Dubuisson described how the public reputation of the Jesuits in Washington and Virginia declined as a result of the sale. 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. In fact, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, University of Virginia did as well. (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. [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. [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. [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. 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. [24] He located two Louisiana planters who were willing to purchase the slaves: Henry Johnson, a former United States Senator and governor of Louisiana, and Jesse Batey. Upon receipt of these 51, Johnson and Batey were to pay the first $25,000. people, women and others in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cupich: Critics of Pope Francis Latin Mass restrictions should listen to JPII. That alumnus, Richard J. Cellini, the chief executive of a technology company and a practicing Catholic, was troubled that neither the Jesuits nor university officials had tried to trace the lives of the enslaved African-Americans or compensate their progeny. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. The sale prompted immediate outcry from fellow Jesuits. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during a morning Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope. If youre already a subscriber or donor, thank you! [19] At the congregation, the senior Jesuits in Maryland voted six to four to proceed with a sale of the slaves,[20] and Dubuisson submitted to the Superior General a summary of the moral and financial arguments on either side of the debate. [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. Some children were sold without their parents, records show, and slaves were dragged off by force to the ship, 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 Now that we have this data, my hope is that we can use it to open doors and make connections. The college relied on Jesuit plantations in Maryland to help finance its operations, university officials say. She was the citys first black woman television anchor. Revealed: The Slave Sold to Save Georgetown by Stacy M. Brown March 22, 2017 Frank Campbell was sold in 1838 to help save Georgetown. Check out some of the. The presidents of Harvard University and Georgetown University discuss their institutions historic ties to slavery in a conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Jesuits decided that the elderly would not be sold south and instead would be permitted to remain in Maryland. ). Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. She feels great sadness as she envisions Cornelius as a young boy, torn from everything he knew. [70], The Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen was created in 1792 to preserve the property of the. So Judy Riffel, one of the genealogists hired by Mr. Cellini, began following a chain of weddings and births, baptisms and burials. We have been here since the founding of this country, and we are a significant part of the American experience.. On Juneteenth, the debate comes to Congress. We also posted a 5 part mini-series on the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific massacres in the history of America. But priests at the Jesuit plantations recounted the panic and fear they witnessed when the slaves departed. 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. [70], In 2019, undergraduate students at Georgetown voted in a non-binding referendum to impose a symbolic reparations fee of $27.20 per student. Books and Textbooks One of the greatest ways to advance your life choices and future. One-hundred-seventy-eight years ago, Georgetown University was free to everyone who was able to attend; it was also massively in debt. This resulted in families being split for economic reasons with no consideration of human relationships. They also established schools on their lands. He was allowed to continue paying well beyond the ten years initially allowed, and continued to do so until just before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, during the Civil War. We see that slavery was MUCH more than depriving people of their liberty and theft of their services, it was the cruel and long lasting emotional devastation of selling away loved ones, taking indecent liberties, cruel and inhumane treatment and so much more. 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. Cardinal McElroy responds to his critics on sexual sin, the Eucharist, and LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics, Worried you retired too early? THEY NEED TO BE FOUND AND LINKED. 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. March 24, 2017. [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. if you are trying to comment, you must log in or set up a new account. [136] Eufrosina Hinard (born 1777), a free black woman in New Orleans, she owned slaves and leased them to others. Thomas F. Mulledy, president of Georgetown from 1829 to 1838, and again from 1845 to 1848, arranged the sale. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. 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. In the case of Amazon, please use our links whenever you shop. With time, Georgetown professors, students and alumni are taking a look at this portion and tracking the people sold to finance the institution. [9] The main crops grown were tobacco and corn. That man, Thomas Mulledy, then the president of Georgetown University, had sold 272 slaves to pay off a massive debt strangling the university. [38] While McSherry initially persuaded Roothaan to forgo removing Mulledy,[37] in August 1839, Roothaan resolved that Mulledy must be removed to quell the ongoing scandal. (Ms. Bayonne-Johnson discovered her connection through an earlier effort by the university to publish records online about the Jesuit plantations.). Thomas Hibbert (1710-1780), English merchant, he became rich from slave labor on his Jamaican plantations. Soon, the two men and their teams were working on parallel tracks. Meet Paul Haring, the CNS photographer who covered the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Francis, numerous international papal trips and the daily action of Vatican life for over a decade. This coincided with a protest by a group of students against keeping Mulledy's and McSherry's names on the buildings the day before. (The two men would swap positions by 1838.). Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime . Georgetown has renamed one of its buildings Isaac Hawkins Hall named after the first enslaved on the list of the account of the sale. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. But this was no ordinary slave sale. To pay that debt, the university sold 272 slaves the very people that helped build the school itself. The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. [13], Beginning in 1800, there were instances of the Jesuit plantation managers freeing individual slaves or permitting slaves to purchase their freedom. 