[66] In 2020, the college removed Mulledy's name. For the eighth year, the Forum was hosted by The Atlantic in partnership with the Aspen Institute. 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. Corneliuss extended family was split, with his aunt Nelly and her daughters shipped to one plantation, and his uncle James and his wife and children sent to another, records show. 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. As part of Georgetown University's Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation initiative, students in Professor Adam Rothman's fall 2019 UNXD 272 class researched buildings and sites on Georgetown's campus to provide historical context for understanding their significance. This indispensable guide presents academic administrators and staff with advice on building an equity-minded campus culture, aligning strategic priorities and institutional missions to advance equity, understanding equity-minded data analysis, developing campus strategies for making excellence inclusive, and moving from a first-generation equity educator to an equity-minded practitioner. 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. Jesuit priests in Maryland sold 272 slaves to Louisiana plantations in 1838 to fund Georgetown . He demanded that Mulledy travel to Rome to answer the charges of disobeying orders and promoting scandal. The notation betrayed no hint of the turmoil on board. THEY NEED TO BE FOUND AND LINKED. Share with your friends! [4][a] Several of the Jesuits' slaves unsuccessfully attempted to sue for their freedom in the courts in the 1790s. Cornelius had originally been shipped to a plantation so far from a church that he had married in a civil ceremony. The condition of slaves on the plantations varied over time, as did the condition of the Jesuits living with them. While they continued to support gradual emancipation, they believed that this option was becoming increasingly untenable, as the Maryland public's concern grew about the expanding number of free blacks. Wondering why we ask for your email, or having trouble registering. . 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. In fact, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, University of Virginia did as well. She feels great sadness as she envisions Cornelius as a young boy, torn from everything he knew. Documents provide the factual framework, but people supply the human story.. 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. The article details how the sold slaves were transported to three Louisiana plantations, where they faced brutal treatment. What can you do to make amends?. None of those conditions were met, university officials said. They worried that new owners might not allow the slaves to practice their Catholic faith. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. Photo by Claire Vail. [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. But the decision to sell virtually all of their enslaved African-Americans in the 1830s left some priests deeply troubled. Leave a message for others who see this profile. The sale of these 272 slaves, known as the GU272, saved the university from foreclosure. 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. Now shes working for justice. It soon became clear that Roothaan's conditions had not been fully met. The institution came under fire last fall, with students demanding justice for the slaves in the 1838 sale. 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. June 1838 the University benefited from the sale of 272 slaves, some as young as 2 months old to finance the ailing institution. The ship manifest of the Katharine Jackson, available in full at the. Soon, the two men and their teams were working on parallel tracks. Participants in this discussion are: Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard University. [64] Mulledy Hall, a student dormitory that opened in 1966,[65] was renamed as BrooksMulledy Hall in 2016, adding the name of a later president, John E. Brooks, who worked to racially integrate the college. Maryland Province Archives at Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, A passage from the Rev. 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. One-hundred-seventy-eight years ago, Georgetown University was free to everyone who was able to attend; it was also massively in debt. 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. [31][b] There are several reasons many slaves were left behind. Your email address will not be published. Youll never know where you came from, said Mlisande Short-Colomb, a descendant of the group of slaves, in a statement about the project. . Login to post. Georgetown University Sold Hundreds of SlavesDoes That Still Matter? if you are trying to comment, you must log in or set up a new account. 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. A white man, he admitted that he had never spent much time thinking about slavery or African-American history. 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. . [52] In 2014, renovation began on Ryan and Mulledy Halls to convert them into a student residence. 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. Georgetown has renamed one of its buildings Isaac Hawkins Hall named after the first enslaved on the list of the account of the sale. We see that slavery was MUCH more than depriving people of their liberty and theft of their services, it was the cruel and long lasting emotional devastation of selling away loved ones, taking indecent liberties, cruel and inhumane treatment and so much more. 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. 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). 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. [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. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. 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. 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. [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. The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II An astonishing book. In addition to becoming physically dilapidated, all but one of the plantations had fallen into debt. Several substitutions were made to the initial list of those to be sold, and 91 of those initially listed remained in Maryland. In 1838, the Jesuit priests who ran the countrys top Catholic university needed money to keep it alive. (The two men would swap positions by 1838.). The Jesuits had sold off individual slaves before. African-Americans are often a fleeting presence in the documents of the 1800s. 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. She listened, stunned, as he told her about her great-great-grandfather, Cornelius Hawkins, who had labored on a plantation just a few miles from where she grew up. Unknown because that portion of history is so like anything that reflects on the horrors of slavery preempted from our history. [29] Some of the initial 272 slaves who were not delivered to Johnson were replaced with substitutes. But he said he could not stop thinking about the slaves, whose names had been in Georgetowns archives for decades. [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. To pay that debt, the university sold 272 slaves the very people that helped build the school itself. 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. 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.

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