 He then went to the U.S. to complete his master's degree at University of Rochester and in 1986 he completed his PhD at Yale University.For his doctoral studies at Yale, completed in 1986, Shell wrote the dissertation entitled “Slavery at the Cape of Good Hope, 1680–1731” under the advisership of famed South African historian, Leonard M. Thompson





"Robert Shell's account is slightly different.He argues that Christianity's change of heart only applied to baptized slaves, and the issue of whether slaves should be baptized was very contentious as late as 1618 when it was raised at the Synod of Dort, the last meeting of Protestant theologians from Great Britain and the Continent.