CONTENT MAY BE COPYRIGHTED BY WIKITREE COMMUNITY MEMBERS. The Jesuits decided that the elderly would not be sold south and instead would be permitted to remain in Maryland. A Reflection for Saturday of the First Week of Lent, by Christopher Parker. Leaders in policy, business, technology, science, history, arts and culture engaged with top journalists on the most consequential issues of our time. The two feared that because the public would not accept additional manumitted blacks, the Jesuits would be forced to sell their slaves en masse. The two women drove on the narrow roads that line the green, rippling sugar cane fields in Iberville Parish. . 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. Census of slaves to be sold in 1838 This is the original list of slaves from the Jesuit plantations compiled in preparation for the sale in 1838. [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. 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. [47], While the 1838 slave sale gave rise to scandal at the time, the event eventually faded out of the public awareness. [3], Much of this land was put to use as plantations, the revenue from which financed the Jesuits' ministries. The worn gravestone had toppled, but the wording was plain: Neely Hawkins Died April 16, 1902.. It also features audio recordings in which descendants recall memories, from segregated education to family migration away from the South. If youre already a subscriber or donor, thank you! The students organized a protest and a sit-in, using the hashtag #GU272 for the slaves who were sold. Slavery was much more than the theft of labor; it was the deprivation of liberty for which this country professes so loudly. We encourage you to share the site on social media. On Juneteenth, the debate comes to Congress. Share with your friends! [45] Patrick and Woolfolk's slaves were then sold in July 1859 to Emily Sparks, the widow of Austin Woolfolk. [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. She is outraged that the churchs leaders sanctioned the buying and selling of slaves, and that Georgetown profited from the sale of her ancestors. This indispensable guide presents academic administrators and staff with advice on building an equity-minded campus culture, aligning strategic priorities and institutional missions to advance equity, understanding equity-minded data analysis, developing campus strategies for making excellence inclusive, and moving from a first-generation equity educator to an equity-minded practitioner. He demanded that Mulledy travel to Rome to answer the charges of disobeying orders and promoting scandal. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime. Anne Marie Becraft Hall, formerly known as McSherry Hall and renamed Remembrance Hall two years ago, is named for a free woman of color who established a school in the town of Georgetown for black girls. Now students, professors and alumni want to know what happened to those men and women and what the university will do moving forward. list of slaves sold by georgetown university. Enslaved, marginalized and forced into illiteracy by laws that prohibited them from learning to read and write, many seem like ghosts who pass through this world without leaving a trace. Many have been located; however, it is difficult to determine exactly how many were exploited by the University in this financial transaction. [32] An unknown number of slaves may also have run away and escaped transportation. New England ship builders made ships to bring people to this country. Father Van de Velde begged Jesuit leaders to send money for the construction of a church that would provide for the salvation of those poor people, who are now utterly neglected.. [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. Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: A Guide for Campus-Based Leadership and Practice is a vital wealth of information for college and university presidents and provosts, academic and student affairs professionals, faculty, and practitioners who seek to dismantle institutional barriers that stand in the way of achieving equity, specifically racial equity to achieve equitable outcomes in higher education. She listened, stunned, as he told her about her great-great-grandfather, Cornelius Hawkins, who had labored on a plantation just a few miles from where she grew up. James Van de Veldes. [13], Beginning in 1800, there were instances of the Jesuit plantation managers freeing individual slaves or permitting slaves to purchase their freedom. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during a morning Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope. It lists the slaves by name according to plantation where they lived, identifies family groups, and records which ship (1, 2, or 3) they were shipped in. [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. The sale prompted immediate outcry from fellow Jesuits. This is not a disembodied group of people, who are nameless and faceless, said Mr. Cellini, 52, whose company, Briefcase Analytics, is based in Cambridge, Mass. This admissions preference has been described by historian Craig Steven Wilder as the most significant measure recently taken by a university to account for its historical relationship with slavery. A Jesuit reports on the slaves' religious life in Louisiana, 1848, Chatham Plantation, Ascension Parish, Louisiana. James Van de Velde, a Jesuit who visited Louisiana, wrote in a letter in 1848. Cardinal McElroy responds to his critics on sexual sin, the Eucharist, and LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics, Worried you retired too early? She was the citys first black woman television anchor. To pay that debt, the university sold 272 slaves the very people that helped build the school itself. It is interesting that the date was June 19th as many years later, it was on what is now recognized as Juneteenth. [34] Many Maryland Jesuits were outraged by the sale, which they considered to be immoral, and many of them wrote graphic, emotional accounts of the sale to Roothaan. The children with Mr.. By the 1840s, word was trickling back to Washington that the slaves new owners had broken their promises. 