Yale, Madras & the Curious Case of Empire Funding

You could say Yale University began in New Haven.

But the seed money? That came from a place with spicier weather and far murkier ethics — Madras, circa 1687.

Welcome to the origin story no one tells you at freshman orientation.




Meet Elihu Yale : Colonial Governor , Side Hustler, Brand Name
Elihu Yale didn’t found Yale University. He funded it. Kind of like a 17th-century angel investor — except his portfolio wasn’t SaaS or biotech. It was textiles, diamonds, land deals, and yes, slavery.


Yale was the Governor of Fort St. George — the British East India Company’s prime beachfront property in Madras. A post that paid well if you played it straight. But Elihu wasn’t into minimalism. He played it sideways.


He made his fortune not just on the company dime but through the colonial equivalent of insider trading. Call it the original “Friends & Family Round,” except everyone else was getting colonised.


How to Buy a College (on a Colonial Budget)
By the time he returned to England, Elihu Yale had:

• A mountain of wealth
• Zero legacy
• And a warehouse full of regrets he didn’t quite recognise as such

So when the Collegiate School of Connecticut went around rattling the fundraising tin, Elihu shipped over:

• £800 worth of goods (fancy stuff from India)
• Some books
• And a painting of King George I — because what’s academia without a royal headshot?

The college, being as cash-starved as a startup post-valuation crunch, was so grateful they renamed the institution after him.


Yale College was born. Branding problem: solved. Moral clarity? Not so much.

The Empire That Funded Your SAT Dreams

This isn’t to say Yale University today endorses its founder’s methods. Far from it. The institution has since commissioned studies, published reports, and issued the kind of cautious mea culpas that usually arrive via PDF.

But here’s the inconvenient truth:

• The fortune that built Yale was minted in Madras.
• The profits came from exploitation.
• And the man behind it all probably never imagined that one day, an IIT kid would write an essay begging for admission to the school that bore his name.

Epilogue: Ivy, Interrupted

There’s a poetic irony in this — the world’s sharpest minds walking through New Haven courtyards, debating morality, capitalism, and ethics, under arches named for a man who did… the opposite.

Maybe that’s the ultimate Ivy League lesson:

History isn’t written by the victors. It’s endowed by them.