Browse Items (128 total)

In 1862, Dr. Noble Young, Professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine in the Medical Department of Georgetown College, submitted a petition for compensation from the federal government for the emancipation of seven people whom he had owned,…

In 1862, Dr. Charles H. Liebermann, Professor of Institutes and Practice of Surgery in the Medical Department at Georgetown College, submitted a claim of compensation for the emancipation of Daniel Jones, an enslaved man he had owned since 1849 and…

The minute book for Georgetown's Philodemic Society records that members debated the issue of slavery in its first year. The date of the debate is not given, but it was probably late in 1830 or early 1831.

This 1795 entry records the marriage of an enslaved woman named Phillis to a man named David Thomas in the Georgetown College chapel.

This was the first marriage celebrated in Holy Trinity Church.

An advertisement for Michael published in the Daily National Intelligencer on June 13, 1822. He had escaped in late April, and the subscriber, Notley Maddox, was offering a $50 reward for his capture. The ad reveals that Michael had been hired out to…

On July 5, 1827, William Feiner, SJ, acting as President of Georgetown College, wrote a pass for Stephen, an enslaved man, allowing him to go to St. Thomas' Manor.

After providing for his safe passage, Rev, Feiner, SJ, gave Stephen a letter for…

Bill of sale for a man named Wat, sold by Charles Boarman to Rev. Leonard Neale, president of Georgetown College, for $400. Wat was then sold to St. Inigoes for $500. The 1838 "census" of enslaved people on the Jesuit plantations in Maryland lists a…

Rev. James Ryder, SJ, then a professor at Georgetown, gave this anti-abolitionist, proslavery speech in Richmond, Virginia, in 1835.

Ryder would go on to become president of Georgetown from 1840-1845 and again from 1848-1851. He founded…

A boarder named James Price defrayed his expenses by hiring out to the College an enslaved man named Peter.

Playbill for a blackface minstrel show at Georgetown dated December 17, 1861.By December 1861, the word "contraband" had come to refer to enslaved people who had escaped to the Union Army.For more information on the Georgetown "Contrabands", see…