GSA28: William Gaston entrusts a slave named Augustus to Fr. 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. 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. Please contact us at members@americamedia.org with any questions. They were looked on not as humans but as collateral and sold to secure the future of this great Catholic institution that hold such a place of honor to this day. [48] It is one of the most well-documented slave sales of its era. 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. That man, Thomas Mulledy, then the president of Georgetown University, had sold 272 slaves to pay off a massive debt strangling the university. [11] On some plantations, the majority of slaves did not work because they were too young or old. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Catholic Church were among the largest slaveholding institutions in America. To see the posts, click here. It is interesting that the date was June 19th as many years later, it was on what is now recognized as Juneteenth. Slaves were collateral and could be used to mortgage land and other goods. She was the citys first black woman television anchor. The students organized a protest and a sit-in, using the hashtag #GU272 for the slaves who were sold. Thomas F. Mulledy and the Rev. The 1970s saw an increase in public scholarship on the Maryland Jesuits' slave ownership. On June 19, 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell 272 slaves to two southern Louisiana sugar planters, former governor Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey, for $115,000, equivalent to $2.79 million in 2020, in order to rescue Georgetown University from bankruptcy. [26] Johnson and Batey were to be held jointly and severally liable and each additionally identified a responsible party as a guarantor. 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. 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. But priests at the Jesuit plantations recounted the panic and fear they witnessed when the slaves departed. Anyone can read what you share. They worried that new owners might not allow the slaves to practice their Catholic faith. [2] As the sole ministers of Catholicism in Maryland at the time, the Jesuit estates became the centers of Catholicism. The sale of these 272 slaves, known as the GU272, saved the university from foreclosure. However, the remainder of the money received did go to funding Jesuit formation. [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. [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. He was valued at $900. We receive a small royalty without cost to you. But the 1838 slave sale organized by the Jesuits, who founded and ran Georgetown, stands out for its sheer size, historians say. 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. History has attempted to take the sting out of it which is impossible. Anne Marie Becraft Hall, formerly known as McSherry Hall and renamed Remembrance Hall two years ago, is named for a free woman of color who established a school in the town of Georgetown for black girls. If you login and register your print subscription number with your account, youll have unlimited access to the website. A fantastic research tool with video camera, navigation programs and so much more. 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. [27], The articles of agreement listed each of the slaves being sold by name. 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. [51] Other historians covered the subject in literature published between the 1980s and 2000s. In 2013, Georgetown began planning to renovate the adjacent Ryan, Mulledy, and Gervase Halls, which together served as the university's Jesuit residence until the opening of a new residence in 2003. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying for deliverance. But thewebsiteincludes a spreadsheet of 314 individuals whom genealogists have identified as being part of the group sold by the Jesuit priests. (The two men would swap positions by 1838.). The institution came under fire last fall, with students demanding justice for the slaves in the 1838 sale. One building is now named in honor of a slave who was 65 years old when he was sold in 1838. 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. Please visit ourmembership pageto learn how you can invest in our work by subscribing to the magazine or making a donation. She feels great sadness as she envisions Cornelius as a young boy, torn from everything he knew. 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. Revealed: The Slave Sold to Save Georgetown by Stacy M. Brown March 22, 2017 Frank Campbell was sold in 1838 to help save Georgetown. And the 1838 sale worth about $3.3 million in todays dollars was organized by two of Georgetowns early presidents, both Jesuit priests. History must be faced in order to heal and move forward! 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 . Families would not be separated. They also established schools on their lands. The Jesuits used the proceeds to benefit then-Georgetown College. [5], On June 19, 1838, Mulledy, Johnson, and Batey signed articles of agreement formalizing the sale. CONTENT MAY BE COPYRIGHTED BY WIKITREE COMMUNITY MEMBERS. The ship manifest of the Katharine Jackson, available in full at the. The name had been passed down from generation to generation in her family. [43][44] In 1856, Washington Barrow sold the slaves he purchased from Batey to William Patrick and Joseph B. Woolfolk of Iberville Parish. In November, the university agreed to remove the names of the Rev. 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. [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. Her ancestors, once amorphous and invisible, are finally taking shape in her mind. 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. 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. 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. [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. Some wrote emotional letters to Roothaan denouncing the morality of the sale. Father Mulledy promised his superiors that the slaves would continue to practice their religion. Limit 20 per day. [15], While Roothaan decided in 1831, based on the advice of the Maryland Mission superior, Francis Dzierozynski, that the Jesuits should maintain and improve their plantations rather than sell them, Kenney and his advisors (Thomas Mulledy, William McSherry, and Stephen Dubuisson) wrote to Roothaan in 1832 about the growing public opposition to slavery in the United States, and strongly urged Roothaan to allow the Jesuits to gradually free their slaves. [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. Ms. Crump is a familiar figure in Baton Rouge. He might have disappeared from view again for a time, save for something few could have counted on: his deep, abiding faith. The first payment on the remaining $90,000 would become due after five years. If youre already a subscriber or donor, thank you! In the case of Amazon, please use our links whenever you shop. (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. Others, including two of Corneliuss uncles, ran away before they could be captured. There was no need for a map. 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. She still wants to know more about Corneliuss beginnings, and about his life as a free man. 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. On June 19, 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell 272 slaves to two southern Louisiana sugar planters, former governor Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey, for $115,000, equivalent to $2.79 million in 2020, in order to rescue Georgetown University from bankruptcy. Soon, the two men and their teams were working on parallel tracks. [34] During the controversy, Mulledy fell into alcoholism. (Valuable Plantation and Negroes for Sale, read one newspaper advertisement in 1852.). 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. You can either click on the link in your confirmation email or simply re-enter your email address below to confirm it. It would be better to suffer financial disaster than suffer the loss of our souls with the sale of the slaves, wrote the Rev. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. They could then make 40% on the labor of the slave and pay the bank 8%. Isaac Hawkins was the first enslaved person listed in the 1838 sale document. 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. Descendants are learning new links to their pasts as a result of the project. 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. It is also emblematic of the complex entanglement of American higher education and religious institutions with slavery. Much more than a way to chat. WASHINGTON The human cargo was loaded on ships at a bustling wharf in the nations capital, destined for the plantations of the Deep South. . 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 date when the last slaves were freed in Texas 18 months after they had officially freed at the end of the Civil War. In fact, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, University of Virginia did as well. 2023 A Month of Tribute to 31 Women We Should All Know, Rosewood A Typical Race Riot in America. 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. (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. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. 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.