"Cham's Descendants": The Mobberly Diaries, Part II, August 1823

Dublin Core

Title

"Cham's Descendants": The Mobberly Diaries, Part II, August 1823

Subject

Slavery--Religious aspects; Slavery--Justification; Slavery and the church--Catholic Church

Description

In this section from Br. Joseph Mobberly's Treatise on Slavery he identifies slaves in Maryland as Cham's descendants and cannibals who feast on infants.

Creator

Joseph P. Mobberly, SJ Papers

Source

Diary Part II, Box 1, Folder 8, p. 87-89, Joseph P. Mobberly, SJ Papers, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Georgetown University

The Joseph P. Mobberly Papers have been digitized in their entirity by Georgetown Univeristy Library. To browse the collection visit Digital Georgetown.

Publisher

Georgetown Slavery Archive

The Mobberly Diaries were previously hosted by the Jesuit Plantation Project.

Date

1823-08

Contributor

Adam Rothman, Elsa Barraza Mendoza, Jesuit Plantation Project

Rights

Georgetown University Library

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

Manuscript

Identifier

GSA142

Text Item Type Metadata

Text

[Page 87]

Cham's Descendants
Children inherit their parents dispositions and their Parents' vices, or virtues. 

Berosius says that Cham was a Magician. (see pag. 67) The Author of the book of wisdom addressing Almighty God concerning the Descendants of Cham says; " O Lord, thou didst abhor the ancient Inhabitants of the holy Land, because they did works hateful to thee by their sorceries and wicked Sacrifices, and those merciless murderers of their own Children and eaters of men's bowels and devourers of blood from the midst of thy consecration, and those parents sacrificing with their own hands helpless souls, it was thy will to destroy by the hands 


[Page 88]
of our parents, that the land, which of all, is most dear to thee, might receive a mighty Colony of the Children of God." Chap. 12.3 etc.

"Thou wast not ignorant that they were a wicked generation and their malice natural,+ and that their thought could not be changed.¹ For it was a cursed seed from the beginning."* Wisdom. Chap. 12-10-11.

Old Africans living in Maryland have frequently confessed and seemingly with pleasure that they had been accustomed in their own Country to feast upon roasted Infants and that a pickaninny (a roasted infant) was the sweetest morsel they have ever tasted!

If this account is true, we

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+That is thy receives this malice from their Father Cham.
¹  On account of their stubborn and perverse will.
*  From the flood, the beginning, as it were, of a new world, or when Cham Sinned.

 
[Page 89]
may reasonably concluded that the African character accords with the above Scriptural passage in all its parts.

The following divisions of the human race are taken from Goldsmith's Animated Nature: Vol. 1 - page 364 to the end of page 380. The first distinct race of men is found around the polar regions: ver. the Laplanders, Esquirmaux Indians, Lamoids, Tartars, NovaLemblans, Borandians, Greenlanders and the Kamskatkans. All these resemble each other in stature and customs etc. Their colour is a deep brown-visage laige and broad, nose flat and short, eyes of a yellowish brown, eyelids drawn towards the temples, cheek bones

Original Format

Manuscript

Files

Citation

Joseph P. Mobberly, SJ Papers , “"Cham's Descendants": The Mobberly Diaries, Part II, August 1823,” Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed January 21, 2025, https://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/154.

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