list of slaves sold by georgetown university

[35][34] Benedict Fenwick, the Bishop of Boston, privately lamented the fate of the slaves and considered the sale an extreme measure. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. 1838 Jesuit slave sale - Wikipedia 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. Isaac Hawkins was the first enslaved person listed in the 1838 sale document. 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. [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. But the decision to sell virtually all of their enslaved African-Americans in the 1830s left some priests deeply troubled. Your source for jobs, books, retreats, and much more. 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? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime. This resulted in families being split for economic reasons with no consideration of human relationships. 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. 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. 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. [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. We encourage you to share the site on social media. The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. Mr. Cellini was on the line. List of people sold by Fr. Thomas Mulledy in 1838 Georgetown Slavery [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. This has made people reluctant to see the past and this has had a long term harm by remaining hidden and allowed to fester. (Ms. Bayonne-Johnson discovered her connection through an earlier effort by the university to publish records online about the Jesuit plantations.). [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. In recognizing the role Georgetown in the use of slaves as money, they are recognizing some of the depths of what slavery actually represented. In 1836, the Jesuit Superior General, Jan Roothaan, authorized the provincial superior to carry out the sale on three conditions: the slaves must be permitted to practice their Catholic faith, their families must not be separated, and the proceeds of the sale must be used only to support Jesuits in training. We have been here since the founding of this country, and we are a significant part of the American experience.. 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). Jesuits commit $100 million to the descendants of people the - CNN Please contact us at members@americamedia.org with any questions. Cardinal McElroy on radical inclusion for L.G.B.T. You can also manage your account details and your print subscription after logging in. Thomas Hibbert (1710-1780), English merchant, he became rich from slave labor on his Jamaican plantations. -- Georgetown University has announced that descendants of 272 slaves, from whose sale the school profited in 1838, will receive "an advantage in the admissions process" as part of a larger . 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. Maryland Province Archives at Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, A passage from the Rev. A white man, he admitted that he had never spent much time thinking about slavery or African-American history. Jesuit priests in Maryland sold 272 slaves to Louisiana plantations in 1838 to fund Georgetown . 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. Descendants - Georgetown University Password reset instructions will be sent to your registered email address. 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. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! 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. 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. Georgetown University, GU272 Slaves - WikiTree In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over . But priests at the Jesuit plantations recounted the panic and fear they witnessed when the slaves departed. To comment or make suggestions on future posts, use Contact Us. 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. The hope was to eventually identify the slaves descendants. However, the total number of slaves is only one way to measure the level of slavery in a country. Tweet. [42], Before the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, many slaves sold by the Jesuits changed ownership several times. [52] In 2014, renovation began on Ryan and Mulledy Halls to convert them into a student residence. [37] Roothaan was particularly concerned because it had become clear that, contrary to his order, families had been separated by the slaves' new owners. A photo of the slave cabins at Laurel Valley in Thibodaux is part of the GU272 Memory Project. In April 2017, Georgetown renamed buildings that had honored university leaders responsible for selling those enslaved Africans to Louisiana plantations. Slavery was much more than the theft of labor; it was the deprivation of liberty for which this country professes so loudly. With time, Georgetown professors, students and alumni are taking a look at this portion and tracking the people sold to finance the institution. 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. 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. 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. [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. [70], In 2019, undergraduate students at Georgetown voted in a non-binding referendum to impose a symbolic reparations fee of $27.20 per student. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? She runs a nonprofit, Dialogue on Race Louisiana, that offers educational programs on institutional racism and ways to combat it. But when Ms. Riffel, the genealogist, told her where she thought he was buried, Ms. Crump knew exactly where to go. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Keynote || Radcliffe Institute WELCOME Lizabeth Cohen, Dean, Radcliffe Institute, and Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Harvard University OPENING REMARKS (12:07) Drew Gilpin Faust, President and Lincoln Professor of History, Harvard University KEYNOTE (15:51) Ta-Nehisi Coates, Journalist; National Correspondent, the Atlantic: Author, Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) and The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood (Spiegel & Grau, 2008) Conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Drew Gilpin Faust (34:37). James Van de Velde, a Jesuit who visited Louisiana, wrote in a letter in 1848. Banks would finance land purchases using slaves as collateral. Now, for the first time, Ms. Crump understood its origins. 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. Glimpses of Slavery at Georgetown College | Georgetown University Library Descendants are learning new links to their pasts as a result of the project. 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. Their panic and desperation would be mostly forgotten for more than a century. And they were sold, along with scores of others, to help secure the future of the premier Catholic institution of higher learning at the time, known today as Georgetown University. Her great-uncle had the name, as did one of her cousins. A Reflection for Saturday of the First Week of Lent, by Christopher Parker. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. Georgetown University announces reparations fund to benefit descendants Georgetown Apologizes for 1838 Sale of More - Georgetown University [45] Patrick and Woolfolk's slaves were then sold in July 1859 to Emily Sparks, the widow of Austin Woolfolk. Soon, the two men and their teams were working on parallel tracks. . So in June 1838, he negotiated a deal with Henry Johnson, a member of the House of Representatives, and Jesse Batey, a landowner in Louisiana, to sell Cornelius and the others. Are You A Liturgist With A Passion to Form Young Adults? They were looking to buy slaves in the Upper South more cheaply than they could in the Deep South, and agreed to Mulledy's asking price of approximately $400 per person. Now shes working for justice. He was valued at $900. 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. Jesse Batey died in 1851 and the White Oak Plantation was sold. [50], The 1838 slave sale returned to the public's awareness in the mid-2010s. 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. [43][44] In 1856, Washington Barrow sold the slaves he purchased from Batey to William Patrick and Joseph B. Woolfolk of Iberville Parish. New England ship builders made ships to bring people to this country. This is the original list of slaves from the Jesuit plantations compiled in preparation for the sale in 1838. [15] Alice Clifton (c. 1772-unknown), as an enslaved teenager, she was a defendant in an infanticide trial in 1787. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. Jan Roothaan, who headed the Jesuits international organization from Rome and was initially reluctant to authorize the sale. The sale however is the largest one acknowledged to date. Slave trade in the United States - Wikipedia Many have been located; however, it is difficult to determine exactly how many were exploited by the University in this financial transaction. [24], Mulledy quickly made arrangements to carry out the sale. Several substitutions were made to the initial list of those to be sold, and 91 of those initially listed remained in Maryland. He was about 48 then, a father, a husband, a farm laborer and, finally, a free man. 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. [36], Soon after the sale, Roothaan decided that Mulledy should be removed as provincial superior. The Jesuits ultimately received payment many years late and never received the full $115,000. For Black History Month 2021, we focused on Black Medical Achievements, Inventors and Scientists.To see those posts, click here. 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. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. Georgetown reparations plan for slaves sold by university draws 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. The plantation would be sold again and again and again, records show, but Corneliuss family remained intact. From these estates, the Jesuits traveled the countryside on horseback, administering the sacraments and catechizing the Catholic laity. And the 1838 sale worth about $3.3 million in todays dollars was organized by two of Georgetowns early presidents, both Jesuit priests. Dubuisson described how the public reputation of the Jesuits in Washington and Virginia declined as a result of the sale. [31][b] There are several reasons many slaves were left behind. The 1970s saw an increase in public scholarship on the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership. Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. She is outraged that the churchs leaders sanctioned the buying and selling of slaves, and that Georgetown profited from the sale of her ancestors. CNN In 1838, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the university's debts. Logging in will also give you access to commenting features on our website. Ms. Crump, a retired television news anchor, was driving to Maringouin, her hometown, in early February when her cellphone rang. [5], On June 19, 1838, Mulledy, Johnson, and Batey signed articles of agreement formalizing the sale. The truth was closer to home than anyone knew", "272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. Twenty-seven years earlier, a document dated June 19, 1838, showed that Maryland Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves to the owners of Louisiana plantations. 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. [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] 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. Modern Countries That Still Have Slavery | The Borgen Project 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? Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. The church records helped lead to a 69-year-old woman in Baton Rouge named Maxine Crump. It also features audio recordings in which descendants recall memories, from segregated education to family migration away from the South. But the 1838 slave sale organized by the Jesuits, who founded and ran Georgetown, stands out for its sheer size, historians say. The ship manifest of the Katharine Jackson, available in full at the. Thomas F. Mulledy, president of Georgetown from 1829 to 1838, and again from 1845 to 1848, arranged the sale. Continue scrolling down for more amazing information, videos, books and value items. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. Shoes and clothing were made in the North and shipped to be used by the enslaved people. History of slaves sold for Georgetown detailed in new genealogical website Melvin Robert and Joya Mia Italiano look into Georgetown Universitys response on the Lip News. [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. But this was no ordinary slave sale. 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 More than a dozen universities including Brown, Columbia, Harvard and the University of Virginia have publicly recognized their ties to slavery and the slave trade. Mr. Cellini is an unlikely racial crusader. The condition of slaves on the plantations varied over time, as did the condition of the Jesuits living with them. The Rev. [33], Almost immediately, the sale, which was one of the largest slave sales in the history of the United States,[28] became a scandal among American Catholics. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. Thomas Lilly reported. Leave a message for others who see this profile. Login to post. Georgetown is not the first or only university to own slaves. 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. Some tips for making the most of your twilight years. Today, the universitys leaders, students and alumni are grappling with how to confront that history. (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 . if you are trying to comment, you must log in or set up a new account. He addressed his concerns to Father Mulledy, who three years earlier had returned to his post as president of Georgetown. But few were lucky enough to escape. Were sorry registration isn't working smoothly for you. Georgetown is not the only institution that has prospered on the backs of enslaved people. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over a 5-year period stretching from 1838 to 1843. WASHINGTON The human cargo was loaded on ships at a bustling wharf in the nations capital, destined for the plantations of the Deep South. [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. 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). The notation betrayed no hint of the turmoil on board. 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. Ms. Crump, 69, has been asking herself that question, too. Descendants of 272 slaves sold by Georgetown priests to Louisiana later [71] The university instead decided to raise $400,000 per year in voluntary donations for the benefit of descendants. 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.. The students organized a protest and a sit-in, using the hashtag #GU272 for the slaves who were sold. [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. Now that we have this data, my hope is that we can use it to open doors and make connections. There was no need for a map. Slaves and the products they produced were responsible for well over 50% of the entire GNP of the United States. [27] The agreement provided that 51 slaves would be sent to the port of Alexandria, Virginia in order to be shipped to Louisiana. [66] In 2020, the college removed Mulledy's name. Many of them baptized Catholic, they were bought by planters to work. [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. 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,[27] Ascension Plantation (later known as Chatham Plantation) in Ascension Parish and another in Maringouin in Iberville Parish. Now they are real to me, she said, more real every day.. 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 worn gravestone had toppled, but the wording was plain: Neely Hawkins Died April 16, 1902.. [29] Some of the initial 272 slaves who were not delivered to Johnson were replaced with substitutes. 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. While it would seem as if there would be some mention of this in history, it remained largely unknown. 2023 A Month of Tribute to 31 Women We Should All Know, Rosewood A Typical Race Riot in America. [137] Thomas C. Hindman (1828-1868), American politician and Confederate general. As a result, he had to sell his property in the 1840s and renegotiate the terms of his payment. We ask readers to log in so that we can recognize you as a registered user and give you unrestricted access to our website. Georgetown's priests sold her Catholic ancestors. Then she found out in 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. Examined and found correct, he wrote of Cornelius and the 129 other people he found on the ship. Slaves were collateral and could be used to mortgage land and other goods. 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. IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO USE CAUTION WHEN DISTRIBUTING PRIVATE INFORMATION. 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. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying for deliverance. (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. 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. New website shows genealogy of descendants of slaves sold to benefit Your email address will not be published. To see the full listing of posts, click on our Blog list, For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily.