The Branham Affair: Signs of Fracture at the Antebellum University of Mississippi

• In Event: Politics of Memory and Race

Abstract

The Branham Affair of 1859 serves as a case study to explore the role of the Antebellum university as an ideological battlefield. As a precursor to the physical violence that would erupt in the town of Oxford, the Branham affair traces the case of a university chancellor accused of pro-abolitionist thinking and examines the fallout between the chancellor, faculty, and the public in the town of Oxford between 1859 and 1860. For the purposes of this paper, the university is considered an intellectual battlefield. This case study can help the higher education community better understand the intellectual role that universities play in safeguarding systems of oppression and unearth less discussed moments of tension leading up to the Civil War.

Author

• Hilary Coulson, The University of Mississippi