Harvard Law School Heraldry Discussions

 
ESmith
 
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ESmith
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12 March 2016 14:25
 

I was wondering if anyone here had any comments about the discussions going on at Harvard Law School about their coat of arms?

https://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/HLS_2-color_Shield-300x200.jpg

 

The short version seems to be that some folks are uncomfortable with the use of a symbol of a slave holding family to represent their school. There is certainly no denying that symbols can and do have hateful connotations and care must be taken on their use, even in historically consistent circumstances. For example, we would probably not tolerate someone who wanted to use a Fylfot or Gammadion when creating their coat of arms even thought it was historically used in a heraldry context without the connotations similar swastika later received.

 

Does the Royall family coat of arms have a similar association?

 

Does it matter if it does or doesn’t?

 

If the decision is made to change, what sort of thing would you hope to see in its place? What do you hope not to see in its place?

 

Just curious

 
David Pope
 
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David Pope
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12 March 2016 14:38
 

Assuming that such a change will be pressured to occur, perhaps just convert the three garbs or to three crowns or to reference Boston?

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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12 March 2016 16:30
 

David Pope;105608 wrote:

Assuming that such a change will be pressured to occur, perhaps just convert the three garbs or to three crowns or to reference Boston?


Interesting idea, but the crowns will almost certainly be construed as an even more obvious allusion to the name "Royall," which is what the ruckus over the now-previous shield is all about.

 
David Pope
 
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David Pope
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12 March 2016 18:42
 

Joseph McMillan;105609 wrote:

Interesting idea, but the crowns will almost certainly be construed as an even more obvious allusion to the name "Royall," which is what the ruckus over the now-previous shield is all about.


Good point.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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12 March 2016 18:58
 

I don’t see this as similar to fylfot/swastika since wheat sheaves/garbs, standing alone, were never AFAIK a symbol of slavery in the way the swastika was the symbol of Nazism.  What is similar is the dislike for the folk using or represented by both symbols; but even there, the connection of garbs is in this case to this one family, not slavey or slaveholders generally.  Any number of other people with no connection to slavery also used garbs for centuries while the swastika was the main symbol of the Nazis and Nazism from the 1930’s, during the war, and fringe groups since.

Back to Harvard Law - something as simple as the scales of Justice would be appropriate, if a bit trite, with the chief of Harvard; and likely better than whatever the protesters might come up with.

 

Though a part of me likes the image posted in the FB discussion with three slaves each carrying a wheatsheaf on his back - maybe with a motto ribbon reading "Never Forget".  As Joe pointed out on FB, it’s not historically accurate since wheat wasn’t grown in the areas where the Royall family owned or sold slaves; but I think it would effectively symbolize the historic reality that the wealth of that family (symbolized by the garbs of their arms), which financed the law school, was quite literally built on the backs of their slaves.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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12 March 2016 19:22
 

And the Royalls made their money in the West Indies, not exactly a major granary.  The notion that the garbs represented the produce of slave labor was always one of the more bizarre aspects of this controversy.

 
ESmith
 
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ESmith
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12 March 2016 19:59
 

Michael F. McCartney;105611 wrote:

the FB discussion…

 


What is this facebook group you speak of?

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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12 March 2016 22:27
 

ESmith;105613 wrote:

What is this facebook group you speak of?


It’s been discussed in (I think) both the International Heraldry Society group and the Heraldry Society group.  Or at least one or the other.  You haven’t missed much.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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12 March 2016 23:48
 

The garbs certainly don’t signify that slave labor produced grain; but could symbolize the Royall family (since taken from their arms) whose fortune was built on the backs (forced labor) of slaves they bought and sold.

But the scales of Justice or some such reference to the law would probably (he grudgingly admitted) be a more appropriate choice in the long run… wink

 
QuiQuog
 
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14 March 2016 12:04
 

It’s been said many times in this forum that the symbolism in a given set of arms may not mean the same thing for the original armiger as it does for the generations that inherit it. The tenuous link to slavery that the garbs may or may not have represented at the time the arms were created probably doesn’t hold true to the family members that bear them today. I doubt that anybody likes to bring up the cruelty of one of their slave holding ancestors at parties.

But let me be the devils advocate for a bit. I know it’s an obvious example, but it’s a glaring one to me, but if they’re going to take issue with a slave holding ancestor representing everything they stand for today, the group should also take a stand against the father of our country, George Washington. He may not have the reputation for cruelty as the aforementioned slave holder, but he still engaged in the oppression and enslavement of human beings. Not exactly behavior that we would condone today.

