And the 1838 sale worth about $3.3 million in todays dollars was organized by two of Georgetowns early presidents, both Jesuit priests. Other industries made loads of money indirectly. [29] Some of the initial 272 slaves who were not delivered to Johnson were replaced with substitutes. But he said he could not stop thinking about the slaves, whose names had been in Georgetowns archives for decades. In 1851, Thompson purchased the second half of Johnson's property, so that by the beginning of the Civil War, all the slaves sold by Mulledy to Johnson were owned by Thompson. Jesse Batey died in 1851 and the White Oak Plantation was sold. The slaves were also identified as collateral in the event that Johnson, Batey, and their guarantors defaulted on their payments. Remembrance Hall became Anne Marie Becraft Hall, after a free black woman who founded a school for black girls in the Georgetown neighborhood and later joined the Oblate Sisters of Providence. The worn gravestone had toppled, but the wording was plain: Neely Hawkins Died April 16, 1902.. Freedom Hall became Isaac Hawkins Hall, after the first slave listed on the articles of agreement for the 1838 sale. They were heading to the only Catholic cemetery in Maringouin. [43][44] In 1856, Washington Barrow sold the slaves he purchased from Batey to William Patrick and Joseph B. Woolfolk of Iberville Parish. She is outraged that the churchs leaders sanctioned the buying and selling of slaves, and that Georgetown profited from the sale of her ancestors. 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. Some tips for making the most of your twilight years. 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. Maryland Province Archives at Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, A passage from the Rev. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying for deliverance. And she learned that Cornelius had worked the soil of a 2,800-acre estate that straddled the Bayou Maringouin. Anyone can read what you share. Required fields are marked *. In exchange, they would receive 272 slaves from the four Jesuit plantations in southern Maryland,[5][24] constituting nearly all of the slaves owned by the Maryland Jesuits. All of this was new to Ms. Crump, except for the name Cornelius or Neely, as Cornelius was known. And she would like to see Corneliuss name, and those of his parents and children, inscribed on a memorial on campus. Jan Roothaan, who headed the Jesuits international organization from Rome and was initially reluctant to authorize the sale. 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. A problem can is not solved without first recognizing it, discussing it and taking steps to rectify the long term damage that continues to this day. [42], Before the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, many slaves sold by the Jesuits changed ownership several times. Many have been located; however, it is difficult to determine exactly how many were exploited by the University in this financial transaction. (The two men would swap positions by 1838.). History has attempted to take the sting out of it which is impossible. 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. 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 Jesuits used the proceeds to benefit then-Georgetown College. Revealed: The Slave Sold to Save Georgetown by Stacy M. Brown March 22, 2017 Frank Campbell was sold in 1838 to help save Georgetown. Inspiring Stories of Black History and Achievement, 272 Slaves Sold to Finance Georgetown University. [12], One of the Maryland Jesuits' institutions, Georgetown College (later known as Georgetown University), also rented slaves. [16] Mulledy in particular felt that the plantations were a drain on the Maryland Jesuits; he urged selling the plantations as well as the slaves, believing the Jesuits were only able to support either their estates or their schools in growing urban areas: Georgetown College in Washington, D.C. and St. John's College in Frederick, Maryland. Georgetown was a prominent Jesuit priests. [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. [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. Share. Now, for the first time, Ms. Crump understood its origins. The sale prompted immediate outcry from fellow Jesuits. The grave of Cornelius Hawkins, one of 272 slaves sold by the Jesuits in 1838 to help keep what is now Georgetown University afloat.CreditWilliam Widmer for The New York Times. African-Americans are often a fleeting presence in the documents of the 1800s. Despite coverage of the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership and the 1838 sale in academic literature, news of these facts came as a surprise to the public in 2015, prompting a study of Georgetown University's and Jesuits' historical relationship with slavery. Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. 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). Now students, professors and alumni want to know what happened to those men and women and what the university will do moving forward. The children with Mr.. . Mr. Cellini was on the line. To pay that debt, the university sold 272 slaves the very people that helped build the school itself. 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). [5] In October of that year, Mulledy succeeded McSherry, who was dying, as provincial superior. For Black History Month 2021, we focused on Black Medical Achievements, Inventors and Scientists.To see those posts, click here. 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. What can you do to make amends?. As early as the 1780s, Dr. Rothman found, they openly discussed the need to cull their stock of human. They also established schools on their lands. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. 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. Colleges and universities have placed greater emphasis on education equity in recent years. Since youre a frequent reader of our website, we want to be able to share even more great, As a frequent reader of our website, you know how important, Georgetown students voted to pay for reparations. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. Michelle Miller reports. But the revelations about her lineage and the church she grew up in have unleashed a swirl of emotions. It is better to prevent than to attempt to remedy. In addition to the summary above, it is our intent to provide you with a more detailed look at the matter by providing videos and books that allow a deeper view. We encourage you to share the site on social media. There are no surviving images of Cornelius, no letters or journals that offer a look into his last hours on a Jesuit plantation in Maryland. A notation on the second page indicates that it was discovered by Fr. Login to post. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! To comment or make suggestions on future posts, use Contact Us. Thomas R. Murphy, a historian at Seattle University who has written a book about the Jesuits and slavery. 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. [54] Despite the decades of scholarship on the subject, this revelation came as a surprise to many Georgetown University members,[48][55] and some criticized the retention of Mulledy's name on the building. You can also manage your account details and your print subscription after logging in. The second is now named for a free African-American woman who founded a school for Catholic black girls in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Since 2015, Georgetown has been working to address its historical relationship to slavery and will continue to do so, a Georgetown spokesman said in a statement to Religion News Service on Friday. Slaves worked on the Jesuit plantations in Maryland that helped to sustain the Jesuits' religious and educational mission. The name had been passed down from generation to generation in her family. [15] Alice Clifton (c. 1772-unknown), as an enslaved teenager, she was a defendant in an infanticide trial in 1787. These are real people with real names and real descendants.. In letters written to Jesuit superiors in Maryland, one priest who accidentally crossed paths with the slaves in Louisiana after the sale bemoaned the fact that the slaves couldnt practice Catholicism.. [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. A photograph of Frank Campbell, one of 272 slaves sold to keep Georgetown University afloat, was found in a scrapbook at Nicholls State University in Louisiana. [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. 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. (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. The 1970s saw an increase in public scholarship on the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership. The article details how the sold slaves were transported to three Louisiana plantations, where they faced brutal treatment. At the time, the Catholic Church did not view slaveholding as immoral, said the Rev. A fantastic research tool with video camera, navigation programs and so much more. [57], In September 2015, DeGioia convened a Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation to study the slave sale and recommend how to treat it in the present day. March 24, 2017. A microcosm of the whole history of American slavery, Dr. Rothman said. In addition to becoming physically dilapidated, all but one of the plantations had fallen into debt. 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. When you register, youll get unlimited access to our website and a free subscription to our email newsletter for daily updates with a smart, Catholic take on faith and culture from. American Ancestors announced the new GU272 Memory Project website on June 19, the anniversary of Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when some American slaves learned they had been freed. To see the posts, click here. 2023 A Month of Tribute to 31 Women We Should All Know, Rosewood A Typical Race Riot in America. In total, there are 167 countries that still have slavery and around 46 million slaves today, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index.. Eventually, Roothaan removed Thomas Mulledy as provincial superior for disobeying orders and promoting scandal, exiling him to Nice for several years. Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, a descendant of another of the slaves sold by the Jesuits, is the president of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society in Spokane, Wash., which is helping to track the slaves and their families. So Judy Riffel, one of the genealogists hired by Mr. Cellini, began following a chain of weddings and births, baptisms and burials. An inspector scrutinized the cargo on Dec. 6, 1838. Isaac Hawkins was the first enslaved person listed in the 1838 sale document. The first payment on the remaining $90,000 would become due after five years. [41] The Jesuits never received the total $115,000 that was owed under the agreement. Relationship Counseling - Marriage resources, Falling in Love Finding God Marriage and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology, The problem of hatredand how Christians are contributing to it, Jesuit sex abuse expert appointed to Vatican office for child protection, Sin, hell and scrupulosity: How to repent during Lent (and how not to). 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. 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. . GU272 descendent Carolyn Smith gestures toward gravestones of descendants of enslaved people in Houma, La. Were sorry registration isn't working smoothly for you. 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. 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. Tweet. 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. Their panic and desperation would be mostly forgotten for more than a century. Through the project, genealogists have discovered 8,425 descendants of enslaved people sold in 1838. It would not survive, Father Mulledy feared, without an influx of cash. 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. He has contacted a few, including Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, president of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society in Spokane, who is helping to track the Jesuit slaves with her group. [37] As censure for the scandal,[39] Roothaan ordered Mulledy to remain in Europe,[35] and Mulledy lived in exile in Nice until 1843. Georgetown University Archives The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. The hope was to eventually identify the slaves descendants. Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. [27] Johnson allowed these slaves to remain in Maryland because he intended to return and try to buy their spouses as well. (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. [72][70] Georgetown also made a $1million donation to the foundation and a $400,000 donation to create a charitable fund to pay for healthcare and education in Maringouin, Louisiana. Use our links to Amazon anytime you shop Amazon. The articles of agreement listed each of the slaves by name to be sold. [7] In 1830, the new Superior General, Jan Roothaan, returned Kenney to the United States, specifically to address the question of whether the Jesuits should divest themselves of their rural plantations altogether, which by this time had almost completely paid down their debt. In the uproar that followed, he was called to Rome and reassigned. (Slaves were often donated by prosperous parishioners.) The remainder of the slaves were accounted for in three subsequent bills of sale executed in November 1838, which specified that 64 would go to Batey's plantation named West Oak in Iberville Parish and 140 slaves would be sent to Johnson's two plantations, Ascension Plantation (later known as Chatham Plantation) in Ascension Parish and another in Maringouin (Iberville Parish). 