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. We can't do it without youAmerica Media relies on generous support from our readers. [4] Many of these slaves were gifted to the Jesuits, while others were purchased. Thomas Lilly reported. He might have disappeared from view again for a time, save for something few could have counted on: his deep, abiding faith. 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. They recognize that despite their principals, they recognized the theft of labor, the destruction of families and the long term devastation that this inflicted on an entire race of people. Are You A Liturgist With A Passion to Form Young Adults? It also notes slaves who had run away, and those who had been "married off." Joseph Zwinge (identified as "J.Z.") He was not yet five feet tall when he sailed onboard the Katharine Jackson, one of several vessels that carried the slaves to the port of New Orleans. The university created the liturgy in partnership with members of the descendant community, the Archdiocese of Washington and the Society of Jesus in the United States. As early as the 1780s, Dr. Rothman found, they openly discussed the need to cull their stock of human. The slaves were also identified as collateral in the event that Johnson, Batey, and their guarantors defaulted on their payments. Password reset instructions will be sent to your registered email address. [5] The first record of slaves working Jesuit plantations in Maryland dates to 1711, but it is likely that there were slave laborers on the plantations a generation before then. But thewebsiteincludes a spreadsheet of 314 individuals whom genealogists have identified as being part of the group sold by the Jesuit priests. After the sale, Cornelius vanishes from the public record until 1851 when his trail finally picks back up on a cotton plantation near Maringouin, La. The presidents of Harvard University and Georgetown University discuss their institutions historic ties to slavery in a conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates. IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO USE CAUTION WHEN DISTRIBUTING PRIVATE INFORMATION. [27] Johnson allowed these slaves to remain in Maryland because he intended to return and try to buy their spouses as well. 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. There is joy in that, she said, exhilaration even. It soon became clear that Roothaan's conditions had not been fully met. . [46] Due to financial difficulties, Johnson sold half his property, including some of the slaves he had purchased in 1838, to Philip Barton Key in 1844. The 1970s saw an increase in public scholarship on the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership. Of the sum, $8,000 was used to satisfy a financial obligation that,[23] following a long-running and contentious dispute, Pope Pius VII had previously determined the Maryland Jesuits owed to Archbishop Ambrose Marchal of Baltimore and his successors. [24], Mulledy quickly made arrangements to carry out the sale. In fact, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, University of Virginia did as well. [67] The university also gave permanent names to the two buildings. However, the remainder of the money received did go to funding Jesuit formation. Maryland Province Archives at Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, A passage from the Rev. The date when the last slaves were freed in Texas 18 months after they had officially freed at the end of the Civil War. [39], While Roothaan ordered that the proceeds of the sale be used to provide for the training of Jesuits, the initial $25,000 was not used for that purpose. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! Georgetown and the Society of Jesus Maryland Province have issued an apology for their role in this action to more than 100 descendants who had been traced at the time of the apology. 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. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. These are real people with real names and real descendants.. Ms. Crump is a familiar figure in Baton Rouge. They worried that new owners might not allow the slaves to practice their Catholic faith. 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. Mismanaged and inefficient, the Maryland plantations no longer offered a reliable source of income for Georgetown College, which had been founded in 1789. The students organized a protest and a sit-in, using the hashtag #GU272 for the slaves who were sold. The enslaved were grandmothers and grandfathers, carpenters and blacksmiths, pregnant women and anxious fathers, children and infants, who were fearful, bewildered and despairing as they saw their families and communities ripped apart by the sale of 1838. It will challenge and change your understanding of what we were as Americans and of what we are. Chicago Tribune In this groundbreaking historical expos, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history an Age of Neo slavery that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II. It is better to prevent than to attempt to remedy. Dubuisson described how the public reputation of the Jesuits in Washington and Virginia declined as a result of the sale. 