Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause

by Ty Seidule

Washington College broke the terms of the will and profited from selling enslaved people to the cotton farms of Mississippi. Together, the sale of enslaved people and land from the Robinson estate brought $64,480.98 by 1849 (equal to about $2.15 million in 2020 dollars), more than three times the value of the stock given by George Washington. Twelve thousand dollars went to construct two buildings along the Colonnade, including Robinson Hall. When I went to W&L, three prizes had the Robinson name. Washington College emplaced an obelisk monument on the east side of campus in 1855 to Jockey John Robinson with his remains. I passed by the monument regularly with no idea why it was there or whom it honored.80 Washington College survived because of the profits made from enslaved labor, and it created monuments to the slave owners.