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. But few were lucky enough to escape. Her great-uncle had the name, as did one of her cousins. There was no need for a map. A photo of the slave cabins at Laurel Valley in Thibodaux is part of the GU272 Memory Project. [29] Some of the initial 272 slaves who were not delivered to Johnson were replaced with substitutes. Although modern slavery is not always easy to recognize, it continues to exist in nearly every country. We have committed to finding ways that members of the Georgetown and Descendant communities can be engaged together in efforts that advance racial justice and enable every member of our Georgetown community to confront and engage with Georgetowns history with slavery.. [28], Anticipating that some of the Jesuit plantation managers who opposed the sale would encourage their slaves to flee, Mulledy, along with Johnson and a sheriff, arrived at each of the plantations unannounced to gather the first 51 slaves for transport. Limit 20 per day. In November, the university agreed to remove the names of the Rev. The Rev. In 1870, he appeared in the census for the first time. [35][34] Benedict Fenwick, the Bishop of Boston, privately lamented the fate of the slaves and considered the sale an extreme measure. 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. [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. The plantation would be sold again and again and again, records show, but Corneliuss family remained intact. The slaves were also identified as collateral in the event that Johnson, Batey, and their guarantors defaulted on their payments. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime. 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.. But the revelations about her lineage and the church she grew up in have unleashed a swirl of emotions. Ta-Nehisi Coates, National Correspondent, The Atlantic Recorded Thursday, September 29, 2016, at the Washington Ideas Forum. [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. Maxine Crump, 69, a descendant of one of the slaves sold by the Jesuits, in a Louisiana sugar cane field where researchers believe her ancestor once worked. (Slaves were often donated by prosperous parishioners.) [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. The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. [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. [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. Logging in will also give you access to commenting features on our website. THEY NEED TO BE FOUND AND LINKED. Jan Roothaan, who headed the Jesuits international organization from Rome and was initially reluctant to authorize the sale. And she would like to see Corneliuss name, and those of his parents and children, inscribed on a memorial on campus. 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. By the 1830s, however, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably. Jesuit Father Hans Zollner will be a consultant for the Diocese of Romes office dedicated to safeguarding minors and vulnerable people. [70], The Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen was created in 1792 to preserve the property of the. Others, including two of Corneliuss uncles, ran away before they could be captured. The worn gravestone had toppled, but the wording was plain: Neely Hawkins Died April 16, 1902.. [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. Advertisement In Bayonne-Johnson's hands,. Photo by Claire Vail. Were sorry registration isn't working smoothly for you. So Judy Riffel, one of the genealogists hired by Mr. Cellini, began following a chain of weddings and births, baptisms and burials. The truth was closer to home than anyone knew", "272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. [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. Some of that money helped to pay off the debts of the struggling college. Through the project, genealogists have discovered 8,425 descendants of enslaved people sold in 1838. He addressed his concerns to Father Mulledy, who three years earlier had returned to his post as president of Georgetown. The name had been passed down from generation to generation in her family. Now that we have this data, my hope is that we can use it to open doors and make connections. [31][b] There are several reasons many slaves were left behind. What remains is what is owed to the 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. 2023 A Month of Tribute to 31 Women We Should All Know, Rosewood A Typical Race Riot in America. 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. [67] The university also gave permanent names to the two buildings. But thewebsiteincludes a spreadsheet of 314 individuals whom genealogists have identified as being part of the group sold by the Jesuit priests. Revealed: The Slave Sold to Save Georgetown by Stacy M. Brown March 22, 2017 Frank Campbell was sold in 1838 to help save Georgetown. Dubuisson described how the public reputation of the Jesuits in Washington and Virginia declined as a result of the sale. GSA28: William Gaston entrusts a slave named Augustus to Fr. people, women and others in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cupich: Critics of Pope Francis Latin Mass restrictions should listen to JPII. At Georgetown, slavery and scholarship were inextricably linked. But he said he could not stop thinking about the slaves, whose names had been in Georgetowns archives for decades. Last edited on 25 February 2023, at 03:24, Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, abolition of slavery in the United States, Slavery at American colleges and universities, "Where were the Jesuit plantations in Maryland? The date when the last slaves were freed in Texas 18 months after they had officially freed at the end of the Civil War. In total, there are 167 countries that still have slavery and around 46 million slaves today, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index.. 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. 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. GU272 descendent Carolyn Smith gestures toward gravestones of descendants of enslaved people in Houma, La. Jesuit priests in Maryland sold 272 slaves to Louisiana plantations in 1838 to fund Georgetown . Georgetown University was an active participant in the slave trade selling upwards of 272 slaves from their Maryland run plantation to the deep south in an effort to support the then struggling university in 1838 according to The New York Times. The college relied on Jesuit plantations in Maryland to help finance its operations, university officials say. Now shes working for justice. 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. Participants in this discussion are: Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard University. 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. Cardinal McElroy responds to his critics on sexual sin, the Eucharist, and LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics, Worried you retired too early? Many institutions owned slaves and Georgetown University was no exception. This sale was the culmination of a contentious and long-running debate among the Maryland Jesuits over whether to keep, sell, or free their slaves, and whether to focus on their rural estates or on their growing urban missions, including their schools. They also knew that life on plantations in the Deep South was notoriously brutal, and feared that families might end up being separated and resold. [27], The articles of agreement listed each of the slaves being sold by name. 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. Tweet. Now comes the task of making amends. This resulted in families being split for economic reasons with no consideration of human relationships. They could then make 40% on the labor of the slave and pay the bank 8%. 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. 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. Melvin Robert and Joya Mia Italiano look into Georgetown Universitys response on the Lip News. None of those conditions were met, university officials said. If you login and register your print subscription number with your account, youll have unlimited access to the website. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. . 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. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. 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. CNN In 1838, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the university's debts. Georgetown University was an active participant in the slave trade selling upwards of 272 slaves from their Maryland run plantation to the deep south in an effort to support the then struggling university in 1838 according to The New York Times. [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. ). On Juneteenth, the debate comes to Congress. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? Michelle Miller reports. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during a morning Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope. [5], On June 19, 1838, Mulledy, Johnson, and Batey signed articles of agreement formalizing the sale. Georgetown was a prominent Jesuit priests. The sale however is the largest one acknowledged to date. Three Jesuits traveled aboard The Ark and The Dove on Lord Baltimore's voyage to settle Maryland in 1634. 2008 - 2023 INTERESTING.COM, INC. Slaves worked on the Jesuit plantations in Maryland that helped to sustain the Jesuits' religious and educational mission. Why am I being asked to create an account? For the eighth year, the Forum was hosted by The Atlantic in partnership with the Aspen Institute. [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. Your email address will not be published. This coincided with a protest by a group of students against keeping Mulledy's and McSherry's names on the buildings the day before. From these estates, the Jesuits traveled the countryside on horseback, administering the sacraments and catechizing the Catholic laity. Youll never know where you came from, said Mlisande Short-Colomb, a descendant of the group of slaves, in a statement about the project.