Blair Statue
Statue and Description in Blair Hall Lobby
The Surface
The statue of James Blair is located in between Blair Hall and Chancellor’s Hall. It was sculpted by Lewis Cohen, a professor of Art and Art History at the College. The statue was installed during Homecoming 1993, which marked the College’s Tercentenary celebration. A smaller version of the statue is located in the lobby of James Blair Hall, and as of Spring 2023 is surrounded by a plexisglass barrier.
The Context
James Blair was born most likely around 1655 in Scotland. He was raised an educated there, and was eventually ordained a minister of the Anglican Church in 1679. It was not until 1685 that Blair would arrive in Virginia and begin his quest to found a college in the colony. He would hold the office of President of the College from its founding in 1693 until his death in 1743.
Blair was a man in constant search of power, willing to do nearly anything that it took to increase his own personal prestige. During his lifetime he was able to accomplish lofty feats, becoming the Commissary of Virginia (a high-powered position in the Anglican church at the time), the President of the newly founded College of William and Mary for life, and acting Governor of Virginia. His success in ousting three colonial governors points not only to the power he achieved, but the influence he held over the highest royal powers at the time, the King and Queen of England. In this sense, Blair was a well-achieved man of the era, marrying into an influential colonial family and leveraging this influence to achieve his own personal goals, many of which coincided with the goals of the College.
Despite these achievements, James Blair was largely disliked. His contemporaries knew him as stubborn and power-hungry, as he was willing to turn on former friends (such as Governor Nicholson) if it would benefit him personally. One of the first professors at the school, in fact, had a falling out with Blair, accusing him— amongst other things— of using the College for his own financial gain. They knew him to be severe. He enslaved the natives of the land in order to provide students for the Indian School at the College, which in turn created more revenue for the College. This practice was abhorred by both Nicholson and Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood, who both spoke out against it at the House of Burgesses. As such, it is clear that this practice of enslaving one's students was not par for the course at the time, but an extreme step Blair took in fundraising. In fact, Blair often employed slavery when it would be of financial benefit to the College and therefore himself. He was the first to introduce enslaved people to the College, leasing his own personal enslaved people to the College to aid in its construction. Further, he advocated for the funding of the College with a tax on tobacco, an undeniable product of slave labor. Blair also was the primary agent in establishing Nottoway Quarter, a plantation owned by the College that potentially enslaved Natives, and most certainly enslaved Africans. Outside of the College, he further advocated for slavery in the Anglican church. In order to encourage more Virginians to become ministers of the church (and therefore have to attend his school, which would then grant him a larger payday), he convinced the church to allow slavery, at least in Virginia. In doing so, he single handedly brought slavery to one of the most powerful institutions of the time.
It is important that, without Blair, the College of William and Mary would certainly have never been founded. Yet, the founding of the College was the result of an effort of many different men, having started decades before Blair ever arrived to the colony of Virginia. Yet, as Commissary, Blair had a vested interest in the growth of the Anglican church at the time, and was able to use the previous idea of a College in Virginia to build a ministry for himself. However, the result we have today would not exist without the multitude of men and women behind James Blair, none more important than those he enslaved.
The Sources
Anesko, Michael. “So Discreet a Zeal: Slavery and the Anglican Church in Virginia, 1680-1730.”
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 93, no. 3, Virginia Historical
Society (1985): 247–78, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4248819.
Hartwell, Henry, James Blair, and Edward Chilton. “The present state of Virginia and the
College” London (1727) Sabin Americana
Harrison, Margaret Tressler Scott, "Commissary James Blair of Virginia: A Study in Personality
and Power" (1958). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539624507.
https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-cw91-x116
Motley, Daniel Eston, “Life of Commissary James Blair: Founder of William and Mary College”
Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, vol. 29, no. 10, The
Johns Hopkins Press (1901): 455-503
Scott, P. G. “James Blair and the Scottish Church: A New Source.” The William and Mary
Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture,
(1976): 300–08, https://doi.org/10.2307/1922167.
Tate, Thad. "Blair, James (ca. 1655–1743)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities,
(11 Aug. 2021). Web. 04 Oct. 2021
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/blair-james-ca-1655-1743/
Van Horne, John C., and James Blair. “The Correspondence of James Blair as Acting Governor
of Virginia, 1740-1741.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 84, no. 1, Virginia Historical Society (1976): 19–48, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4248007.
Woodward, Buck, and Danielle Moretti-Langholtz. "William & Mary's Nottoway Quarter: The Political Economy of Institutional Slavery and Settler Colonialism," Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life. (December 2022). Web. 02 Mar. 2023 http://commonplace.online/article/william-marys-nottoway-quarter/