Yet the AUB was not just an island of religious tolerance; it was also evidence of the tight bond between commerce and Christianity. The university was established using the fortunes of the Dodge family, whose mining interests in the United States had given them a particular interest in the 'civilising' of indigenous peoples, upon whose un-ceded land they built mines. Those who built the Dodge fortune also committed themselves to the 'assimilation and uplift' of African-Americans in the South during Reconstruction – but only after the failure of their preferred option of resettlement in Liberia.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 135