$4.9 million grant project to interrogate legacy of colonialism, subjugation in New England Brown University, Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum scholars will use maritime history as a basis for studying the relationship between European colonization, dispossession of Native American land and racial slavery. A page from Francis Allyn Olmsted's "Journal of a voyage around Cape Horn," 1839-1841. Photo: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A $4.9 million grant to Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice will fund a partnership with Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum that will use maritime history as a basis for studying historical injustices and generating new insights on the relationship between European colonization in North America, the dispossession of Native American land and racial slavery in New England.