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. As a result, he had to sell his property in the 1840s and renegotiate the terms of his payment. [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. CNN In 1838, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the university's debts. We encourage you to share the site on social media. Behind her are sugar plantations and the sugar mill where her ancestors worked. But he said he could not stop thinking about the slaves, whose names had been in Georgetowns archives for decades. It soon became clear that Roothaan's conditions had not been fully met. A Jesuit reports on the slaves' religious life in Louisiana, 1848, Chatham Plantation, Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Jesse Batey died in 1851 and the White Oak Plantation was sold. A notation on the second page indicates that it was discovered by Fr. Use our links to Amazon anytime you shop Amazon. Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. [69] Several groups of descendants have been created, which have lobbied Georgetown University and the Society of Jesus for reparations, and groups have disagreed with the form that their desired reparations should take. 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. James Van de Veldes. However, the remainder of the money received did go to funding Jesuit formation. [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. A fantastic research tool with video camera, navigation programs and so much more. [32] An unknown number of slaves may also have run away and escaped transportation. Ms. Crump, a retired television news anchor, was driving to Maringouin, her hometown, in early February when her cellphone rang. This is the original list of slaves from the Jesuit plantations compiled in preparation for the sale in 1838. 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. They were heading to the only Catholic cemetery in Maringouin. We encourage you to visit our website, call us at (202)-687-8330, or email us at descendants@georgetown.edu if you are interested in learning more or sharing your ideas and reflections. We also hope to work with you on additional opportunities for engaging with those who many not be able to attend in-person gatherings. While it would seem as if there would be some mention of this in history, it remained largely unknown. 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. 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 internal slave trade in the United States, also known as the domestic slave trade, the Second Middle Passage and the interregional slave trade, was the term for the domestic trade of enslaved people within the United States that reallocated slaves across states during the Antebellum period.It was most significant after 1808, when the importation of slaves was prohibited. 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). Alfred Francis Russell (1817-1884), 10th President of Liberia. It would be better to suffer financial disaster than suffer the loss of our souls with the sale of the slaves, wrote the Rev. 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. 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? [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. We encourage you to use these links as we receive a small royalty paid by the partner allowing you to help us without cost to you. Following Batey's death, his West Oak plantation and the slaves living there were sold in January 1853 to Tennessee politician Washington Barrow and Barrow's son, John S. Barrow, a resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. ", New England Historic Genealogical Society, "They thought Georgetown University's missing slaves were 'lost.' 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. [2] As the sole ministers of Catholicism in Maryland at the time, the Jesuit estates became the centers of Catholicism. It also notes slaves who had run away, and those who had been "married off." The Jesuits ultimately received payment many years late and never received the full $115,000. 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. The two women drove on the narrow roads that line the green, rippling sugar cane fields in Iberville Parish. The slaves were also identified as collateral in the event that Johnson, Batey, and their guarantors defaulted on their payments. [35][34] Benedict Fenwick, the Bishop of Boston, privately lamented the fate of the slaves and considered the sale an extreme measure. Melvin Robert and Joya Mia Italiano look into Georgetown Universitys response on the Lip News. The date when the last slaves were freed in Texas 18 months after they had officially freed at the end of the Civil War. An alumnus, following the protest from afar, wondered if more needed to be done. Many of them baptized Catholic, they were bought by planters to work. Documents provide the factual framework, but people supply the human story.. The New York Times would like to hear from people who have done research into their genealogical history. We shop for the best values for you. In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over . [36], Soon after the sale, Roothaan decided that Mulledy should be removed as provincial superior. Although modern slavery is not always easy to recognize, it continues to exist in nearly every country. In the uproar that followed, he was called to Rome and reassigned. [27], The articles of agreement listed each of the slaves being sold by name. Your email address will not be published. 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. If you login and register your print subscription number with your account, youll have unlimited access to the website. Descendants are learning new links to their pasts as a result of the project. [47], While the 1838 slave sale gave rise to scandal at the time, the event eventually faded out of the public awareness. [24], Johnson was unable to pay according to the schedule of the agreement. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. Several substitutions were made to the initial list of those to be sold, and 91 of those initially listed remained in Maryland. And she learned that Cornelius had worked the soil of a 2,800-acre estate that straddled the Bayou Maringouin. [68], Georgetown University also extended to descendants of slaves that the Jesuits owned or whose labor benefitted the university the same preferential legacy status in university admission given to children of Georgetown alumni. [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. [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. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! Slavery was much more than the theft of labor; it was the deprivation of liberty for which this country professes so loudly. Father Mulledy promised his superiors that the slaves would continue to practice their religion.