1840s)
• Folder 18 (Slave Labor, Financial Records 1850s)
• Folder 20 (Slave Labor, Financial Records 1860s)
• Folder 3 (Observatory 1840-1896)

 Digital sources were sourced through the 
University of Alabama Digital Collections by 



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the author between August and November 2024. 
Information for each document was sorted and 
digitized according to 26 categories: 
• Link: a link to a digital copy of the document 

available through the University of Alabama 
Digital Collections.

• Citation: a formal citation of the document in its 
physical location at the University of Alabama 
Hoole Special Collections.

• Date of Transaction: if provided, the date on 
which a transaction was made.

• Date of Writing: if provided, the date on which 
the document was written.

• Date of Certi"cation: if provided, the date on 
which the transaction was certi"ed.

• From: from whom the document was sent.
• To: to whom the document was addressed.
• Enslaved: the enslaved individuals discussed in 

the document.
• Item: the body text of the document.
• Amount: the monetary amount listed for the 

transaction occurring in the document.
• Notes: notes associated with the document 

provided by the researcher.
• Received Of: from whom the transaction amount 

was received; the payer.
• Payee: to whom the transaction amount was sent.
• Certi"er: the person who certi"ed the 

transaction.
• Date Received: when the transaction amount 

was received.
• Document Type: if provided, the type of 

document (Receipt, Bill of Sale, etc.).
• Location: if not Tuscaloosa, AL, the location of 

the transaction.
• Date: to aggregate documents with respect to 

time, one date was selected to compare each 
document. In order of priority: Date Received, 
Date of Transaction, Date of Writing, Date of 
Certi"cation. If no day was provided, Day was 
set to 1. If no month was provided, Month was 
set to 1.

• Year, Month, Day: the year, month, and day of 
the Date.

• Amount Today: Amount of the transaction 
adjusted for in#ation. Consumer Price Index 
data for each year was estimated using data 
from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis 
(Consumer Price Index, 1800- | Federal Reserve 
Bank of Minneapolis, n.d.) and the formula:

• Purpose: the purpose of the transaction sorted 
into comparable categories, including Hire (hire 
of an enslaved person(s) for labor), Purchase 
(purchase of an enslaved person), Board 
(payment for the board of an enslaved person(s)), 
Clothing (purchase of clothing for an enslaved 
person), and Medical Services (purchase of 
medical services for an enslaved person/given 
on behalf of or by an enslaved person).

• Duration: if the Purpose is “Hire”, the number 
of days for which an enslaved person was hired 
for work. !e term “quarter of a year” was 
interpreted as 3 months (720 days) and “one 
month” was interpreted as 30 days.

• Start Date: if provided, the day on which hire 
began.

• End Date: if provided, the day on which hire 
ended.

• Decade: the decade in which “Date” occurs.

Results
 !e following graphics explore the relationship 
between each category of data, followed by tables 
that aggregate information across the categories. 
Of particular interest is the "nancial transaction 
amount of the documents, the duration of enslaved 
labor, how these relationships vary by year, and 
how mentions of common payees and enslaved 
individuals change over time. 
 !e tables are more comprehensive, and consider 
the mean (M), standard deviation (SD), maximum 
(Max), minimum (Min), sums (Sum), and modes 
(Mode) of applicable categories of data. !e Amount 
Today of each transaction is considered for "nancial 
data, though the original listed Amount is provided 
in the dataset (Smith, 2024).
 Missing data is represented with ‘NA’ values. !e 
format of each document within the timeframe was 
not consistent, and for di$erent types of documents, 
like letters and notes, not all categories of data are 
applicable. ‘NA’ denotes an absence of information 
from a category in the associated document. Of the 
188 documents and 239 unique instances within the 
documents, 11 documents provided no "nancial 
amount, 38 provided no mention of enslaved people 
involved in the transaction, 64 provided no mention 
of a payer, 25 provided no mention of a payee, 145 
provided no mention of a certi"er, and if the Purpose 
of the transaction was Hire, 77 provided no mention 
of the duration of any enslaved labor (Smith, 2024).
 Although a citation for the physical location of 
each document is provided, 12 of the 188 documents 
had no corresponding hyperlink to a digital copy at 
the time of writing. !ese 12 physical documents were 
found in the "les at the Hoole Special Collections 
and are in the process of digitization (Smith, 2024).