 

But, taking the example of the Fylfot, or swastika, I doubt that the original intention of it was to represent the murder of millions of Jews, yet today it is synonymous with the holocaust nonetheless. Taking it a step deeper into the direction of symbolism on banners unintentionally representing actions of the people who labor under it, and taking a queue from the school to ban such links, there are some that would argue that the American flag itself represent the imprisonment, suppression, enslavement, murder, and torture of many groups of people. Blacks, Native American, and Japanese being the most notable, but certainly not the only groups oppressed under the US flag. Applying the same logic, should we not change our nations most oppressive symbol?

 

These are not views I hold to the symbols of our nation, I only bring them up to contrast what they’re protesting against what they most likely hold dear. To eliminate the history of those that helped bring about an institution is just another form of oppression, and serves to whitewash part of the school’s history, sweeping the dirt under the rug as it were. It effectively will reset the discussion of the history of the institution to the time the new symbol was created.

 

I would imagine that part of the reason that Royall donated money to the school was to help preserve his place in history. By this association, it can be inferred that those accepting it had no problem with the actions of this person in the historical context of the time. Certainly Royall wasn’t the only person of the time to visit cruelty on slaves they owned, and it would be naive to think that others associated with the university have no black marks in their history.

 

By taking the endowment of the person and associating his name and arms with it, they’re obligated to keeping the memory of him as per their original agreement, warts and all, as well as acknowledging that the ideals of the founders were not as rosy as they would like to portray. If we accept that it’s right and proper to hide a history that they don’t want to explain, we might as well put into motion actions to change the US flag. I say bad on them if they change it.

 
Luis Cid
 
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14 March 2016 12:32
 

Ditto!! to everything you stated John.  This type of silliness needs to stop.  Harvard law needs to take a deep breath on this one.  No change to the coat of arms would be appropriate.  The agenda of this protesters goes beyond Harvard and is not honest nor benign but is the type of view that would denigrate our entire history to be re-written by them and imposed by fiat if they had their way.

 
Luis Cid
 
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14 March 2016 12:51
 

A further note - my school, JD’82, UC Davis school of law is named King Hall in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - our nation’s greatest champion of civil rights and a martyr for that cause.  I certainly prefer to honor the memory of a man like King over the slave-owner that endowed Harvard law, yet it’s been almost 200 years and we cannot judge men of a different era by the standards of today, otherwise most of human history would need to be seen as a terrible failure (which it is not)!

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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14 March 2016 13:47
 

As an aside - I don’t think the Royall garbs and the US flag are a fair analogy.  Many thousands of Americans, including newly freed Black troops, fought and died under that flag to end slavery; I’m not aware of anything remotely similar by the armorial heirs of the Royall family.

 
ESmith
 
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ESmith
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14 March 2016 14:50
 

Michael F. McCartney;105632 wrote:

As an aside - I don’t think the Royall garbs and the US flag are a fair analogy.  Many thousands of Americans, including newly freed Black troops, fought and died under that flag to end slavery; I’m not aware of anything remotely similar by the armorial heirs of the Royall family.


I agree on the example of the US flag, although there are some who see it, or at least their rhetoric paints it as aaymbol of oppression today.

 

However, the Washington arms are repeated in the flag of Washington DC, a flag which is widely flown around our nation’s Capitol, and as was said above Washington owned slaves himself. If the justification for changing Harvard Law’s coat of arms is that the Royal family previously owned slaves, would that not also apply to the flag of Washington?

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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14 March 2016 21:42
 

Apples and oranges - or maybe apples and road apples.

If repeat IF Washington’s life and contribution to history was similar (and limited) to that of the Royall family, then Yes.  But that’s not the case.  True, GW - like most any Southern farmer of substance - owned slaves; but didn’t earn a reputation for cruelty on anything like the level of the Royall, as described on the Harvard link.  And IIRC, GW freed his own slaves in his will (but not his wife’s slaves, who were her separate property from her first marriage, and thus not GW’s legal property).  Not perfect, but hardly comparable to the Royalls.

 

Perhaps more to the point, the Royalls didn’t lead and inspire the Continental army during the ups and downs of the Revolution; serve as our first President; and generally hold the nation together.

 
Luis Cid
 
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15 March 2016 12:53
 

Mike - probably more like apples and rotten apples!