Elihu Yale: The cruel and greedy Yale benefactor who traded in Indian slaves - BBC News

The truth of how Elihu Yale made his fortune had been largely forgotten - until now.

14 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, An 18th Century British painting of Elihu Yale (centre) in which he's seen with a child slaveBy Geeta PandeyBBC News, DelhiLast month, Yale University issued a formal apology for the links its early leaders and benefactors had with slavery.

Since then, one name that has come under intense scrutiny in India is that of Elihu Yale, the man after whom the Ivy League university is named.

Yale served as the all-powerful governor-president of the British East India Company in Madras in southern India (present-day Chennai) in the 17th Century and it was a gift of about £1,162 ($1,486) that earned him the honour of having the university named after him.

"It's equivalent of £206,000 today if you adjust it for inflation," historian Prof Joseph Yannielli, who teaches modern history at Aston University in Birmingham and has studied Yale's links with the Indian Ocean slave trade, told the BBC.

It was not an enormous sum by today's standards, but it helped the college construct an entire new building.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-68444807

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