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. [72] In 2021, the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States pledged to raise $100million for a newly created Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation, which would aim to ultimately raise $1billion, with the purpose of working for the benefit of descendants of all slaves owned by the Jesuits. Moreover, men and women held in bondage were also part of the day-to-day operation of Georgetown College in its early decades. [41] The Jesuits never received the total $115,000 that was owed under the agreement. American Ancestors announced the new GU272 Memory Project website on Wednesday (June 19), the anniversary of Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when some American slaves learned they had been freed. As a frequent reader of our website, you know how important Americas voice is in the conversation about the church and the world. In 2019, 66 percent of Georgetown students voted in a referendum to add a $27.20 student fee to be. The condition of slaves on the plantations varied over time, as did the condition of the Jesuits living with them. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? 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. They change every day, so check often. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. Georgetown and the College of the Holy Cross renamed buildings, and the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States pledged to raise $100 million for the descendants of slaves owned by the Jesuits. Why am I being asked to create an account? 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 $2.96 million in 2021). It lists the slaves by name according to plantation where they lived, identifies family groups, and records which ship (1, 2, or 3) they were shipped in. It is necessary to keep in mind that these people were free in their native country and enslaved once they got to America. [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. ", New England Historic Genealogical Society, "They thought Georgetown University's missing slaves were 'lost.' 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. Georgetown University announced on Tuesday it will create a fund that could generate close to $400,000 a year to benefit the descendants of slaves once sold by the university, the latest in the . (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 . In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over . if you are trying to comment, you must log in or set up a new account. [29] Some of the initial 272 slaves who were not delivered to Johnson were replaced with substitutes. The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II An astonishing book. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. They were heading to the only Catholic cemetery in Maringouin. Participants in this discussion are: Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard University. [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. [29] The slaves Mulledy gathered were sent on the three-week voyage aboard the Katherine Jackson,[27] which departed Alexandria on November 13 and arrived in New Orleans on December 6. Families would not be separated. By the 1830s, however, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably. Start Free Trial Now Our membership program offers special benefits for just $99 per year: *Unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows, *FREE Two-Day Shipping on millions of items, *Unlimited, ad-free streaming of over a million songs and more Prime benefits, Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime Start Free Trial Now. Your email address will not be published. In the uproar that followed, he was called to Rome and reassigned. ALL OF THE PEOPLE LISTED ON THIS PAGE HAVE PROFILES. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. Another building has been renamed Anne Marie Becraft Hall in honor of a free Black woman who established a school in the town of Georgetown for Girls of color. 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. [8] In reality, by the early 19th century, the Jesuit plantations were in such a state of mismanagement that the Jesuit Superior General in Rome, Tadeusz Brzozowski, sent Irish Jesuit Peter Kenney to review the operations of the Maryland Mission as a canonical visitor in 1820. 2008 - 2023 INTERESTING.COM, INC. 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. With time, Georgetown professors, students and alumni are taking a look at this portion and tracking the people sold to finance the institution. [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. Much more than a way to chat. Meanwhile, Georgetowns working group has been weighing whether the university should apologize for profiting from slave labor, create a memorial to those enslaved and provide scholarships for their descendants, among other possibilities, said Dr. Rothman, the historian. We also posted a 5 part mini-series on the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific massacres in the history of America. While they continued to support gradual emancipation, they believed that this option was becoming increasingly untenable, as the Maryland public's concern grew about the expanding number of free blacks. Books and Textbooks One of the greatest ways to advance your life choices and future. She later joined the Oblate Sisters of Providence, recognized as the oldest active Roman Catholic sisterhood in the Americas established by women of African descent. The truth was closer to home than anyone knew", "272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. From these estates, the Jesuits traveled the countryside on horseback, administering the sacraments and catechizing the Catholic laity. African-Americans are often a fleeting presence in the documents of the 1800s.