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"We are in the dark as long as we keep slaves": Br. Joseph Mobberly, S.J. calculates the cost savings from emancipation, February 5, 1815
In this letter to Georgetown President Giovanni Grassi S.J,, Brother Joseph Mobberly, S.J. urges that the Jesuits' enslaved people be sold for a time or set free. Most of the letter is devoted to calculating the cost advantage of hiring free white…
"we lost a boy": Fr. Carbery requests a tax deduction for six St. Inigoes slaves sold by the Jesuits, 1836
On May 27, 1836, Rev. Joseph Carbery SJ, the manager at St. Inigoes, wrote to the clerk of the levy court of St. Mary's County to request that he remove eight slaves from his tax burden. The Jesuits had sold six children under the age of eight away…
"What the Farm Expends on the Blacks," The Mobberly Diaries, Part I, 1820
In this diary entry from 1820, Br. Joseph Mobberly calculates the money the farm invested in supporting slaves. His conclusion is "that the farm would do much better without them than with them."
"What will become of me?": Fr. Havermans reports on the anguish of the slaves, October 20, 1838 and November 12, 1838
In this letter to the Superior General, Fr. Havermans laments the "grim and displeasing" sale of the Jesuits' slaves. In a postscript dated November 12, he reports the anguish expressed by enslaved people at Newtown as they were being gathered for…
"Whiskey for servants," 1846
The following entry in the Day Book of Georgetown College records a payment of $10.85 for "whiskey for servants" made in June 1846. Another similar payment was made in this book in August of the same year.
"whose rule always is to work as little as possible": Fr. Marshall reports to Rome, March 5, 1821
Marshall reports that the Society is living beyond its means and must sell real property. No prospect that the Maryland farms will be profitable in the future due to bad management. Marshall states that the province has around 300 slaves of whom…
"You may sell Isaac": The Jesuits arrange the sale of Isaac Hawkins, an enslaved man jailed in Baltimore, 1843
This series of letters from 1843 illustrates the Maryland Jesuits' attempts to sell Isaac, an enslaved man who appeared to be "fugitive since the fall of 1838." The Jesuits received news of Isaac's whereabouts after he was arrested in Baltimore. The…
Enslaved people at St. Joseph mission, Talbot County, Md., in 1765
Fr. Joseph Mosely's accounts of St. Joseph in Maryland from 1765 to 1767 includes a list of enslaved persons that notes where they came from, when they were born, and other biographical notes. Of particular interest in the mention of Nanny, a "Guinea…
Chatham plantation, from Norman's chart of the lower Mississippi River (1858)
"Norman's chart of the lower Mississippi River," published in 1858, is a remarkable map of all the plantations along the Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans. Included on this map is John R. Thompson's Chatham Plantation in Ascension Parish…
"One pair of shoes, one dress":Mrs. Johnson requests that Fr. Fenwick outfit a woman he sold, Oct. 1830
In a letter from Oct. 1830, Mrs. Johnston requests Rev. Fenwick's "generosity and philantropy" to outfit Harriet, a woman he sold to her family.