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. [56] An undergraduate student also brought this to public attention in several articles published by the school newspaper, The Hoya between 2014 and 2015, about the university's relationship with slavery and the slave sale. The truth was closer to home than anyone knew", "272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. Johnson and Batey agreed to pay $115,000,[5] equivalent to $2.96million in 2021,[25] over the course of ten years plus six percent annual interest. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. As early as the 1780s, Dr. Rothman found, they openly discussed the need to cull their stock of human beings. A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation A microcosm of the history of American slavery in a collection of the most important primary and secondary readings on slavery at Georgetown University and among the Maryland Jesuits Georgetown Universitys early history, closely tied to that of the Society of Jesus in Maryland, is a microcosm of the history of American slavery: the entrenchment of chattel slavery in the tobacco economy of the Chesapeake in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the contradictions of liberty and slavery at the founding of the United States; the rise of the domestic slave trade to the cotton and sugar kingdoms of the Deep South in the nineteenth century; the political conflict over slavery and its overthrow amid civil war; and slaverys persistent legacies of racism and inequality. list of slaves sold by georgetown university. 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. Continue scrolling down for more amazing information, videos, books and value items. Slaves and the products they produced were responsible for well over 50% of the entire GNP of the United States. [47], While the 1838 slave sale gave rise to scandal at the time, the event eventually faded out of the public awareness. Some children were sold without their parents, records show, and slaves were dragged off by force to the ship, the Rev. We receive a small royalty without cost to you. [65], On April 18, 2017, DeGioia, along with the provincial superior of the Maryland Province, and the president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, held a liturgy in which they formally apologized on behalf of their respective institutions for their participation in slavery. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during a morning Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope. Interview: Whats it like to photograph Pope Francis? Families would not be separated. [21], Meanwhile, in order to fund the province's operations,[22] McSherry, as the first provincial superior of the Maryland Province,[17] began selling small groups of slaves to planters in Louisiana in 1835, arguing that it was not possible to sell the slaves to local planters and that the buyers had assured him that they would not mistreat the slaves and would permit them to practice their Catholic faith. [7] As early as 1814, the trustees of the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen discussed manumitting all their slaves and abolishing slavery on the Jesuit plantations,[10] though in 1820, they decided against universal manumission. Thomas F. Mulledy and the Rev. Ms. Crump, a retired television news anchor, was driving to Maringouin, her hometown, in early February when her cellphone rang. Your email address will not be published. A few priests expressed qualms about the morality of human trafficking to Jesuit authorities, although most were concerned with the threat a heavily Protestant South would undoubtedly present to the slaves Catholic faith, it reads. In the list are links to affiliate partners. However, the remainder of the money received did go to funding Jesuit formation. Mr. Cellini, whose genealogists have already traced more than 200 of the slaves from Maryland to Louisiana, believes there may be thousands of living descendants. And the money raised by the sale would not be used to pay off debt or for operating expenses. 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. [48] In 1977, the Maryland Province named Georgetown's Lauinger Library as the custodian of its historic archives, which were made available to the public through the Georgetown University Library, Saint Louis University Library, and Maryland State Library. The Jesuits ultimately received payment many years late and never received the full $115,000. [70], In 2019, undergraduate students at Georgetown voted in a non-binding referendum to impose a symbolic reparations fee of $27.20 per student. Why am I being asked to create an account? They found the last physical marker of Corneliuss journey at the Immaculate Heart of Mary cemetery, where Ms. Crumps father, grandmother and great-grandfather are also buried. Your email address will not be published. In 1838, the Jesuit priests who ran the countrys top Catholic university needed money to keep it alive. CNN In 1838, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the university's debts. [24] When he returned in November to gather the rest of the slaves, the plantation managers had their slaves flee and hide. Ms. Crump, 69, has been asking herself that question, too. 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. Password reset instructions will be sent to your registered email address. Having descendant voices present alongside historical documents is an essential part of the GU272 narrative, said Claire Vail, the projects director for American Ancestors, in an announcement about the website. [35][34] Benedict Fenwick, the Bishop of Boston, privately lamented the fate of the slaves and considered the sale an extreme measure. However, the total number of slaves is only one way to measure the level of slavery in a country. You dont have to purchase the item in the link but using the link helps both of us and we thank you for your support. During this time, the Jesuits funded some of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in America in part through profits earned on their plantations. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. She still wants to know more about Corneliuss beginnings, and about his life as a free man. The institution came under fire last fall, with students demanding justice for the slaves in the 1838 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. [136] Eufrosina Hinard (born 1777), a free black woman in New Orleans, she owned slaves and leased them to others. [29], Not all of the 272 slaves intended to be sold to Louisiana met that fate.
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