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Discussion
 !e aggregations in Table 1 represent the total 
unique instances and sums found in the documents, 
but do not account for overlap. Of note is the 
$535,135.43 transaction amount sum and the sums 
of agents. It is unknown whether the transaction 
amounts listed for Orders of Appropriation were 
allocated for the Receipts and Invoices in the dataset.  
Although Table 3 distinguishes amounts between 
these Document Types, the grand sum of transaction 
amounts should be interpreted as the sum of all 
listed amounts found in the documents, with the 
assumption of no overlap.
 Similarly, the count of 62 unique Enslaved 
Individuals, 10 unique Payers, 74 unique Payees, and 
31 unique Certi"ers in Table 1 does not represent the 
number of unique individuals across all categories. 
!e count of unique agents should be interpreted as 
the sum of unique occurrences of individuals within 
a category. 
 From Table 2, it is clear from the available 
sources that the transaction amounts increased 
by decade, which may be due to the availability of 
newer documents over older documents, changes 
in the cost of goods, and the limited number of 
transactions considered. 
 !e payers of transactions (Table 7) include 
many faculty members and trustees of the university. 
Basil Manly, the most frequently occurring and 
known payer of transactions, was the President of 
the University of Alabama from 1837 to 1855, and 
Landon C. Garland was the President from 1855 to 
1865 (Presidents of the University of Alabama – the 
University of Alabama Libraries, n.d.). George Benagh 
was a professor of Modern Languages (Invoice from 
L. C. Garland, !e University of Alabama to George 
Benagh, September 26, 1860, n.d.) and Michael 
Tuomey, for which Tuomey Hall is named, was an 
instructor of geological sciences (Founder’s Wall – 
Geological Sciences, 2024).
 Of the 164 enslaved people hired, boarded, and 
purchased by the University of Alabama Board of 
Trustees and faculty enumerated by the History 
of Enslaved People at UA research task force (!eir 
Names · the History of Enslaved People at UA, 1828-
1865 · the History of Enslaved People at UA, 2024), 62 
unique enslaved individuals are recorded between 
1828 and 1864.  

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 !e duration of labor grouped by year in Figure 
2 varies widely, and likely clusters around ongoing 
projects of the time. For example, History of the 
University of Alabama by James B. Sellers con"rms 
that construction of the observatory, a project heavily 
relying on William, began in 1838 (Sellers, 2014). 
 Regarding Figure 3, which highlights the 
frequency of mention of enslaved individuals in 
the documents by year, Arthur was mentioned in 
the greatest span of years, from 1839 to 1860, and 
William was the most frequently mentioned. William 
is largely associated with the payee Isabel Pratt. 
 Figure 4, comparing the duration of enslaved 
labor associated with each payee, points to the 
drastic discrepancy in known and unknown data for 
each document, largely due to the absence of details 
on the payee of transactions. !e payees that are 
mentioned occur frequently, particularly Lafayette 
M. Minor, who received many of their transactions 
through intermediary agents.
 Regardless of the amounts allocated by the Orders 
for Appropriations, Receipts compose the largest 
transaction amount when the sources are grouped 
by Document Type in Table 3. !e Document Types 
are as follows:
• Receipts represent records of transactions,
• Invoices are requests for transactions,
• Letters are longer correspondences between 

individuals,
• Bills of Sale are receipts for the purchase of 

enslaved people, 
• Resolutions are commands and decisions of the 

Board of Trustees, 
• Notes are shorter correspondences between 

individuals,
• Account Records are orders by the Board of 

Trustees regarding an account, 
• Timetables are lists of when people worked, 

which helped determine the duration of labor of 
certain enslaved individuals like William.

!e remaining Document Types are designated by 
the title of the document in Digital Collections.
 !e points in Figure 1 and the data in Table 4 
are based on available data: documents where the 
duration of the enslaved labor, or start date and end 
date of labor, if applicable to the transaction, are 
provided, ranging from days to months. 

 Similarly, the Purpose of Transactions (Table 
6) was determined according to the description of 
the document. !e Purchase of enslaved individuals 
composed the largest proportion of transaction 
amounts, and the Hire of enslaved individuals 
composed the largest proportion of documents. 
When possible, the purpose of the hire was speci"ed, 
such as for Hire (buildings), which indicates hire 
for maintenance on buildings in Tuscaloosa and at 
the university. A unique occurrence was Insurance, 
which refers to a single document regarding the 
coverage of an enslaved person (Invoice from L. 
C. Garland, !e University of Alabama to George 
Benagh, September 26, 1860, n.d.). Laboratory refers 
to enslaved people attending to classroom labs, and 
Advertisement refers to the university being charged 
for an advertisement for hire in 1864, the latest 
occurrence of a document (Receipt for payment from 
State of Alabama to James F. Warren, February 1, 
1864, n.d.). Injury and Sale are both a%liated with 
Sam, who was claimed to have injured someone and 
was later sold (Letter from F. A. P. Barnard to Board 
of Trustees, University of Alabama, July 15, 1851, n.d.; 
Resolution to authorize sale of slave, !e University of 
Alabama, July 14, 1848, n.d.).
 Table 8 indicates the variation of unique 
instances of involved agents by year. Particularly, 
55 of the instances are dated to the 1860s and 25 
documents are dated to 1853, exceeding all other 
years in the number of transactions. However, 1,095 
days of enslaved labor were recorded for 1845 under 
Sum Duration, suggesting a discrepancy between 
the duration of enslaved labor and the frequency of 
transactions.
 As mentioned in Results, 12 physical documents 
were found in the "les at the Hoole Special Collections 
that had not been catalogued digitally, among these 
being a correspondence between Henry A. Snow and 
George Benagh regarding the purchase of 7 enslaved 
individuals from Lynchburg, Virginia for $7,000, but 
only $5,500 of this sum is accounted for in transaction 
amounts, or approximately $192,479.63 today, which 
makes up 36.8% of the total amount spent by the 
university and the largest transaction amount among 
the documents (!e University of Alabama Libraries 
W. S. Hoole Special Collections). !e reason that 
$1,500 is unaccounted for is unknown, but likely 
is that many documents of interest with "nancial 
data are not included in the selected Hoole Special 

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Aisthesis      Volume 16,  2025

Collections "les. Similarly, "les can be found online 
through the Hoole Special Collections that were not 
found in the physical "les. Many documents have 
also been discovered and made available by the 
History of Enslaved People at UA Research Task Force 
(Items · the History of Enslaved People at UA, 1828-
1865 · the History of Enslaved People at UA, 2023), 
which have not been included in the data. Future 
developments for this project will focus on including 
any unconsidered data from these sources.  
 Moving forward, research will focus on acquiring 
and including these unconsidered documents. 
Other topics of interest will include the relationships 
between agents in the transaction. Since the frequency 
of occurrences of enslaved individuals, payees, 
and University of Alabama faculty are available, 
performing a social network analysis of these "gures 
could make the agents of the slave trade and the 
network of the supply chain available. A deeper 
analysis of the "nancial information and duration of 
enslaved labor is also of interest, particularly a linear 
regression analysis to approximate contemporary 
rates of labor and board, and "nancial amounts 
corresponding to known projects occurring at the 
University of Alabama, particularly the construction 
of the President’s Mansion and the observatory.

