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Much more than a way to chat. The sale of 272 slaves in 1838 rescued the College from crushing debt. June 1838 the University benefited from the sale of 272 slaves, some as young as 2 months old to finance the ailing institution. The slaves were also identified as collateral in the event that Johnson, Batey, and their guarantors defaulted on their payments. 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. ", What We Know: Report to the President of The College of The Holy Cross 2016, "Historical Timeline: Events Affecting the GU272 from the 1838 Sale to the Present", "Bill of Sale from the Heirs of Jesse Batey to Washington Barrow, January 18, 1853", "Bill of Sale for Land and People from Washington Barrow to William Patrick and Joseph B. Woolfolk, February 4, 1856", "Bill of Sale for Land and 138 People from William Patrick and Joseph Woolfolk to Emily Sparks, Widow of Austin Woolfolk, July 16, 1859", "Henry Johnson's Sales of Enslaved Persons, 18441851", Report of the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation 2016, "University Requests Change in Use for Ryan Hall and Mulledy Hall", "Renovation of Former Jesuit Residence Beginning May 19", "Slavery's Remnants, Buried and Overlooked", "Georgetown University to rename two buildings that reflect school's ties to slavery", "Announcing the Working Group on Slavery, Memory & Reconciliation", "Concrete Expressions of Georgetown's Jesuit Heritage: A Photographic Sampler of Campus Buildings and the Jesuits for Whom They are Named From the University Archives", "Heeding Demands, University Renames Buildings", "Mulledy Name To Be Removed From BrooksMulledy Hall", "President's Response to Report of the Mulledy/Healy Legacy Committee", "Georgetown Apologizes, Renames Halls After Slaves", "Georgetown Apologizes for 1838 Sale of More Than 270 Enslaved, Dedicates Buildings", "Georgetown University Plans Steps to Atone for Slave Past", "For Georgetown, Jesuits and Slavery Descendants, Bid for Racial Healing Sours Over Reparations", "Georgetown Students Agree to Create Reparations Fund", "Catholic Order Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Slave Labor and Sales", "Saving Souls and Selling Them: Jesuit Slaveholding and the Georgetown Slavery Archive", "Foundation and First Administration of the Maryland Province, Part I: Background", "Catholic Slaveowners and the Development of Georgetown University's Slave Hiring System, 17921862", Report of the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation to the President of Georgetown University, The Lost Jesuit Slaves of Maryland: Searching for 91 people left behind in 1838, What We Know: Report to the President of The College of The Holy Cross, Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project, Video of Isaac Hawkins Hall dedication ceremony from C-SPAN, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1838_Jesuit_slave_sale&oldid=1141447737, This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 03:24. 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. Share with your friends! 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? CONTENT MAY BE COPYRIGHTED BY WIKITREE COMMUNITY MEMBERS. Thomas R. Murphy, a historian at Seattle University who has written a book about the Jesuits and slavery. In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over . [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. Ta-Nehisi Coates, National Correspondent, The Atlantic Recorded Thursday, September 29, 2016, at the Washington Ideas Forum. It was his Catholicism, born on the Jesuit plantations of his childhood, that would provide researchers with a road map to his descendants. Banks would finance land purchases using slaves as collateral. 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. [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. (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 plantation would be sold again and again and again, records show, but Corneliuss family remained intact. In the case of Amazon, please use our links whenever you shop. More than half were younger than 20, and nearly a third were not yet 10 years old. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. Georgetown was a prominent Jesuit priests. Now comes the task of making amends. There was no need for a map. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. [24], Mulledy quickly made arrangements to carry out the sale. His children and grandchildren also embraced the Catholic church. But priests at the Jesuit plantations recounted the panic and fear they witnessed when the slaves departed. Unknown because that portion of history is so like anything that reflects on the horrors of slavery preempted from our history. [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. This was only a portion of the slaves bought and sold by the Maryland Jesuits over time.[1]. [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. [27] Johnson allowed these slaves to remain in Maryland because he intended to return and try to buy their spouses as well. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during a morning Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope. [8] These consisted primarily of the plantations of White Marsh in Prince George's County, St. Inigoes and Newtown Manor in St. Mary's County, St. Thomas Manor in Charles County, and Bohemia Manor in Cecil County. They change every day, so check often. This sale was overseen by Provincial Superior William McSherry and Friar Thomas Mulledy. (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. In the list are links to affiliate partners. It would not survive, Father Mulledy feared, without an influx of cash. Please see also: Slaves Transported on the Katherine Jackson of Georgetown, Arriving New Orleans 6 Dec 1838, Source: "List of slaves on each estate to be sold," Box 40, Folder 10, Maryland Province Archives[2], Categories: Ascension Parish, Louisiana, Slave Owners | Ascension Parish, Louisiana, Slaves | Iberville Parish, Louisiana, Slave Owners | Iberville Parish, Louisiana, Slaves | Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia | Georgetown University Slaves | District of Columbia, Slave Owners | District of Columbia, Slaves | Maryland, Slaves | Maryland, Slave Owners, WIKITREE HOME | ABOUT | G2G FORUM | HELP | SEARCH. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Catholic Church were among the largest slaveholding institutions in America. . [50], The 1838 slave sale returned to the public's awareness in the mid-2010s. The number of slaves transported to Louisiana (206) and the number left in Maryland (91) add up to 297, not 272, because some of the 272 slaves initially identified to be sold were substituted with replacements. March 24, 2017. 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. 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). 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. 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. ). With time, Georgetown professors, students and alumni are taking a look at this portion and tracking the people sold to finance the institution. Thomas F. Mulledy and the Rev. Share. Georgetown University (Daniel Slim/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images) Article A genealogical organization launched a free website Wednesday to help those who want to learn more about the. Use our links to Amazon anytime you shop Amazon. As part of an ongoing consideration to this atrocity Georgetown is seeking to rectify their prior actions and, in a speech delivered to descendants of the identified descendants delivered this message: Today the Society of Jesus, who helped to establish Georgetown University and whose leaders enslaved and mercilessly sold your ancestors, stands before you to say that we have greatly sinned, said Rev. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. 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. [51] Other historians covered the subject in literature published between the 1980s and 2000s. 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. [67] The university also gave permanent names to the two buildings. We shop for the best values for you. While the school did own a small number of slaves over its early decades,[13] its main relationship with slavery was the leasing of slaves to work on campus,[14] a practice that continued past the 1838 slave sale. [4][a] Several of the Jesuits' slaves unsuccessfully attempted to sue for their freedom in the courts in the 1790s. The U.S. Department of State defines modern slavery as "the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled . Why am I being asked to create an account? 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. Thomas F. Mulledy, president of Georgetown from 1829 to 1838, and again from 1845 to 1848, arranged the sale. [18], The Maryland Jesuits, having been elevated from a mission to the status of a province in 1833,[17] held their first general congregation in 1835, where they considered again what to do with their plantations. 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. 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. The ship manifest of the Katharine Jackson, available in full at the. A fantastic research tool with video camera, navigation programs and so much more. In addition to becoming physically dilapidated, all but one of the plantations had fallen into debt. [41] The Jesuits never received the total $115,000 that was owed under the agreement. This is the original list of slaves from the Jesuit plantations compiled in preparation for the sale in 1838. Georgetown has renamed one of its buildings Isaac Hawkins Hall named after the first enslaved on the list of the account of the sale. Today, the universitys leaders, students and alumni are grappling with how to confront that history. Key then transferred this property to John R. Thompson. Joseph Zwinge (identified as "J.Z.") (The two men would swap positions by 1838.). [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. He might have disappeared from view again for a time, save for something few could have counted on: his deep, abiding faith. This was a great cause of the wealth of the slaveowners who took advantage of land stolen from the original owners, the Native Americans who had lived here for centuries. 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.. The college relied on Jesuit plantations in Maryland to help finance its operations, university officials say. [37] Roothaan was particularly concerned because it had become clear that, contrary to his order, families had been separated by the slaves' new owners. people, women and others in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cupich: Critics of Pope Francis Latin Mass restrictions should listen to JPII. Acknowledging the changing realities and increasing demands placed on contemporary postsecondary education, this book meets educators where they are and offers an effective design framework for what it means to move beyond equity being a buzzword in higher education. The researchers have used archival records to follow their footsteps, from the Jesuit plantations in Maryland, to the docks of New Orleans, to three plantations west and south of Baton Rouge, La. But the revelations about her lineage and the church she grew up in have unleashed a swirl of emotions. [27] The agreement provided that 51 slaves would be sent to the port of Alexandria, Virginia in order to be shipped to Louisiana. 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. [3], Much of this land was put to use as plantations, the revenue from which financed the Jesuits' ministries. Georgetown University Archives The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. Documents provide the factual framework, but people supply the human story.. [137] Thomas C. Hindman (1828-1868), American politician and Confederate general. Today, these enslaved people are known collectively as the GU272 Ancestors. Genealogists have identified many of the original people who were sold, along with over 9000 of their descendants. 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. 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. Jan Roothaan, who headed the Jesuits international organization from Rome and was initially reluctant to authorize the sale. 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. It soon became clear that Roothaan's conditions had not been fully met. The first payment on the remaining $90,000 would become due after five years. 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. 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. 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). But the 1838 slave sale organized by the Jesuits, who founded and ran Georgetown, stands out for its sheer size, historians say. In fact, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, University of Virginia did as well. In the uproar that followed, he was called to Rome and reassigned. Georgetown Jesuits enslaved her ancestors. We receive a small royalty without cost to you. Many of them baptized Catholic, they were bought by planters to work. As early as the 1780s, Dr. Rothman found, they openly discussed the need to cull their stock of human beings. He listened . One-hundred-seventy-eight years ago, Georgetown University was free to everyone who was able to attend; it was also massively in debt. Her ancestors, once amorphous and invisible, are finally taking shape in her mind. [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. 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.. Photo by Claire Vail. 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. Interview: Whats it like to photograph Pope Francis? In recognizing the role Georgetown in the use of slaves as money, they are recognizing some of the depths of what slavery actually represented. Georgetown is not the first or only university to own slaves. [15] Alice Clifton (c. 1772-unknown), as an enslaved teenager, she was a defendant in an infanticide trial in 1787. They also established schools on their lands. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! [24] When he returned in November to gather the rest of the slaves, the plantation managers had their slaves flee and hide. [34] During the controversy, Mulledy fell into alcoholism. 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. One building was renamed for Isaac Hawkins, first on the list of the 272 human beings sold in 1838. [12], One of the Maryland Jesuits' institutions, Georgetown College (later known as Georgetown University), also rented slaves. The sale however is the largest one acknowledged to date. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-search-for-slave-descendants.html. [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. History has attempted to take the sting out of it which is impossible. Some of that money helped to pay off the debts of the struggling college. 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. Your source for jobs, books, retreats, and much more. Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime . Youll never know where you came from, said Mlisande Short-Colomb, a descendant of the group of slaves, in a statement about the project. This resulted in families being split for economic reasons with no consideration of human relationships. Thomas Lilly reported. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. The institution came under fire last fall, with students demanding justice for the slaves in the 1838 sale. Isaac Hawkins was the first enslaved person listed in the 1838 sale document. [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. 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. In 2017, Georgetown University held aday of remembranceduring which the president of the Jesuit order apologized to more than 100 descendants attending a contrition liturgy. Your email address will not be published. [45] Patrick and Woolfolk's slaves were then sold in July 1859 to Emily Sparks, the widow of Austin Woolfolk. [26] Johnson and Batey were to be held jointly and severally liable and each additionally identified a responsible party as a guarantor. 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. Others, including two of Corneliuss uncles, ran away before they could be captured. But on this day, in the fall of 1838, no one was spared: not the 2-month-old baby and her mother, not the field hands, not the shoemaker and not Cornelius Hawkins, who was about 13 years old when he was forced onboard. Jesse Batey died in 1851 and the White Oak Plantation was sold. Please contact us at members@americamedia.org with any questions. Are You A Liturgist With A Passion to Form Young Adults? Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. 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. The two feared that because the public would not accept additional manumitted blacks, the Jesuits would be forced to sell their slaves en masse. 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 . Father Mulledy took most of the down payment he received from the sale about $500,000 in todays dollars and used it to help pay off the debts that Georgetown had incurred under his leadership. 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. Cornelius had originally been shipped to a plantation so far from a church that he had married in a civil ceremony. Your email address will not be published. Her great-uncle had the name, as did one of her cousins. Ms. Crump is a familiar figure in Baton Rouge. [49] There was periodic and sometimes extensive coverage of both the sale and the Jesuits' slave ownership in various literature. Cardinal McElroy responds to his critics on sexual sin, the Eucharist, and LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics, Worried you retired too early? [5] McSherry delayed selling the slaves because their market value had greatly diminished as a result of the Panic of 1837,[24] and because he was searching for a buyer who would agree to these conditions. The records describe runaways, harsh plantation conditions and the anguish voiced by some Jesuits over their participation in a system of forced servitude. Ms. Crump, a retired television news anchor, was driving to Maringouin, her hometown, in early February when her cellphone rang. 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. [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. The children with Mr.. Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. 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. After the Jesuits vacated the buildings, Ryan and Mulledy Halls lay vacant, while Gervase Hall was put to other use. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying for deliverance. She runs a nonprofit, Dialogue on Race Louisiana, that offers educational programs on institutional racism and ways to combat it. Some children were sold without their parents, records show, and slaves were dragged off by force to the ship, the Rev. [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. 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. Thomas F. Mulledy and the Rev. One building is now named in honor of a slave who was 65 years old when he was sold in 1838. A microcosm of the whole history of American slavery, Dr. Rothman said. Freedom Hall became Isaac Hawkins Hall, after the first slave listed on the articles of agreement for the 1838 sale. 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. 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. 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. 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. 2023 A Month of Tribute to 31 Women We Should All Know, Rosewood A Typical Race Riot in America. Eventually, Roothaan removed Thomas Mulledy as provincial superior for disobeying orders and promoting scandal, exiling him to Nice for several years. By the 1830s, however, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably. Although modern slavery is not always easy to recognize, it continues to exist in nearly every country. Some tips for making the most of your twilight years. 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. (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 articles of agreement listed each of the slaves by name to be sold. [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. CNN In 1838, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the university's debts. The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II An astonishing book. this helps us promote a safe and accountable online community, and allows us to update you when other commenters reply to your posts. The Jesuits used the proceeds to benefit then-Georgetown College.