She found out about the Jesuits and Georgetown and the sea voyage to Louisiana. The institution came under fire last fall, with students demanding justice for the slaves in the 1838 sale. (RNS) A genealogical association has launched a new website detailing the family histories of slaves who were sold to keep Catholic-run Georgetown University from bankruptcy in the 1800s. this helps us promote a safe and accountable online community, and allows us to update you when other commenters reply to your posts. [67] The university also gave permanent names to the two buildings. [52] In 2014, renovation began on Ryan and Mulledy Halls to convert them into a student residence. More than half were younger than 20, and nearly a third were not yet 10 years old. The hope was to eventually identify the slaves descendants. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. Roughly two-thirds of the Jesuits former slaves including Cornelius and his family had been shipped to two plantations so distant from churches that they never see a Catholic priest, the Rev. You can either click on the link in your confirmation email or simply re-enter your email address below to confirm it. Thomas Hibbert (1710-1780), English merchant, he became rich from slave labor on his Jamaican plantations. By the end of December, one of Mr. Cellinis genealogists felt confident that she had found a strong test case: the family of the boy, Cornelius Hawkins. By the 1830s, however, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably. [37], Before Roothaan's order reached Mulledy, Mulledy had already accepted the advice of McSherry and Eccleston in June 1839 to resign and go to Rome to defend himself before Roothaan. Only 206 of the 272 slaves were actually delivered because the Jesuits permitted the elderly and those with spouses living nearby and not owned by Jesuits to remain in Maryland. Soon, the two men and their teams were working on parallel tracks. ALL OF THE PEOPLE LISTED ON THIS PAGE HAVE PROFILES. [66] In 2020, the college removed Mulledy's name. [28], Anticipating that some of the Jesuit plantation managers who opposed the sale would encourage their slaves to flee, Mulledy, along with Johnson and a sheriff, arrived at each of the plantations unannounced to gather the first 51 slaves for transport. [3], Much of this land was put to use as plantations, the revenue from which financed the Jesuits' ministries. Kenney found the slaves facing arbitrary discipline, a meager diet, pastoral neglect, and engaging in vice. We have committed to finding ways that members of the Georgetown and Descendant communities can be engaged together in efforts that advance racial justice and enable every member of our Georgetown community to confront and engage with Georgetowns history with slavery.. African-Americans are often a fleeting presence in the documents of the 1800s. Thomas R. Murphy, a historian at Seattle University who has written a book about the Jesuits and slavery. Peter Havermans wrote of an elderly woman who fell to her knees, begging to know what she had done to deserve such a fate, according to Robert Emmett Curran, a retired Georgetown historian who described eyewitness accounts of the sale in his research. In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over . It is better to prevent than to attempt to remedy. Others, including two of Corneliuss uncles, ran away before they could be captured. She does not put much stock in what she describes as casual institutional apologies. But she would like to see a scholarship program that would bring the slaves descendants to Georgetown as students. -- Georgetown University has announced that descendants of 272 slaves, from whose sale the school profited in 1838, will receive "an advantage in the admissions process" as part of a larger . On June 19, 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell 272 slaves to two Louisiana planters, Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey, for $115,000 (equivalent to approximately $2.96million in 2021). To this day the search continues. Alfred "Teen" Blackburn (1842-1951), one of the last living survivors of slavery in the United States who had a clear recollection of it. The plantation would be sold again and again and again, records show, but Corneliuss family remained intact. Tweet. On November 14, 2015, DeGioia announced that he and the university's board of directors accepted the working group's recommendation, and would rename the buildings accordingly. The enslaved African-Americans had belonged to the nations most prominent Jesuit priests. What has emerged from their research, and that of other scholars, is a glimpse of an insular world dominated by priests who required their slaves to attend Mass for the sake of their salvation, but also whipped and sold some of them. [35] He ordered McSherry to inform Mulledy that he had been removed as provincial superior, and that if Mulledy refused to step down, he would be dismissed from the Society of Jesus. Key then transferred this property to John R. Thompson. On Juneteenth, the debate comes to Congress. Ms. Crump is a familiar figure in Baton Rouge. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. Jan Roothaan, who headed the Jesuits international organization from Rome and was initially reluctant to authorize the sale. But the popes order, which did not explicitly address slave ownership or private sales like the one organized by the Jesuits, offered scant comfort to Cornelius and the other slaves. [27] The agreement provided that 51 slaves would be sent to the port of Alexandria, Virginia in order to be shipped to Louisiana. But this was no ordinary slave sale. [10], Due to these extensive landholdings, the Propaganda Fide in Rome had come to view the American Jesuits negatively, believing they lived lavishly like manorial lords. [37] Roothaan was particularly concerned because it had become clear that, contrary to his order, families had been separated by the slaves' new owners. Georgetown is not the first or only university to own slaves. Much more than a way to chat. She is outraged that the churchs leaders sanctioned the buying and selling of slaves, and that Georgetown profited from the sale of her ancestors. We pray with you today because we have greatly sinned and because we are profoundly sorry. This message was delivered to more than 100 descendants of the original enslaved people who had been sol to finance the institution. But six years after he appeared in the census, and about three decades after the birth of his first child, he renewed his wedding vows with the blessing of a priest. Now shes working for justice. Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education From Equity Talk to Equity Walk offers practical guidance on the design and application of campus change strategies for achieving equitable outcomes. (Courtesy of Ellender Library) In 1838, two priests who served as president of Georgetown University orchestrated the sale of 272 people to pay off debts at the school. The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II An astonishing book. Wondering why we ask for your email, or having trouble registering. 2008 - 2023 INTERESTING.COM, INC. This sale was the culmination of a contentious and long-running debate among the Maryland Jesuits over whether to keep, sell, or free their slaves, and whether to focus on their rural estates or on their growing urban missions, including their schools. But he said he could not stop thinking about the slaves, whose names had been in Georgetowns archives for decades. The week also provided opportunities for members of the descendant community to connect with one another and with Jesuits through a private vigil on Monday night, a descendant-only dinner on Tuesday evening and tours of the Maryland plantation where their ancestors were enslaved. Now students, professors and alumni want to know what happened to those men and women and what the university will do moving forward. It is also emblematic of the complex entanglement of American higher education and religious institutions with slavery. When the Society of Jesus was suppressed worldwide by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, ownership of the plantations was transferred from the Jesuits' Maryland Mission to the newly established Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen. Georgetown is not the only institution that has prospered on the backs of enslaved people. Within two weeks, Mr. Cellini had set up a nonprofit, the Georgetown Memory Project, hired eight genealogists and raised more than $10,000 from fellow alumni to finance their research. Other Jesuits voiced their anger to the Archbishop of Baltimore, Samuel Eccleston, who conveyed this to Roothaan. In 1844, Henry Johnson sold a share of Chatham and would eventually sell the remainder of his land and enslaved people to John R. Thompson in 1851. We shop for the best values for you. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime. Share with your friends! in Fr. As early as the 1780s, Dr. Rothman found, they openly discussed the need to cull their stock of human beings. In total, there are 167 countries that still have slavery and around 46 million slaves today, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index.. Other slaves were sold locally in Maryland so that they would not be separated from their spouses who were either free or owned by non-Jesuits, in compliance with Roothaan's order. It would be better to suffer financial disaster than suffer the loss of our souls with the sale of the slaves, wrote the Rev. Georgetown Slavery Archive Date 1838 Contributor Adam Rothman Relation GSA63 Format PDF Language English Type Text Identifier GSA5 Text Item Type Metadata Original Format Spreadsheet Files Collection Sale of Maryland Jesuit's enslaved community to Louisiana in 1838 Tags Families, Plantations, Slaves Citation [22], In October 1836, Roothaan officially authorized the Maryland Jesuits to sell their slaves, so long as three conditions were satisfied: the slaves were to be permitted to practice their Catholic faith, their families were not to be separated, and the proceeds of the sale had to be used to support Jesuits in training,[23] rather than to pay down debts. That man, Thomas Mulledy, then the president of Georgetown University, had sold 272 slaves to pay off a massive debt strangling the university. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. [34] In the years after the sale, it also became clear that most of the slaves were not permitted to carry on their Catholic faith because they were living on plantations far removed from any Catholic church or priest. Maryland Province Archives at Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, A passage from the Rev. Eventually, Roothaan removed Thomas Mulledy as provincial superior for disobeying orders and promoting scandal, exiling him to Nice for several years. What remains is what is owed to the descendants. It has been stated that value of slaves in America was more valuable than all the industrial and transportation capital of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. [36], Soon after the sale, Roothaan decided that Mulledy should be removed as provincial superior. Now, with racial protests roiling college campuses, an unusual collection of Georgetown professors, students, alumni and genealogists is trying to find out what happened to those 272 men, women and children. Although the working group was established in August, it was student demonstrations at Georgetown in the fall that helped to galvanize alumni and gave new urgency to the administrations efforts. James Van de Velde, a Jesuit who visited Louisiana, wrote in a letter in 1848. His children and grandchildren also embraced the Catholic church. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. [50], In 1981, historian Robert Emmett Curran presented at academic conferences a comprehensive research into the Maryland Jesuits' participation in slavery, and published this research in 1983. We ask readers to log in so that we can recognize you as a registered user and give you unrestricted access to our website. [50] Curran also published Georgetown University's official, bicentennial history in 1993, in which he wrote about the university's and Jesuits' relationship with slavery. The Society of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits, established its first presence in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Thirteen Colonies alongside the first settlers of the British Province of Maryland, which had been founded as a Catholic colony and refuge. [45] Patrick and Woolfolk's slaves were then sold in July 1859 to Emily Sparks, the widow of Austin Woolfolk. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. [137] Thomas C. Hindman (1828-1868), American politician and Confederate general. Cornelius had originally been shipped to a plantation so far from a church that he had married in a civil ceremony. A notation on the second page indicates that it was discovered by Fr. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! [64] Mulledy Hall, a student dormitory that opened in 1966,[65] was renamed as BrooksMulledy Hall in 2016, adding the name of a later president, John E. Brooks, who worked to racially integrate the college. None of those conditions were met, university officials said. people, women and others in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cupich: Critics of Pope Francis Latin Mass restrictions should listen to JPII. [29] Some of the initial 272 slaves who were not delivered to Johnson were replaced with substitutes. The truth was closer to home than anyone knew", "272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. To see the full listing of posts, click on our Blog list, For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. [56][62] In 2016, The New York Times published an article that brought the history of the Jesuits' and university's relationship with slavery to national attention. The U.S. Department of State defines modern slavery as "the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled . Shoes and clothing were made in the North and shipped to be used by the enslaved people. They change every day, so check often. But when Ms. Riffel, the genealogist, told her where she thought he was buried, Ms. Crump knew exactly where to go. Continue to scroll for fascinating Videos and Books to enhance your learning experience. Share. Richard Cellini, the chief executive of a technology company and a Georgetown alumnus, hired eight genealogists to track down the slaves and their descendants. Many of them baptized Catholic, they were bought by planters to work. History has attempted to take the sting out of it which is impossible. An alumnus, following the protest from afar, wondered if more needed to be done. [15], While Roothaan decided in 1831, based on the advice of the Maryland Mission superior, Francis Dzierozynski, that the Jesuits should maintain and improve their plantations rather than sell them, Kenney and his advisors (Thomas Mulledy, William McSherry, and Stephen Dubuisson) wrote to Roothaan in 1832 about the growing public opposition to slavery in the United States, and strongly urged Roothaan to allow the Jesuits to gradually free their slaves. [43][44] In 1856, Washington Barrow sold the slaves he purchased from Batey to William Patrick and Joseph B. Woolfolk of Iberville Parish. Youll never know where you came from, said Mlisande Short-Colomb, a descendant of the group of slaves, in a statement about the project. Now, for the first time, Ms. Crump understood its origins. Ms. Crump, a retired television news anchor, was driving to Maringouin, her hometown, in early February when her cellphone rang. A Reflection for Saturday of the First Week of Lent, by Christopher Parker. [58] In November of that year, following a student-led protest and sit-in,[59] the working group recommended that the university temporarily rename Mulledy Hall (which opened during Mulledy's presidency in 1833)[60] to Freedom Hall, and McSherry Hall (which opened in 1792 and housed a meditation center)[61] to Remembrance Hall. In 2013, Georgetown began planning to renovate the adjacent Ryan, Mulledy, and Gervase Halls, which together served as the university's Jesuit residence until the opening of a new residence in 2003. Keynote || Radcliffe Institute WELCOME Lizabeth Cohen, Dean, Radcliffe Institute, and Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Harvard University OPENING REMARKS (12:07) Drew Gilpin Faust, President and Lincoln Professor of History, Harvard University KEYNOTE (15:51) Ta-Nehisi Coates, Journalist; National Correspondent, the Atlantic: Author, Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) and The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood (Spiegel & Grau, 2008) Conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Drew Gilpin Faust (34:37). IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO USE CAUTION WHEN DISTRIBUTING PRIVATE INFORMATION. Some slaves suffered at the hands of a cruel overseer. [28] Most of the slaves who fled returned to their plantations, and Mulledy made a third visit later that month, where he gathered some of the remaining slaves for transport. And they are confronting a particularly wrenching question: What, if anything, is owed to the descendants of slaves who were sold to help ensure the colleges survival? [35][34] Benedict Fenwick, the Bishop of Boston, privately lamented the fate of the slaves and considered the sale an extreme measure. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? This has made people reluctant to see the past and this has had a long term harm by remaining hidden and allowed to fester. Articles in the Woodstock Letters, an internal Jesuit publication that later became accessible to the public, routinely addressed both subjects during the course of its existence from 1872 to 1969. Her ancestors, once amorphous and invisible, are finally taking shape in her mind. 51 slaves were to be sent to Alexandria, Virginia, then shipped to Louisiana. Georgetown Jesuits enslaved her ancestors. In 1870, he appeared in the census for the first time. [63][38], The College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, of which Mulledy was the first president from 1843 to 1848, also began to reconsider the name of one of its buildings in 2015. But the decision to sell virtually all of their enslaved African-Americans in the 1830s left some priests deeply troubled. . Now that we have this data, my hope is that we can use it to open doors and make connections. Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. As a Georgetown employee, Jeremy Alexander watched as the university grappled with its haunted past: the sale of slaves in 1838 to help rescue it from financial ruin. The ship manifest of the Katharine Jackson, available in full at the. [17], Mulledy and McSherry became increasingly vocal in their opposition to Jesuit slave ownership. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? The Jesuit leaders running the institution that would later become Georgetown University sold the 272 enslaved men, women and children in 1838 to settle mounting debts threatening the. The website is part of a collaboration between Boston-based American Ancestors, also called the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and the Georgetown Memory Project, which was founded by Georgetown alumnus Richard Cellini. Freedom Hall became Isaac Hawkins Hall, after the first slave listed on the articles of agreement for the 1838 sale. The notation betrayed no hint of the turmoil on board. Dr. Rothman, the Georgetown historian, heard about Mr. Cellinis efforts and let him know that he and several of his students were also tracing the slaves. The worn gravestone had toppled, but the wording was plain: Neely Hawkins Died April 16, 1902.. [18] The province was sharply divided, with the American-born Jesuits supporting a sale and the missionary European Jesuits opposing on the basis that it was immoral both to sell their patrimonial lands and to materially and morally harm the slaves by selling them into the Deep South, where they did not want to go. [30] In total, only 206 are known to have been transported to Louisiana. Ms. Crump, 69, has been asking herself that question, too. Georgetown has renamed one of its buildings Isaac Hawkins Hall named after the first enslaved on the list of the account of the sale. Thomas F. Mulledy and the Rev. In April 2017, Georgetown renamed buildings that had honored university leaders responsible for selling those enslaved Africans to Louisiana plantations. The 1970s saw an increase in public scholarship on the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership. [24] When he returned in November to gather the rest of the slaves, the plantation managers had their slaves flee and hide. On June 19, 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell 272 slaves to two southern Louisiana sugar planters, former governor Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey, for $115,000, equivalent to $2.79 million in 2020, in order to rescue Georgetown University from bankruptcy. If youre already a subscriber or donor, thank you! These posts focus on the reality of Black life in America after the Civil War culminating in the landmark Brown v Board of Education that changed so many of the earlier practices. Colleges and universities have placed greater emphasis on education equity in recent years. In the uproar that followed, he was called to Rome and reassigned. Georgetown University Archives The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. Isaac Hawkins was the first enslaved person listed in the 1838 sale document. A microcosm of the whole history of American slavery, Dr. Rothman said. Examined and found correct, he wrote of Cornelius and the 129 other people he found on the ship. Georgetown University was an active participant in the slave trade selling upwards of 272 slaves from their Maryland run plantation to the deep south in an effort to support the then struggling university in 1838 according to The New York Times. They were looked on not as humans but as collateral and sold to secure the future of this great Catholic institution that hold such a place of honor to this day. [40] The remaining $17,000, equivalent to approximately $440,000 in 2021,[25] was used to offset part of Georgetown College's $30,000 of debt that had accrued during the construction of buildings during Mulledy's prior presidency of the college. Your email address will not be published. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Catholic Church were among the largest slaveholding institutions in America. However, the history of the sale and the Jesuits' slave ownership was never secret.
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