References
Consumer Price Index, 1800- | Federal Reserve 

Bank of Minneapolis. (n.d.). Www.minneapolisfed.
org. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-
us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/
consumer-price-index-1800-

Founder’s Wall – Geological Sciences. (2024). 
Ua.edu. https://geo.ua.edu/alumni/founders-
wall/

George Benagh, Professor of Modern Language, 
1852-1862 [Review of George Benagh, Professor 
of Modern Language, 1852-1862]. (n.d.). 
!e University of Alabama Libraries Special 
Collections; University of Alabama. Retrieved 
December 5, 2024, from https://cdm17336.
contentdm.o clc .org/d ig i t a l /col l e c t ion/
u0001_2007001/id/8712

Gorgas House Museum. (2024). Bound: A History 
of Enslavement at the University of Alabama. !e 
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA.

Invoice from L. C. Garland, !e University of 
Alabama to George Benagh, September 26, 
1860 [Review of Invoice from L. C. Garland, 
!e University of Alabama to George Benagh, 
September 26, 1860]. (n.d.). !e University 
of Alabama Libraries Special Collections; 
University of Alabama. Retrieved December 5, 
2024, from https://digitalcollections.libraries.
ua.edu/digital/collection/p17336coll31/id/254/
rec/6

Items · !e History of Enslaved People at UA, 
1828-1865 · !e History of Enslaved People at UA. 
(2023). Ua.edu. https://studyingslavery.ua.edu/s/
uastudyingslavery/item

Letter from F. A. P. Barnard to Board of Trustees, 
University of Alabama, July 15, 1851 [Review of 
Letter from F. A. P. Barnard to Board of Trustees, 
University of Alabama, July 15, 1851]. (n.d.). 
!e University of Alabama Libraries Special 
Collections; University of Alabama. Retrieved 
December 5, 2024, from https://digitalcollections.
libraries.ua.edu/digital/collection/p17336coll31/
id/178/rec/112

Overview · !e History of Enslaved People at 
UA, 1828-1865 · !e History of Enslaved People 
at UA. (n.d.). Studyingslavery.ua.edu. https://
studyingslavery.ua.edu/s/uastudyingslavery/
page/overview

Presidents of the University of Alabama – !e 
University of Alabama Libraries. (n.d.). Www.lib.
ua.edu. https://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/
the-universty-of-alabama-presidents/

Receipt for payment from State of Alabama to James 
F. Warren, February 1, 1864 [Review of Receipt 
for payment from State of Alabama to James F. 
Warren, February 1, 1864]. (n.d.). !e University 
of Alabama Libraries Special Collections; 
University of Alabama. Retrieved December 5, 
2024, from https://digitalcollections.libraries.
ua.edu/digital/collection/p17336coll31/id/88/
rec/1

Resolution to authorize sale of slave, !e University 
of Alabama, July 14, 1848 [Review of Resolution 

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Aisthesis      Volume 16,  2025

to authorize sale of slave, !e University of 
Alabama, July 14, 1848]. (n.d.). !e University 
of Alabama Libraries Special Collections; 
University of Alabama. Retrieved December 5, 
2024, from https://digitalcollections.libraries.
ua.edu/digital/collection/p17336coll31/id/441/
rec/111

Sellers, J. (2014). History of !e University of 
Alabama: Volume One, 1818-1902. University Of 
Alabama Press.

Smith, D. A. J. (2024). !e Cost of Education: A 
Summary of Financial Transactions of 
Enslavement at the University of Alabama [Data 
set]. https://osf.io/k5bqd

!eir Names · !e History of Enslaved People at 
UA, 1828-1865 · !e History of Enslaved People 
at UA. (2024). https://studyingslavery.ua.edu/s/
uastudyingslavery/page/names?

!e University of Alabama Libraries W. S. Hoole 
Special Collections, Early University of Alabama 
Administrative Records, RG 001, Acc 19801776, 
Box 03

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