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Furman's Legacy of Slavery: A Digital Exhibition: Constructing a Campus-Funding the New Campus
Enslaved people built the new campus in two ways:
One method was to hire their labor out by their owners to do construction work, with the wages being paid to their owners. Another strategy was by turning their forced labor on farms and plantations throughout South Carolina to profit, which in turn funneled through donations to Furman’s building fund and endowment. Agents of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, including James C. Furman and his older brother, Richard B. Furman, raised $70,000 to fund the construction of the new campus.
"it was difficult to get white men to remain on their jobs long at a time and in the long run Negro labor would prove cheaper."
Dr. H. W. Pasley, who supervised the construction of a new campus, noted in a report to the Board of Trustees that between November 1851 and the end of 1852, early in the construction period, only white men were hired and that he wished not to hire enslaved black workers. In early 1853, however, he recommended to the Board to hire enslaved labor because, as Furman historian Robert Daniel paraphrased the statement above from Pasley’s report:
Pasley and others traveled around the state to secure pledges and maintain contact with donors to secure their payments over time. As pictured on the left, the book is open to a pledge from John J. Howell of Lexington County for $500 made in November of 1853.