Locating Slavery's Legacies @ University of Virginia

Memorial Object

Plaque/Marker

Enslaver

Greene, Nathanael

Stone memorializing Nathanael Greene

The “Walk of Fame” was created in 1929 by then-president Hamilton Holt to honor significant historical figures. The memorial is located in the center of campus around Mills Lawn.

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) was a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, perhaps the most competent of all George Washington's officers. Washington put Greene in charge of the war in the South in 1780. Greene's campaigns in the southern colonies greatly weakened British forces and were crucial in eventual Patriot victory.

Greene's private life was a reflection of the complexities of his time. He was born a Quaker, but was expelled from his church for his military involvement. Similarly, he went against Quaker teachings by owning slaves. He held slaves during the war and used them after the war to make a profit from the confiscated Loyalist plantations he was given in South Carolina and Georgia. During the war, however, he did advocate for enlisting slaves, which would have involved manumission.

His stone was installed in the Walk of Fame August 15, 1931.

Holt, Hamilton

Approximately 12 inches wide by 6 inches tall

NATHANAEL GREENE
Major General in the American Revolution
Born 1742 — Died 1786

Holt, Hamilton

August 15, 1931

1890-1945: Era of the Lost Cause, Jim Crow legal segregation and discrimination, and organized anti-Black racism

Rollins College

Walk of Fame

Rollins College; Winter Park, Florida

Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene

Greene bio

Slavery and the American Revolution

Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene (Chapel Hill, NC: Published for the Rhode Island Historical Society [by] the University of North Carolina Press, 1976).