[26] Johnson and Batey were to be held jointly and severally liable and each additionally identified a responsible party as a guarantor. Slaves and the products they produced were responsible for well over 50% of the entire GNP of the United States. Roughly two-thirds of the Jesuits former slaves including Cornelius and his family had been shipped to two plantations so distant from churches that they never see a Catholic priest, the Rev. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. Colleges and universities have placed greater emphasis on education equity in recent years. . By the end of December, one of Mr. Cellinis genealogists felt confident that she had found a strong test case: the family of the boy, Cornelius Hawkins. To this day the search continues. The worn gravestone had toppled, but the wording was plain: Neely Hawkins Died April 16, 1902.. Georgetown University announces reparations fund to benefit descendants 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. As a result, he had to sell his property in the 1840s and renegotiate the terms of his payment. While the plantations were initially worked by indentured servants, as the institution of indentured servitude began to fade away in Maryland, African slaves replaced indentured servants as the primary workers on the plantations. More than half were younger than 20, and nearly a third were not yet 10 years old. We can't do it without youAmerica Media relies on generous support from our readers. 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. Copyright 2023 America Press Inc. | All Rights Reserved. By the 1830s, however, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably. Share with your friends! One building was renamed for Isaac Hawkins, first on the list of the 272 human beings sold in 1838. CNN In 1838, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the university's debts. Meet Paul Haring, the CNS photographer who covered the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Francis, numerous international papal trips and the daily action of Vatican life for over a decade. He was valued at $900. 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. We receive a small royalty without cost to you. 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. in Fr. 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. 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. [30] In total, only 206 are known to have been transported to Louisiana. [56] An undergraduate student also brought this to public attention in several articles published by the school newspaper, The Hoya between 2014 and 2015, about the university's relationship with slavery and the slave sale. The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in this traffic in Blacks no matter what pretext or excuse.. 2008 - 2023 INTERESTING.COM, INC. There is no indication that he received any response. [24], Mulledy quickly made arrangements to carry out the sale. [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. Ms. Crump, a retired television news anchor, was driving to Maringouin, her hometown, in early February when her cellphone rang. The church records helped lead to a 69-year-old woman in Baton Rouge named Maxine Crump. . 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. Ms. Crump, 69, has been asking herself that question, too. [17], Mulledy and McSherry became increasingly vocal in their opposition to Jesuit slave ownership. GU272 descendent Carolyn Smith gestures toward gravestones of descendants of enslaved people in Houma, La. [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. [69] Several groups of descendants have been created, which have lobbied Georgetown University and the Society of Jesus for reparations, and groups have disagreed with the form that their desired reparations should take. if you are trying to comment, you must log in or set up a new account. 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. Items Georgetown Slavery Archive - Georgetown University But priests at the Jesuit plantations recounted the panic and fear they witnessed when the slaves departed. American Ancestors announced the new GU272 Memory Project website on Wednesday (June 19), the anniversary of Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when some American slaves learned they had been freed. [47], While the 1838 slave sale gave rise to scandal at the time, the event eventually faded out of the public awareness. Now that we have this data, my hope is that we can use it to open doors and make connections. He was not yet five feet tall when he sailed onboard the Katharine Jackson, one of several vessels that carried the slaves to the port of New Orleans. The ship manifest of the Katharine Jackson, available in full at the. Limit 20 per day. The date when the last slaves were freed in Texas 18 months after they had officially freed at the end of the Civil War. Many institutions owned slaves and Georgetown University was no exception. All of this was new to Ms. Crump, except for the name Cornelius or Neely, as Cornelius was known. THEY NEED TO BE FOUND AND LINKED. Mismanaged and inefficient, the Maryland plantations no longer offered a reliable source of income for Georgetown College, which had been founded in 1789. The slaves were also identified as collateral in the event that Johnson, Batey, and their guarantors defaulted on their payments. To see the posts, click here. 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. Georgetown is not the first or only university to own slaves. One building is now named in honor of a slave who was 65 years old when he was sold in 1838. The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II An astonishing book. IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO USE CAUTION WHEN DISTRIBUTING PRIVATE INFORMATION. Descendants are learning new links to their pasts as a result of the project. A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation A microcosm of the history of American slavery in a collection of the most important primary and secondary readings on slavery at Georgetown University and among the Maryland Jesuits Georgetown Universitys early history, closely tied to that of the Society of Jesus in Maryland, is a microcosm of the history of American slavery: the entrenchment of chattel slavery in the tobacco economy of the Chesapeake in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the contradictions of liberty and slavery at the founding of the United States; the rise of the domestic slave trade to the cotton and sugar kingdoms of the Deep South in the nineteenth century; the political conflict over slavery and its overthrow amid civil war; and slaverys persistent legacies of racism and inequality. [65], On April 18, 2017, DeGioia, along with the provincial superior of the Maryland Province, and the president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, held a liturgy in which they formally apologized on behalf of their respective institutions for their participation in slavery. Photo by Claire Vail. Although modern slavery is not always easy to recognize, it continues to exist in nearly every country. The Jesuits decided that the elderly would not be sold south and instead would be permitted to remain in Maryland. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? A white man, he admitted that he had never spent much time thinking about slavery or African-American history. [27], The articles of agreement listed each of the slaves being sold by name. [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. New England ship builders made ships to bring people to this country. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the sale, from two campus buildings. this helps us promote a safe and accountable online community, and allows us to update you when other commenters reply to your posts.