list of slaves sold by georgetown university

In November, the university agreed to remove the names of the Rev. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. An inspector scrutinized the cargo on Dec. 6, 1838. The Society of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits, established its first presence in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Thirteen Colonies alongside the first settlers of the British Province of Maryland, which had been founded as a Catholic colony and refuge. [31][b] There are several reasons many slaves were left behind. 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? [12], One of the Maryland Jesuits' institutions, Georgetown College (later known as Georgetown University), also rented slaves. Much more than a way to chat. [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. The university itself owes its existence to this history, said Adam Rothman, a historian at Georgetown and a member of a university working group that is studying ways for the institution to acknowledge and try to make amends for its tangled roots in slavery. (Slaves were often donated by prosperous parishioners.) Having descendant voices present alongside historical documents is an essential part of the GU272 narrative, said Claire Vail, the projects director for American Ancestors, in an announcement about the website. [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. Our membership program offers special benefits to college students including: * Unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping (with no minimum order size), * Exclusive deals and promotions for college students, Georgetown University confronts its history with slavery. Georgetown was a prominent Jesuit priests. 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. The week also provided opportunities for members of the descendant community to connect with one another and with Jesuits through a private vigil on Monday night, a descendant-only dinner on Tuesday evening and tours of the Maryland plantation where their ancestors were enslaved. Books and Textbooks One of the greatest ways to advance your life choices and future. She feels great sadness as she envisions Cornelius as a young boy, torn from everything he knew. He was valued at $900. That man, Thomas Mulledy, then the president of Georgetown University, had sold 272 slaves to pay off a massive debt strangling the university. We shop for the best values for you. That building is now known as Freedom Hall. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. (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 two men would swap positions by 1838.). The plantation would be sold again and again and again, records show, but Corneliuss family remained intact. Eventually, Roothaan removed Thomas Mulledy as provincial superior for disobeying orders and promoting scandal, exiling him to Nice for several years. [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. 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. Revealed: The Slave Sold to Save Georgetown by Stacy M. Brown March 22, 2017 Frank Campbell was sold in 1838 to help save Georgetown. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. 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. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn) On Oct. 29, John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University, released a university-wide letter announcing that Georgetown would commit to raising around. 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. [24], Johnson was unable to pay according to the schedule of the agreement. A white man, he admitted that he had never spent much time thinking about slavery or African-American history. 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 sale prompted immediate outcry from fellow Jesuits. His owner, Mr. Batey, had died, and Cornelius appeared on the plantations inventory, which included 27 mules and horses, 32 hogs, two ox carts and scores of other slaves. 51 slaves were to be sent to Alexandria, Virginia, then shipped to Louisiana. 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. [51] Other historians covered the subject in literature published between the 1980s and 2000s. With time, Georgetown professors, students and alumni are taking a look at this portion and tracking the people sold to finance the institution. In April 2017, Georgetown renamed buildings that had honored university leaders responsible for selling those enslaved Africans to Louisiana plantations. James Van de Velde, a Jesuit who visited Louisiana, wrote in a letter in 1848. Georgetown owned these human beings and they had been used to build the institutions physical buildings, tend farms and perform hard labor under rigid control. [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 Reflection for Saturday of the First Week of Lent, by Christopher Parker. [41] The Jesuits never received the total $115,000 that was owed under the agreement. Although the working group was established in August, it was student demonstrations at Georgetown in the fall that helped to galvanize alumni and gave new urgency to the administrations efforts. -- 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 . 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. To pay that debt, the Jesuits who ran the school, under the auspices of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, sold 272 slaves -- the very people that helped build the school itself.. [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. [29], Not all of the 272 slaves intended to be sold to Louisiana met that fate. list of slaves sold by georgetown university. [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. From the 2016 Washington Ideas Forum. 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. [70], In 2019, undergraduate students at Georgetown voted in a non-binding referendum to impose a symbolic reparations fee of $27.20 per student. In recognizing the role Georgetown in the use of slaves as money, they are recognizing some of the depths of what slavery actually represented. The 1970s saw an increase in public scholarship on the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership. We also hope to work with you on additional opportunities for engaging with those who many not be able to attend in-person gatherings. Join Amazon Prime Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime . She still wants to know more about Corneliuss beginnings, and about his life as a free man. The date when the last slaves were freed in Texas 18 months after they had officially freed at the end of the Civil War. [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. He might have disappeared from view again for a time, save for something few could have counted on: his deep, abiding faith. This resulted in families being split for economic reasons with no consideration of human relationships. Advertisement In Bayonne-Johnson's hands,. [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. After the sale, Cornelius vanishes from the public record until 1851 when his trail finally picks back up on a cotton plantation near Maringouin, La. 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. Ms. Crump, 69, has been asking herself that question, too. We pray with you today because we have greatly sinned and because we are profoundly sorry.. In the list are links to affiliate partners. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. [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. They could then make 40% on the labor of the slave and pay the bank 8%. 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. [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. 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.. The sale of 272 slaves in 1838 rescued the College from crushing debt. In the case of Amazon, please use our links whenever you shop. From these estates, the Jesuits traveled the countryside on horseback, administering the sacraments and catechizing the Catholic laity. At Georgetown, slavery and scholarship were inextricably linked. [26] Johnson and Batey were to be held jointly and severally liable and each additionally identified a responsible party as a guarantor. Three Jesuits traveled aboard The Ark and The Dove on Lord Baltimore's voyage to settle Maryland in 1634. Banks would finance land purchases using slaves as collateral. [52] In 2014, renovation began on Ryan and Mulledy Halls to convert them into a student residence. 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. The enslaved African-Americans had belonged to the nations most prominent Jesuit priests. 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. The sale however is the largest one acknowledged to date. The institution came under fire last fall, with students demanding justice for the slaves in the 1838 sale. By the 1830s, however, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably.