Slavery at Georgetown College
The 1838 Slave Sale as a Jesuit Response to Slavery Between Rome and
American Acceptance
University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities
Katharina Kunze Supervisor: George Blaustein
Abstract
Recently, much public and scholarly attention has been paid to how universities have historically benefitted from and participated in slave trade. One example for this is
Georgetown University, where the Jesuits running the university sold 272 people to Louisiana in 1838. The sale was a point of contention amongst Jesuits in Maryland and abroad for several years, before it was finally decided.
This thesis is concerned with the arguments in this dispute and the political and religious implications of the decision. Using Joseph Miller’s approach of contextualizing slaving as a historical strategy, I explore the web of political, religious, and economic factors that the sale was embedded in. Transatlantic tensions between Jesuits come to light, between ultramontane Jesuits in Europe and American Jesuits in Maryland. The American Jesuits were divided amongst themselves, however. A new group of American Jesuits who strove for American acceptance and advocated for shifting resources towards the urban centers was facing a branch of established Maryland Jesuits who came from a long slave-holding tradition.
With the decision to sell the slaves, this new brand of American Catholicism prevailed against opposition at home and ultramontane influences in the United States and abroad. When analyzing the web of shifting power dynamics surrounding the sale, the decision to sell the Jesuit slaves in 1838 emerges as a strategy of emancipation from Rome and a shift in power dynamics towards American Catholicism.
Contents
Introduction ... 1 Setting the Stage – Jesuits in Maryland ... 8 “Is it expedient to sell these 300 slaves?” - The 1838 Slave Sale ... 16 In Fear of a Papal Conspiracy - Protestant Anti-Catholicism and Abolitionism in Maryland . 32 Strategies of Emancipation ... 45 Conclusion ... 51 Bibliography ... 53
Introduction
In recent years, many universities have begun to investigate their historical ties with slavery, Georgetown University among them. In October 2019, the university announced that it would raise $400,000 a year to benefit the descendants of the 272 enslaved people who were sold by the college in 1838.1 Many questions have been raised about the implications of this sale and
the responsibility the university bears today. One topic of discussion has also been, however, what led the Jesuits who were running the university to sell these 272 people in the first place. Many of the newspaper articles that were published in connection with the slave sale named economic necessity as the sole factor leading to the sale.2
While financial pressure undoubtedly played an important role, it becomes clear that the circumstances surrounding the sale were a lot more complex than mere financial
difficulties. The Jesuits who debated the sale navigated a complex web of political, religious, and economic circumstances. In this thesis, I attempt to contextualize the sale and detangle the layers and components of this web. In doing that, shifts in a transatlantic power dynamic amongst Jesuits come to light. Following along these shifts, I argue that the sale can be interpreted as an act of Jesuit emancipation from Rome and one of Americanization for the American Jesuits in Maryland. This new “brand” of American Catholicism reacted to Protestant nativism at the time, and to the fear of a Catholic conspiracy to undermine American values. The sale marked a shift in power dynamics in a transatlantic relationship with Rome, solving the conflict of a potential sale according to the political and economic interests of the American Jesuits, not their continental counterparts.
The methodological framework for this thesis is based on Joseph Miller’s concept of historicizing and contextualizing slaving as a historical strategy instead of thinking of slavery as a static institution. In his book The Problem of Slavery as History he encouraged historians to understand and interpret acts of saving as strategical actions performed by humans in
1 Rachel L. Swarns, “Is Georgetown’s $400,000-a-Year Plan to Aid Slave Descendants Enough?” The New York Times, October 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/us/georgetown-slavery-reparations.html. 2 The Guardian wrote: “Students at Georgetown University in Washington DC have voted in favour of paying
reparations to the descendants of enslaved people who were sold by Jesuit founders to pay off college debts.” (Pengelly, “Georgetown Students Vote to Pay Reparations for Slaves Sold by University,” The Guardian, April 15, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/georgetown-students-reparations-vote-slaves-sold-by-university)
Family Tree Magazine wrote: “[…] when the school ran desperately short of funds, the priests sold Georgetown’s slaves to a Louisiana Congressman and one of his fellow sugar plantation owners.” (Jane Morton, “Remembering the GU272: The Georgetown Slave Sale,” Family Tree Magazine, January 8, 2020, https://www.familytreemagazine.com/premium/georgetown-slaves-gu272/#)
distinct historical contexts.3 Since I base my analysis in the last two chapters of this thesis on
Miller, I elaborate on his method and arguments in more detail in chapter three. For the purpose of this introduction, it is most important to emphasize Miller’s focus on trying to contextualize acts of slaving from the perspective of the individual performing it. As Miller put it: “We must put ourselves in others’ places, whether or not we like them or what they did.”4 He also emphasizes that understanding and presenting dilemmas of the past does by no
means imply an endorsement of the actions that are contextualized.5
The historiographical starting point for this thesis was Craig Wilder’s Ebony and Ivy:
Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. It was published by the
historian in 2013 and offered the first comprehensive analysis of how slavery and racism were intertwined with the founding, development, and intellectual culture of America’s institutions of higher education. He discussed how the founding of American colleges was closely
interlinked with the slave economies of the colonial world. He also showed how “scientific” theories about race coming from the academy supported hierarchies of power. Wilders argued that “the academy never stood apart from American slavery – in fact, it stood beside church and state as the third pillar of a civilization built on bondage.”6 It made an important
contribution to the scholarly debate since it was the “first comprehensive monograph on the linkages between race, slavery, and higher education.”7 While there has been scholarship on
particular institutions or shorter time periods, Wilder’s book “stand outs from previous scholarship in both its range and its daring.”8
When we move away from the concept of slavery as a static institution, however, we have to move beyond looking at the slave sale at Georgetown University as yet another
example of how a university was financed through slavery and thereby benefitted from human bondage. While this is undoubtedly true, it does not help to historicize this particular event in its unique dynamics and contexts. It was not the university as an abstract institution that sold the slaves, but the Jesuits running the farms which in turn financed the university. This thesis therefore builds on secondary scholarship concerned with the history of American
3 Joseph Calder Miller, The Problem of Slavery as History: A Global Approach (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 18.
4 Miller, The Problem of Slavery, 9. 5 Miller, The Problem of Slavery, 10.
6 Craig Steven Wilder, Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), 11.
7 Frederick Bell, “Race, Class, and Education in Early America,” Education's Histories, June 29, 2015, http://www.educationshistories.org/race-power-education-early-america/.
Catholicism, Jesuits in Maryland, Anti-Catholicism in America, Catholic teachings on slavery, as well as biographical accounts of the actors involved in the debate surrounding the slave sale.
John T. McGreevy published Catholicism and American Freedom in 2003 and the book was praised to be “a splendid achievement that integrates Catholicism into American social, political, and cultural history more firmly than has ever been done before” by Philip Gleason, another leading scholar in the field.9 It is concerned with “the interplay between
Catholic and American ideas of freedom.”10 In this intellectual history, McGreevy used
different topics such as education and slavery to show how Catholic and mainstream
American positions often differed drastically. McGreevy emphasized the international aspect of American Catholicism with liberal influences coming from Europe as well as conservative Jesuits and other Catholics who fled the revolutions of 1848. While McGreevy’s focus here lay on the years leading up to the Civil War and figures such as Orestes Brown, the
transnational influences he described are also highly relevant to this thesis.11
When the Jesuits at Georgetown debated whether to sell their slaves, keep them, or set them free, they were acting in a climate of rising nativism and anti-Catholicism. W. Jason Wallace published Catholics, Slaveholders, and the Dilemma of American Evangelism,
1835-1860 in 2010.12 The book is relevant to this thesis in at least two ways. Wallace showed how
antebellum Protestant abolitionists saw slaveholders and Catholics as threats to a Protestant national identity that they were establishing. This helps to contextualize anti-Catholicism as an historical strategy that Jesuits were reacting to. Since Wallace portrayed northern
evangelicals in his book, it provides background to illustrate the nuances of anti-Catholicism and abolitionism in Maryland as a border state. The second way in which Wallace’s study is useful to this thesis is in its methodology. Wallace based his discussion on the analysis of antebellum Protestant journals. I will employ a similar method in the third chapter of this thesis by analyzing a Protestant journal from Maryland, the Baltimore Literary and Religious
Magazine.
9 Philip Gleason, “Reviewed Work(s): Catholicism and American Freedom: A History by John T. McGreevy,”
Church History 72, no. 4 (2003): 910-911, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0009640700097699).
Philip Gleason is an authority in the field of the history of American Catholicism and American Catholic higher education. One of his major publications on the matter was Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher
Education in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
10 John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 14. 11 Orestes Brown was an intellectual who converted to Catholicism in the 1840s and became an influential Catholic
voice during the following years. For more information on Brown, see: McGreevy, Catholicism and American
Freedom.
12 William Jason. Wallace, Catholics, Slaveholders, and the Dilemma of American Evangelicalism, 1835-1860 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010).
Maura Jane Farrelly gave a good overview of the history of anti-Catholicism in
Anti-Catholicism in America, 1620-1860 which was published in 2017. She argued that
Catholicism was perceived as a “threat to national identity, individual liberty, personal salvation, and the stability of free government” throughout American history.13 According to
Farrelly, “Catholicism was at all times seen as antithetical to freedom,” which was seen as “the foundation of ‘American’ identity.”14 Five years earlier, she had elaborated on the
relationship between Catholicism, the idea of freedom, and slavery in the article “American Slavery, American Freedom, American Catholicism.”15 Here, she emphasized that from the
1780s until the 1830s, Catholics in the United States were generally comfortable with republicanism and individualism, contrary to their European counterparts. With the large influx of ultramontane, Irish immigrants, this relationship became more complicated. Farrelly argued that the fact that American Catholics were comfortable with American liberty and accepted by their neighbors was largely due to the fact that most Catholics at the time lived in slave holding states, “where republicanism was based not on individualism, but on the order and mutual obligation that were defined by race-based slavery.”16 Her main argument was that
American Catholicism was actually “born in a slaveholding context” and should be regarded as such.17
This thesis builds on Farrelly’s observations that Catholic slave holding in Maryland was a central aspect in defining the relationship between Catholics and their American identity. Zooming in further on the history of the Jesuits in Maryland, Robert Emmett Curran and Thomas J. Murphy stand out as authorities in the field.
Thomas Murphy published Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1717-1838 in 2001.18
Murphy gave a comprehensive account of Jesuit slaveholding in Maryland and mapped out common Jesuit positions towards slavery at the time. He discussed how by the nineteenth century many Jesuits began to oppose slavery. He argued that the slaves were not freed by the Jesuits in 1838 because abolition was so strongly connected with anti-Catholicism. He further made the argument that they were finally sold because of rising immigration and the shift to
13 Maura Jane Farrelly, Anti-Catholicism in America, 1620-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), xi.
14 Farrelly, Anti-Catholicism in America, xii.
15 Maura Jane Farrelly, “American Slavery, American Freedom, American Catholicism,” Early American Studies:
An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 1 (2012): 69-100, https://doi.org/10.1353/eam.2012.0005.
16 Maura Jane Farrelly, “Paper: American Slavery, American Freedom, American Catholicism (125th Annual Meeting (January 6-9, 2011)” (American Historical Society), accessed May 20, 2020, https://aha.confex.com/aha/2011/webprogram/Paper6890.html.
17 Farrelly, “American Slavery, American Freedom, American Catholicism,” 100.
urban centers. This thesis builds on Murphy’s discussion of the slave sale but adds the argument that the sale also presented a shift in transatlantic power dynamics towards a more Americanized Catholicism.
Robert Emmett Curran published Shaping American Catholicism: Maryland and New
York, 1805-1915 in 2012, which is structured in essay form.19 Especially the first half on
Maryland is relevant to this thesis, since it provides context and information on topics such as the slave sale itself and the Maréchal dispute. Patrick Hayes pointed out in his review that the book should not be “considered the last word on these subjects” but rather a “spur to further research,” which is how I attempt to treat it in this thesis.20
In this thesis, I apply Miller’s approach of contextualizing human actions to explore the slaving which occurred in the slave sale of 1838 as a historical strategy of adaptation and emancipation on the part of the American Jesuits. This approach allows us to dive deep into the web of political, economic, and religious arguments that surrounded the sale. This thesis therefore attempts to historicize the slave sale as thoroughly as possible to better understand the motives behind it and its implications. This is done on several levels.
First, I explore the historical background of Jesuits in Maryland and the relationship they had with their superiors in Rome. The chapter explores the administrative particularities as well as the self-image of the Maryland Province as an American as well as a Catholic administrative and ideological body. In addition to that I look at the lives of two ultramontane Jesuits from Europe, who would go on to vehemently oppose the sale, to get an insight into their world, which had been marked by revolutions and upheavals. If we want to understand the slave sale in its historical context, a previous dispute between Maryland Jesuits and the Catholic Church in Rome concerning a pension for archbishop Ambrose Maréchal also has to be considered. This dispute with its political implications is therefore also covered in the first chapter.
The second chapter then maps out the discussions amongst the Jesuits in Maryland and abroad concerning the slave sale itself. Drawing mainly on primary sources from the
Georgetown Slavery Archive, I explore how different parties in the conflict used political, economic, and religious arguments to argue in favor or against the sale.21 European Jesuits
argued mainly against the sale, as did traditional Jesuits from Maryland, although they did so
19 Robert Emmett. Curran, Shaping American Catholicism: Maryland and New York, 1805-1915 (Catholic University of America Press, 2012).
20 Patrick J. Hayes, “Shaping American Catholicism: Maryland and New York, 1805-1915 by Robert Emmett Curran (Review),” American Catholic Studies 124, no. 1 (2013): 84-85, https://doi.org/10.1353/acs.2013.0002. 21 Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed June 23, 2020, http://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/.
for different reasons. Representatives of a newer “brand” of American Catholicism argued in favor of the sale and ultimately prevailed. Since both sides based many of their arguments on the “morality” of slavery, this chapter is also concerned with the official Catholic teaching on the issue of slavery up to the 1830s.
When looking at the discussions about the slave sale, it becomes clear that especially American Jesuits were concerned about the political climate of rising nativism and anti-Catholicism at the time. The third chapter therefore extends Miller’s methodology of contextualizing slaving as a historical strategy by looking at Protestant anti-Catholicism in Maryland at the time. Using the Protestant Journal Baltimore Literary and Religious
Magazine as a case study, anti-Catholicism is explored as a historical strategy of defining a
Protestant national identity.22 Protestant anti-Catholicism and abolitionism are often mention
in one breath. Analyzing the Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine shows, however, that their anti-Catholicism was a lot more vehement than their abolitionism. As a main fear it was stated in the articles that a “papal conspiracy” with its roots in Europe would try to undermine and overthrow the American government. The suspicion that Catholics in the United States were controlled from abroad, rather than loyal to their country, was deep-rooted.
The last chapter returns to the slave sale itself, and the interpretation of the slaving as a historical strategy. The sale can be interpreted as a strategy to adapt to the political climate of anti-Catholicism and nativism at the time. Since one of the main Protestant fears was that of foreign intervention and control, the Jesuits emancipating themselves from Rome would have been one of the most effective ways of adapting to political circumstances and emphasizing their “Americanness.” In the last chapter, I therefore explore the interpretation of the slave sale as an act of emancipation from Rome. Next to that, I put a different form of intellectual emancipation from Rome with the emerging tradition of liberal Catholicism. As an example, I use Félicité de Lamennais and his essay “Modern Slavery.”23 Lamennais followed a different
path of emancipation, with an emphasis on personal liberty and the condemnation of slavery. In his writings, arguments from both sides of the dispute about the sale can be traced,
however.
We will never know for sure, what the intentions and motives were that led the
Maryland Jesuits to sell their slaves in 1838. In this thesis, I attempt to reconstruct the web of political, religious, and economic factors that this decision was embedded in. While the larger ideological and political currents of the time are relatively easy to identify, the water gets
22 Robert Breckinridge, Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine, 1835 and 1837.
muddier the closer we get to the sale itself. Ultimately, we can only speculate about personal intentions and the moral imagination of individual actors. The endeavor is worthwhile and illuminating nonetheless since it allows for a detailed analysis and historical reconstruction of the factors leading to the sale of these 272 people, instead of thinking about it as an abstract act of slaving performed by a just as abstract institution.
Setting the Stage – Jesuits in Maryland
If we wish to understand the circumstances under which the sale took place in 1838, it is crucial to first trace back the origins of the Jesuit order in Maryland. They were the primary Catholic group settling in Maryland in the 17th century and held slaves on their farms and plantations from the beginning. With the profits from these farms they financed missionary and educational endeavors such as Georgetown College, which would later become
Georgetown University.
The suppression of the Jesuit order in 1773 had long lasting effects on Catholicism in America. The Jesuits, who had been the dominant Catholic denomination in colonial British America, formed the Corporation of the Roman Catholic Clergymen of Maryland in 1792 as a direct reaction to the suppression of the order. The fear was that Rome would take possession of Jesuit property in Maryland.24,25In order to avoid this, John Carroll established the Select
Body of the Clergy in 1783, which would eventually turn into the Corporation. The Select Body was responsible for managing the Jesuits’ estates which in turn supported the Jesuits financially.26 John Carroll served as the first bishop and archbishop in the United States and
founded Georgetown College.27
The Corporation is a perfect example for the emerging republican American tradition in Catholicism that could be observed in the 1780s and which was championed by Carroll. He supported a division of church and state and believed that a right to property was central to republican values.28 In 1782, Carroll repudiated the “idea of any Roman authorities ever
getting possession of a sixpence of our property here; and, if any of our friends could be weak enough to deliver any real estate into their hands, or attempt to subject it to their authority, our civil government would be called upon to wrest it again out of their dominion.”29
Carroll expected this arrangement to be temporal. He thought that once the Society of Jesus would be restored, the Select Body of the Clergy would no longer be necessary, and the Jesuit provincial superior would take over control of the corporation. This did not happen,
24 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 15.
25 Jesuit property was held by laymen or individual Jesuits since it was not allowed by Maryland law for ecclesiastical entities to hold property. (Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 15)
26 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 16.
27 McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 11. 28 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 16.
29 Thomas Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North America Colonial and Federal. Documents (London: Longmans, Green, 1910), 1037.
however. When the Society was restored in 1814, the trustees of the Corporation continued to be in control of the property.30
These events created a web of power, loyalties, and responsibilities woven between a European Catholicism which looked at Rome for guidance, and a tradition of republican Catholicism in Maryland whose members were highly aware of their rights as American citizens. Jesuits immigrating from Europe had to navigate this web of everchanging power relations. A dispute between the Jesuits in Maryland and the Catholic Church on the matter of a pension for archbishop Maréchal brought these difficulties to light. What is more, we can only try to understand the slave sale from 1838 in its full complexity, if we are aware of how it grew out of the Jesuit dispute with Maréchal.
The dispute with archbishop Maréchal centered around the of whether the Corporation was obliged to pay him a stipend the way they had done to John Carroll and Leonard Neale, his predecessors.31 While Maréchal argued that they were, the Corporation disagreed. They
argued that Carroll and Neale had received their stipends as former Jesuits and because they had been members of the Select Body. Since Maréchal was neither of those things, they refuted his claim and offered him a stipend which would end after three years. Maréchal appealed this decision in 1820 without success.32,33 The dispute left American soil for the first
time at this point. Maréchal asked the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome for help. He explained the situation and asked for the Jesuit plantation White Marsh since he argued that this plantation had been given to the Church, not only the Jesuits. The appeal did not have the desired effect, however, and Robert Gradwell, who represented Maréchal in Rome, was not successful either. Maréchal therefore decided to take his fight to Rome himself.34
Since the Jesuits in Maryland and Maréchal were unable to come to an agreement, the superior general of the Society, Luigi Fortis, wrote to Propaganda that if they wanted the Jesuits in Maryland to hand over property to Maréchal, the pope would have to order them to
30 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 16.
31 He based his claim on the fact that Carroll had wished the stipend to be extended to his successors. He also referred to the Carroll-Molyneux agreement in which it had been stated that the stipend should continue to be paid to Carroll’s successors. Maréchal further argued that the property of the Corporation should be used to support all Roman Catholic clergymen of Maryland, not just Jesuits. (Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 17)
32 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 17.
33 Maréchal was a Sulpician, or a member of the “Society of the Priests of the Seminary of St. Sulpice.” Another Catholic order, they established their first mission in the United States in 1790, after the Jesuits had established their first mission in 1634. By 1790, there were only 35 priests however, catering to a Catholic population of 30,000. Therefore, the Superior General of the Sulpicians at the time, Jacques-André Emery, proposed to Carroll to establish a Sulpician mission. (“Beginnings,” The Sulpicians, Province of the United States, accessed June 23, 2020, http://sulpicians.org/who-we-are/beginnings/)
do so. Pius VII did just that in 1822 by issuing the brief Ad Futuram Rei Memoriam, in which he ordered the Maryland Jesuits to hand over White Marsh to Maréchal by the end of the year. The mission superior, Charles Neale, protested this decision fiercely. Neale wrote to Anthony Kohlmann that “the laws of the country do not permit our property, or the property of any citizen, to be taken away from us or him by the decision of any foreign court. The General himself, I believe, has not the power to do it.”35
The Maryland Jesuits insisted on a separation between religious and civic affairs and felt that they could not hand over the property in good conscience since they had been entrusted with it. They argued that the property was theirs as American citizens and not as Jesuits and Rome therefore could not force them to give it up. They also emphasized that the American government would not appreciate a foreign entity meddling in their civic affairs.36
The next phase of the conflict went as high up as the United States government. Maréchal was asked by the Congregation to ensure that the American government would approve if the Jesuits were to hand over property to him. This was not successful, however. John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State at the time, was not impressed with the foreign intervention. Daniel Brent, who was the chief clerk of the Department of State, warned Maréchal not to pursue the matter of transferring property any further.37,38 He made himself
very clear by stating that “the government of the United States, […] can never view with indifference any future appeals to such foreign states, touching the administration of temporal concerns under its own jurisdiction.”39 Not only did Maréchal not receive the support he had
hoped for from the State Department. The papal brief was also published in the Protestant
Daily National Journal and received fierce criticism for foreign intervention in American
affairs. The pressure from the public and the government led Maréchal to abandon his claim to White Marsh and ask for a pension instead.40
In 1823, Francis Dzierozynski followed Charles Neale as the mission superior for the Jesuits in America. He would play a central role in this conflict, as well as later on in the discussions surrounding the slave sale. Fortis thought it essential to have a non-American superior in the mission to finally reach an agreement with Maréchal. He also insisted that a solution could only be reached if the trustees of the corporation signed over their property to
35 Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North America Colonial and Federal, 1037. 36 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 22.
37 Brent was a Catholic, related to the Carrolls and good friends with the Neales. (Curran, Shaping American
Catholicism, 23)
38 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 24.
39 Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North America Colonial and Federal, 1072. 40 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 24.
the Society so that the superior would be in control of it. This happened in 1825 when the trustees signed a document stating that they could not administer the property of the Jesuits without the consent of the Superior General. 41 This was the beginning of the end for the
republican Catholicism in Maryland as it had been introduced by Carroll when he had established the Corporation.
A suggested compromise with Maréchal, consisting of a lifelong pension of 1000$, fell through in the meantime. The Maryland Jesuits feared that this would lead to their economic collapse and draw criticism from the American government for the foreign intervention from Rome. To avoid public scandal, the Society finally accepted that the Maryland Jesuits would not pay Maréchal. The Society in Italy agreed instead to pay Maréchal a lifelong stipend 800$ and extend this arrangement to his successors. Maréchal died after receiving two of these payments.42
The issue was raised again in 1835. By then, Samuel Eccleston had become the Archbishop of Baltimore and was receiving the stipend. Jan Roothaan, who was the new superior general at the time, ordered McSherry to settle the matter for good. Ironically, he suggested to offer Eccleston a farm, which Maréchal had been fiercely denied only fifteen years previously. They finally agreed in 1838 to pay Eccleston 8000$ as a final settlement. This sum would be paid with the profits the Jesuits made by selling their slaves. In an ironical twist, many of those slaves worked at White Marsh, the very same plantation Maréchal had initially demanded.43
In this field of constantly shifting power dynamics and reactions to changing circumstances, Francis Dzierozynski, as well as Stephen Dubuisson, are interesting case studies of Jesuits who had been trained in Europe and emigrated to the United States, thereby serving as a bridge between two worlds. They brought with them an outsider’s perspective on Catholicism in America in the 1820s and 1830s while at the same time being intimately involved in decisions that shaped American Catholicism.
Dzierozynski was born in Poland in 1779 and received a traditional, European Jesuit education. While the Society of Jesus had been suppressed in most countries in 1773, this had not been the case in Prussia and Russia. Polish and Lithuanian Jesuits, who had been incorporated into Russia, were therefore able to maintain the Byelorussian (White Russian) Province. These Jesuits were the “custodians of Jesuit traditions and life” during the period of
41 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 26. 42 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 27. 43 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 28.
suppression, as the Jesuit historian Kuzniewski argued.44 The province became a center for
Jesuit education and Jesuits around the world were educated there and later identified with the province. This had effects in the United States as well, when five former Jesuits were
officially allowed in 1805 to affiliate with the White Russian province.45 The historian Joseph
Osuch even made the argument that the “American Society of Jesus is the daughter of the Polish Society of Jesus” and drew parallels between the political situation in the United States of America and Polish Jesuits living in Russia who felt to be part of the “United States of Poland.”46
After teaching in St. Petersburg, Dzierozynski was sent to the United States in 1820. He went there with instructions by the new Jesuit father general, Aloysius Fortis, to “maintain the spiritual and juridical character of the Society, strengthen the training of young Jesuits, and see to the efficient operation of Jesuit schools.”47 When he arrived at Georgetown,
Dzierozynski found the American Jesuits divided on the question whether the traditional Maryland planter-lifestyle should be continued or whether a more progressive urban approach should be followed. Kuzniewski described how Dzierozynski experienced nativism from American Jesuits who were suspicious of European Jesuits coming from the outside with reform suggestions.48 The complicated dynamics become apparent here: Jesuits in America
were confronted with nativism from Protestants who were suspicious of foreign intervention. American Jesuits meanwhile were suspicious of European Jesuits whose presence heightened the nativism they experienced through Protestants and reacted in turn with nativist sentiments towards their European counterparts.
Dzierozynski is a good example of how European Jesuits were perceived by many native-born American Jesuits when they were sent to the United States and were given important posts. Even two years after Dzierozynski’s arrival, Benedict Fenwick, who was president of Georgetown College at the time, complained bitterly to authorities in Rome that Dzierozynski was “certainly too little acquainted with the country as yet and too ignorant of its language to act as Superior.”49
44 Anthony J. Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” The Catholic
Historical Review 78, no. 1 (January 1992): 51-73, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25023700, 53.
45 Curran, Shaping American Catholicism, 32.
46 Joseph C. Osuch, “Patriarch of the American Jesuits,” Polish American Studies 17, no. 3/4 (July 1960): 92-100, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20147550, 97.
47 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 54. 48 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 55.
49 Fenwick to Fortis, June 22, 1823, Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus, Maryland Province, 2164, quoted in Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 55.
While Dzierozynski was not impressed with the republican mindset of some of the American Jesuits at first, he quickly began to adapt to a certain degree. He studied the English language and became an American citizen in 1828 – using the naturalization laws that
nativists criticized so fiercely. 50 The legend said that he was friends with John C. Calhoun,
who had a “fondness for talking metaphysics with the learned Russian father.”51 Kuzniewski
argued that Dzierozynski even adopted American views on matters such as the proper relationship between Church and State.52 This became especially apparent in how
Dzierozynski handled the dispute with Maréchal. He succeeded Charles Neale as superior in 1823, partly because Fortis thought that a non-American superior was the only way to a possible solution of the conflict with Maréchal. In the end, however, Dzierozynski avoided an initial payment made by the Maryland Jesuits with the help of the Secretary of State, in other words the American government. Kuzniewski pointed out that Dzierozynski had become “assimilated enough to accept the American position on the distinct realms of ecclesiastical and civil authority.”53
Dzierozynski passed his position as superior of the mission on to Peter Kenney in 1830.54 He continued, however, to be an important figure in the Maryland mission and at
Georgetown College. Over the course of his life, he became more and more accustomed to American customs, for which he sometimes drew criticism by other European Jesuit
immigrants. He lost touch with most of his Polish acquaintances over time.55 Emmett Current
argued that Dzierozynski had “come to appreciate the Ignatian principle of adaptation according to circumstances.”56
The Ignatian principle of adaptation goes back to Ignatius Loyola who founded the Society of Jesus in 1534. His influential text The Spiritual Exercises was crucial in defining the spiritual identity of the Jesuits.57 One central aspect of the Ignatian spirituality which was
50 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 56.
51 James Fairfax McLaughlin, College Days at Georgetown (Philadelphia, 1899), 72-73, quoted in Kuzniewski, Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States, 56.
52 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 57. 53 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 62. 54 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 67. 55 Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 71.
56 Robert Emmett Curran, Troubled Nation, Troubled Province, 1833-1880 (Unpublished MS, n.d.), quoted in Kuzniewski, “Francis Dzierozynski and the Jesuit Restoration in the United States,” 71.
57 Platt, R. Eric. Sacrifice and Survival: Identity, Mission, and Jesuit Higher Education in the American South. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014, 18.
expressed in the Exercises was the necessity to adapt to various circumstances.58 Dzierozynski
moved between worlds and ultimately ended up assimilating to a certain degree.
Stephen Dubuisson is another figure who was “bridging two worlds”, as Ruth Cline put it.59 While Dzierozynski assimilated more and more over time, however, Dubuisson
continued to hold strong ties to Europe in several ways. Dubuisson was born as an aristocrat in an age of revolution. He would grow up to be a part of the ultramontane movement which opposed the liberal ideas that fueled the revolutions in Europe and elsewhere. Dubuisson was born in 1786 in Saint-Domingue where his parents held slaves. The family emigrated to France in 1791, just before the slave uprising in Haiti. In France, however, the family was facing another revolution.60 Cornelius Buckley argued in his biography on Dubuisson that
facing “the horror of Revolution in his adopted home” left a “permanent scar of fear and unarticulated anxiety […] branded on Stephen Dubuisson’s psyche.”61
Dubuisson joined the Jesuits after Napoleon’s fall against the will of his family. He joined the Society just after it had been restored in 1814 when he was 29. He arrived at Georgetown shortly after. He too, was instantly caught in the struggle that was going on between American and continental Jesuits. Cline described that the faculty was torn between educating “future republicans or future priests”, with the traditionalists prevailing in the 1820s. Dubuisson was made a prefect and was supposed to enforce greater discipline. To say that he was disliked would be an understatement, several students even plotted to kill him.62
Dubuisson was a successful missionary and preacher in the region but failed in his short term as president of Georgetown College in 1825. He stayed in the position for only seven months before he suffered a nervous breakdown. He became, however, an important advisor for Jan Roothaan on matters concerning the American mission.63
He was active in raising funds for the mission in American in Italy and France, especially with the Leopold Foundation which had been founded in Vienna in 1828. Dubuisson went on several trips to Europe in the 1830s and proved to be an effective
fundraiser for the Maryland mission.64 He was so successful that it started to worry Roothaan.
58 George P. Schner, Ignatian Spirituality in a Secular Age (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1984), 96.
59 Ruth Harwood Cline, “Bridging Two Worlds: Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, Emigre Missionary,” The
Catholic Historical Review 90, no. 4 (2004): 675-696, https://doi.org/10.1353/cat.2005.0017.
60 Cline, “Bridging Two Worlds: Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, Emigre Missionary,” 677.
61 Cornelius M. Buckley, Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, S.J. (1786-1864) and the Reform of the American
Jesuits (Lanham: University Press of America, 2013), 8.
62 Cline, “Bridging Two Worlds: Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, Emigre Missionary,” 679. 63 Cline, “Bridging Two Worlds: Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, Emigre Missionary,” 681. 64 Cline, “Bridging Two Worlds: Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, Emigre Missionary,” 688.
Roothaan was aware that increasing donations to Jesuits from abroad were heightening Protestant distrust in the United States. He warned Dubuisson that “everything Jesuits do is watched.”65 Indeed, the efforts of the Leopold Society were described as a conspiracy in the
Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine in 1837. The journal’s editor Breckinridge wrote
about the Leopold Society that “it is not possible to ascertain how much money is annually contributed by the papists of Europe, to Romanise the people of the United States.”66 The
Protestant fear of Catholic foreign influences in the United States will be explored in more detail in the third chapter on the example of the Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine.
Both Dzierozynski as well as Dubuisson were perceived to be outsiders who did not fit into the new, American brand of Catholicism. This was also mirrored in the debate
surrounding the slave sale. However, both ended up adapting, in varying degrees, to their new circumstances.
65 Buckley, Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, 200, quoted in Catherine O’Donnell, “Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, S.J. (1786–1864) and the Reform of the American Jesuits, Written by Cornelius Michael Buckley,”
Journal of Jesuit Studies 2, no. 1 (2015): 123-126, https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00201005-06, 126.
“Is it expedient to sell these 300 slaves?”
67- The 1838 Slave Sale
In 1838, the Jesuits in the Maryland Province sold 272 enslaved people to Louisiana. At the time, they were amongst the biggest slave- and landowners in the region. Especially when we look at the sale in connection with the Maréchal dispute and the need to raise the money for the final settlement, one might easily reduce the sale to a reaction to economic pressures. Financial concerns were undoubtedly an important factor in the decision, especially since the missions and plantations which in turn financed colleges such as, most prominently,
Georgetown College, were struggling with lack of funds and pressing debt.68 Matters were not
that simple, however. The more we zoom in on the sale, the more entangled the web of political, economic, and religious arguments becomes.
Throughout the discussions surrounding the sale, different interests within the Jesuit order became apparent. European Jesuits met young American priests as well as Jesuits coming from an old Maryland tradition. A field of tension emerged, balancing influences that were European and American, religious and republican, urban and rural, traditional and progressive. It became apparent that the younger American priests, Thomas Mulledy and William McSherry in particular, pushed for an American Catholicism which focused on education in urban centers and was very much aware of the political pressures the Jesuits were facing at the time. They were strongly opposed by European Jesuits who emphasized
theological and moral arguments and did not seem particularly concerned about American political consequences. They were also opposed by traditional Jesuits from Maryland who did not appreciate the changing economic realities and the shift towards the urban centers.
Mulledy and McSherry ultimately got their will with the slave sale in 1838. Leading up to the sale, however, a chapter in history began which would end in a “morality play worthy of Harriet Beecher Stowe.”69
The following chapter will map out the discussions amongst Jesuits in Maryland and Europe about whether selling the slaves was economically and politically advisable and morally feasible. It is illuminating to first explore the Catholic moral framework on the matter of slavery at the time, to better understand what a “morally correct” solution to the problem would have been from a Catholic perspective.
67 Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, “"Is it expedient to sell these 300 slaves?": The Dubuisson Memorandum, 1836,” Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed March 16, 2020,
https://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/95. 68 Curran, Shaping Catholicism, 41.
As McGreevy pointed out, many Catholic intellectuals at the time accepted slavery as “a legitimate, if tragic, institution.”70 McGreevy pointed towards a pervasive fear of liberal
individualism and social disorder that was prevalent especially during the nineteenth century. He also gave the anti-Catholicism of many abolitionists as a reason for Catholic opposition to slavery.71
John Maxwell traced the position of the Catholic Church on slavery in his book
Slavery and the Catholic Church. He showed that
since the sixth century and right up until the twentieth century it has been common Catholic teaching that the social, economic and legal institution of slavery is morally legitimate provided that the master’s title of ownership is valid and provided that the slave is properly looked after and cared for, both materially and spiritually.72
A central idea was that while people were created equal, there was still a “hierarchy of merit and rulership, in that the differences between classes of men have arisen as a result of sin and are ordained by divine justice,” as Gregory I stated in 600.73 Maxwell pointed out that
throughout its history, the Catholic church made a difference between “just” and “unjust” slavery, condemning unjust enslavement of non-Christian and Christian Indians in 1741, for instance.74 In 1839, pope Gregory XVI would condemn transatlantic slave trade but not
declare domestic slavery as such to be immoral. He would not contradict the general approval of “just slave trade” and “just slavery,” where masters fulfilled their duties.75
Catholic teaching made a difference between chattel-slavery which was unjust and ameliorated slavery which was just and therefore morally legitimate. The idea was that with chattel-slavery, the master owned the slave as his personal property. In “just Christian slavery,” the master owned only the work of their slaves and what they produced. In this ameliorated slavery, the slaves “alienate their work and activity into the ownership of their master” who are then able to use it as they please in this supposedly just form of slavery.76
This theory was useful for the Catholic Church to emphasize the duty of the master to care for the well-being of their slaves, it was of course difficult to separate these forms of slavery in
70 McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 52. 71 McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 52. 72 Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church, 10.
73 Diana Hayes, “Reflections on Slavery,” in Rome Has Spoken: A Guide to Forgotten Papal Statements and How
They Have Changed through the Centuries (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 81.
74 Hayes, “Reflections on Slavery,” 82.
75 Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church, 74. 76 Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church, 87.
practice. The master did buy the slave and legally owned them as his personal property, whether this was his spiritual intention or not.77,78
The Catholic Church embraced corporatism and the idea of organic relationships within society. A paternalistic concept linked the relationship between a slave and his master to other relationships within a family.79 Jon Gjerde furthermore pointed out that abolitionists
and Protestant abolitionist groups in the United States represented a dangerous drift in modern society for many Catholic apologists of slavery which represented an increasingly human-centered understanding of religion and endangered the authority of the church.80
We will see different aspects of these teachings mirrored in the debate surrounding the sale. It becomes apparent that the “morality of slavery” was a rather flexible construct which was employed by both sides in the debate to support their positions.
To put the discussions about the sale into perspective, we will go back in time to when the considerations to sell the Jesuit slaves in the Maryland province first gained traction. In 1820, Peter Kenney, an Irish Jesuit, had conducted an inspection of the Jesuits’ slaveholdings and had recommended a gradual disposal of them.81 He would return for a second inspection
in 1830. By then, a sale had become more likely for several reasons. The concern amongst Jesuits about the moral behavior of their slaves had grown. Also, there was an optimism about the growth of Catholicism in the United States while at the same time the Jesuits were facing pressure from the abolitionists as well as from nativists. Furthermore, they had to face the American economic realities of the 1830s.82
When Kenney returned to America as a visitor in the fall of 1830, he had been sent by superior general Jan Roothaan in Rome to again investigate the question whether the order should sell the estates or keep them.83 Kenney found the missions to be in a better state than
expected, though not producing revenue that could help financing Georgetown College.
77 Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church, 87.
78It took until the Second Vatican Council in 1965 for the common Catholic teaching concerning slavery to be officially corrected. Maxwell gave several reasons why it took so long for the Catholic church to correct their position. One important factor was the principle of continuity of doctrine. The infallibility of the Catholic church was not easy to contradict. Another major factor was censorship. Opinions of the Enlightenment were
“condemned en bloc,” which placed anti-slavery writings on the Index of Prohibited Books and significantly slowed down the distribution of these ideas within the church. Maxwell showed how texts written by critical thinkers within the Catholic Church as well as outside of the Catholic Church “for one reason or another” ended on the Index. (Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church, 13)
79 Jon Gjerde and S. Deborah. Kang, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Chapter 6.
80 Kang, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America, Chapter 6.
81 Thomas Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1717-1838 (New York: Routledge, 2018), 187. 82 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 187.
Before he could make a recommendation whether to sell the estates, however, Dzierozynski informed Roothaan that the farms were producing, and the mission debts were practically gone.84 Dzierozynski would continue to oppose any attempts to sell. Roothaan subsequently
ordered to keep the plantations and improve them.85
In 1830, however, two priests entered the stage that would decidedly influence the course of the debate: Thomas Mulledy and William McSherry. Both had been amongst a group of six American Jesuits who had been sent to Rome in 1820 to receive their training. The hope had been, amongst others, to bring them closer to the Roman Catholicism as
European visitors such as Kenney had already in earlier days complained about the republican values of American Jesuits: “The Society has this obstacle to overcome in these parts—
namely, that Americans have such an ardent passion for liberty and for their country that it approaches madness, and they have of their nature an intense hatred of manifesting
themselves or others to superiors.”86 However, confronted with the repressive politics that
followed the Congress of Vienna in many parts of Europe, their republican values were only reinforced. Mulledy in particular displayed a “stridently American identity,” according to Kuzniewski.87 Not only were they distinctly American, they also represented a “new breed of
American Jesuits” that was not particularly loyal to the Maryland tradition which was rural and based on land- and slaveholding.88 Both came from northwestern Virginia where
slaveholding was not as deeply implanted as it was in Maryland. Both were furthermore convinced that the double role as planters and priests that was performed by Jesuits in Maryland was responsible for their economic problems as well as the problem of corrupt slaves.89
In 1830, Thomas Mulledy, by then president of Georgetown College, wrote a letter to the Jesuit Superior General Roothaan in which he raised questions regarding the Jesuits'
slaveholding in Maryland. In his letter to Roothaan, Mulledy expressed a desire to fit in American society and respond to the political climate of strengthening abolitionism by proposing delayed manumission.
84 Dzierozynski to Roothaan, January 28, 1831, MD 4-I-5, Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus, quoted in Curran, Shaping Catholicism.
85 Curran, Shaping Catholicism, 41.
86Kenney to Brzozowski, December 2, 1819 Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus, MD, 2.II, quoted in Anthony J. Kuzniewski, “Our American Champions’: The First Generation of American Jesuit Leaders after the Restoration of the Society,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesus 46, no. 1 (2014), 6.
87 Kuzniewski, “Our American Champions,” 17. 88 Curran, Shaping Catholicism, 44.
Some of his concerns were of religious nature. He wondered whether the plantations were the “spiritual ruin” of the Jesuits running them, since that made them owners of slaves which was “against the vow of holy poverty.” He furthermore voiced the opinion that “it is almost impossible to make [the slaves] good Christians or faithful servants” and made them responsible for “the eternal ruin of [the] Priests who supervise them.” 90
He also made an economic argument. He argued that the farms were not profitable since “the greatest part [of the income from them] is consumed by the black slaves – or badly spent by the Fathers who are their handlers.” He therefore proposed to sell the slaves and rather “invest the money in banks.”91
He furthermore made a political argument. He argued that since it was such a “popular and edifying thing to free” slaves or sell them for a certain time until they were freed, in order to prepare them for freedom, the Jesuits should do the same. Mulledy referred here to “term slavery” or delayed manumission, which were agreements under which slaveholders pledged themselves to free their slaves after a certain number of years.92 He talked about the “general
[…] American mania for emancipation” and indeed, by 1830, the abolitionist movement had gained traction. In 1830, most African Americans in the Washington D.C. area were free people.93 He made it very clear that he was concerned for the reputation of the order by
asking: “Would the Society thus not gain great esteem in these lands?”94 Over the following
years, Mulledy kept urging Roothaan that the Jesuits could not be priests and planters at the same time and by 1833 he warned him that they could “not have both flourishing colleges and flourishing missions.”95
It did not take long for the European influences to respond. Fidèle de Grivel took a completely different side on this matter. In January 1831, he sent a letter to Father Roothaan, urging him not to sell the mission’s slaves. In his letter, Grivel gave a detailed assessment of the Maryland province and of St. Thomas Manor in particular. This letter is illuminating for two main reasons. It gives a detailed description of the daily lives of slaves on a Jesuit planation – or rather, what a Jesuit priest at the time believed to be slave life on a Jesuit plantation.
90 “Questions Regarding Slavery: Rev. Thomas Mulledy, SJ to the Jesuit Superior General, January 7, 1830,” Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed June 15, 2020, https://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/408. 91 “Questions Regarding Slavery: Rev. Thomas Mulledy, SJ to the Jesuit Superior General, January 7, 1830.” 92 Ira Berlin, A Guide to the History of Slavery in Maryland (Annapolis, MD: Maryland State Archives, 2008). 93 “A Brief History Of African Americans In Washington, DC,” accessed May 8, 2020,
https://www.culturaltourismdc.org/portal/a-brief-history-of-african-americans-in-washington-dc.
94 “Questions Regarding Slavery: Rev. Thomas Mulledy, SJ to the Jesuit Superior General, January 7, 1830.” 95 Curran, Shaping Catholicism, 41.
He described how “[the slaves] lack nothing, according to their condition.”96 He went on to
say that in comparison to the “poor Breton peasants”,
“[as] for food and clothing, they are Lords in comparison. Father Neale gives them 2 ½ pounds of beef per week, and salted herring; bread (wheat and rye, and oatmeal), potatoes, and polenta in abundance. […] Each house has a garden; and if they want to, they can raise poultry, harvest vegetables, fish, catch partridges and other animals in traps and eat them or sell them.”97
He described how the slaves were “all strong and rarely sick.”98
Descriptions such as this were probably what led scholars such as Walker Gollar to argue that the Jesuits’ slaves “probably were treated with more respect than were most other Maryland slaves.”99 This description stands in stark contrast with Craig Wilder’s assessment
who wrote that “the treatment of enslaved people on the Jesuit farms was alarming” and that the “supervisors were providing insufficient rations to slaves, overworking servants, and inflicting excessive violence on enslaves men and women.”100 Wilder drew his information
from Kenney’s report of the plantations.
Grivel made an explicit case to Roothaan to sell neither the mission’s slaves nor the land. With this he directly responded to voices such as Kenney and Mulledy, who were proposing these measures. He argued that the “embarrassment of an administration as extensive as that of our 15 or 20,000 acres of land” is “strongly exaggerated,” just as the assumption of the “little revenue we drew from our farms.”101 By describing the stable,
married life of the slaves he furthermore directly addressed the moral decay that Kenney as well as Mulledy brought forward as one of their main arguments in favor of selling the slaves. He argued that Kenney’s plan to “sell [everything] and put our money in the banks” was not the right way to go.102
He admitted that there were some good points to make against slavery, such as “the liberty given to each man by nature” which he claimed was “ironically expressed in the famous act of independence of the United States in 1776.”103 While he “approved of these
96 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831,” Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed June 13, 2020, http://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/292.
97 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 98 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.”
99 C. Walker Gollar, “Jesuit Education and Slavery in Kentucky, 1832–1868,” Register of the Kentucky Historical
Society 108, no. 3 (2010): 213-249, https://doi.org/10.1353/khs.2010.0050, 224.
100 Craig Wilder, “War and Priests - Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution,” in Slaverys
Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development, ed. Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 239. 101 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 102 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 103 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.”
sentiments, as consistent with the established government,” he did not think that they should be applied in this case “until we can abolish the laws sanctioning slavery without harming the fortune of the proprietors.”104
Grivel referred to the “Society of the Friends of the Negroes” which, according to him, consisted to a large part of Methodists. He talks about a “conspiracy” in which the Methodist preachers had “raised the Negroes to the east of the Chesapeake Bay” but which had
“imploded before the government discovered it.” He expressed the concern that the
Methodist’s desires for prompt emancipation was probably shared “too strongly” by many Jesuits.105
Apart from emphasizing that Mulledy’s and Kenney’s reports and warnings were starkly exaggerated, Grivel made several arguments why selling the slaves, or the land with the slaves, would not be expedient. His first argument was that selling the slaves would make cultivation of the land impossible due to a shortage of “free men and non-owners” which in turn was because of “the ease with which Whites here can become owners.”106 Here, his
outsider’s perspective on the economic system of the United States becomes apparent, paired with a certain skepticism thereof. He also feared that the company would have to sell the slaves below their value and that the company would not be able to handle this amount of money responsibly. He further feared the loss of influence in business that would be attached to loosing such a large amount of land.107
His arguably most interesting argument in this context, however, is the one about reputation. While Mulledy expressed his concern about the reputation of the Jesuits in the United States if they kept their slaves and did not follow the general trend of emancipation, Grivel’s concerns were exactly the opposite. He feared that by selling the slaves, and
potentially the lands as well, the company would “generally be blamed by friends,” by which he most likely meant Jesuits in the United States and abroad.108 He was worried about
reputation, just as Mulledy was. They just differed in whose opinions mattered to them. It could not be ignored, however, that the Abolitionist movement gained more and more traction. In December 1833, for example, the newly formed American Anti-Slavery Society announced that it would “aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in
104 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 105 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 106 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 107 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.” 108 “Slavery at St. Thomas Manor: Fr. Grivel to Fr. Roothaan, 1831.”
the guilt of slavery.”109 In the declaration, William Lloyd Garrison only referred to “the
churches” in general, without specifying which churches or denominations he meant. It is likely, however, that the Jesuits felt like the declaration addressed them. It was mostly
Protestant denominations, especially the Quakers, that pushed for abolition. Catholics, on the other hand, were often perceived to be stifling progress and to perpetuate authoritarian structures. The American Anti-Slavery Society would attracts more and more members meanwhile, comprising 100,000 by 1838.110 Amidst this climate, Kenney advised Roothaan
again to “gradually liberate the mission from such servants and substitute free labor in their place” taking into account the “state of public feeling on the subject of slavery.”111
The need to distance themselves from the growing controversy surrounding slavery was enforced by the increase in nativist rhetoric at the time of which the Jesuits were frequent targets.112 Fenwick described, for instance, how the Jesuits had been accused of committing
massacres in France, Italy, Spain and Ireland. He also reported how the “anti-Masonic party in New England had linked the Jesuits to an alleged conspiracy against the Constitution.”113 The
nuances of and possible strategies behind this nativism and anti-Catholicism will be explored in more depth in the following chapter.
While the options of freeing the slaves, selling them, and selling the estates were discussed quite openly, there was another option that was explored in secret. McSherry, who had become the first provincial supervisor of the new Maryland province in 1833, entered into secret negotiations with the Maryland branch of the American Colonization Society (ACS) about sending freed slaves to Liberia. The colonization movement enjoyed wide support amongst white Marylanders and in 1832, the legislature provided 20.000$ annuity to the Maryland branch of the ACS for ten years as a response to Nat Turner’s rebellion in
neighboring Virginia.114 In addition, laws were passed under which freed slaves who refused
transportation would face either ejection from the state or a revision to bondage.115 However,
109 Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention, Assembled at Philadelphia, December 4, 1833 (Philadelphia City A.S. Society, 1833), 46.
110 “Abolition Movement - Early Antislavery Efforts, Early Efforts of Blacks, Revolutionary Era Abolitionism, Northern Abolitionism,” accessed June 17, 2020,
https://web.archive.org/web/20100112204130/http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5913/Abolition-Movement.html.
111 Fr. Peter Kenney, S.J., “Minutes of Extraordinary Consultation at Georgetown College, Washington, D.C.,” MPA, Box 126, Folder 2, quoted in Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 188.
112 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 188. 113 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 189. 114 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 193. 115 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 193.
fear of nativism led the Jesuits to conduct their dialogue with the ACS anonymously. They appointed an intermediary, Will Eckead, to represent them in discussions.116
In a letter to Father William McSherry, Ekead described the state of the new colony in Liberia to be suitable for the relocation of the Jesuit slaves. He assured McSherry that a “Catholic expedition” could expect a warm welcome there. Many members of the board had assured him that “Catholic blacks were empathetically the best part of the Coloured
population” and would make “the best settlers.” He also expressed the hope that Georgetown College selling its slaves might “prove a good lead to many Catholic slaveholders, who viewed the evils of a slave population precisely as ourselves, but could not consistently send them away from their churches.”117
McSherry did not pursue this option any further, however. The Maryland branch was quarreling with the ACS at the time, leading to a split between the two organizations, and McSherry did not want to be caught in the middle. 118
By 1835, Mulledy’s concerns had grown even more and he reported to Roothaan “that these farms were a curse on the Society in this region. The negroes behave abominably on many of them & the priests allow them to destroy soul and body. They are neither farmers nor priests, nor religious—but some bad combination of all.”119
Mulledy as well as McSherry became increasingly uncomfortable about their status as slaveowners. While Mulledy had previously argued in favor of deferred emancipation, this became increasingly difficult due to new legislation in Maryland.120 Following Nat Turner’s
rebellion in 1831, fear had spread amongst slave holders in Maryland. They were not only scared of slave insurrections, however, but of tumults caused by the more than 17,000 free black people in Maryland. This panic led to a series of repressive laws which limited the rights of the slaves, as well as the free black people in Maryland.121 These developments made
the option of emancipation less feasible and a mass sale more attractive, since financial pressures were still rising.122
116 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 193.
117“The Liberia Option,” Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed May 28, 2020, http://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/41.
118 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 194.
119 March 8, 1835, MD 5-III-6, Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus, quoted in Curran, Shaping Catholicism, 42
120 Ira Berlin, Slaves without Masters; the Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: New Press, 1975), quoted in Curran, Shaping Catholicism, 43. Ira Berlin observed that “nowhere was the sense of crisis greater than in Maryland.” (210)
121 Baltimore Heritage, “1831-1884: Abolition and Emancipation,” Baltimore's Civil Rights Heritage, accessed June 23, 2020, https://baltimoreheritage.github.io/civil-rights-heritage/1831-1884/.
