Racial Segregation at the Heart of Georgetown
“School for Colored Persons at Trinity Church, 1819”
If one stepped into the schoolhouse opposite Trinity Church on a Sunday in 1819, they would think that the only pious Christians are Blacks. This document, written by Revered John McElroy in 1819, show how Black persons (both free and enslaved) learned to read, write and pray in a segregated building at the heart of Georgetown – a Jesuit school. The segregation comes as a surprise since Jesuit values are focused primarily on equality and caring for others. McElroy explains the routine of lecturing at the segregated school for colored persons. The school was not founded out of the reverend’s benevolence towards the black community. Instead, the primary purpose of this school was to prevent black persons from “frequenting the schools kept on Sundays by Methodists…”1
Slave ownership for Maryland Jesuits was a means of affirming their right to property in a Protestant dominated society.2 At times, Reverend McElroy and fellow Jesuits at Georgetown struggled to maintain a balance between propriety of slaves and their Jesuit principles. This conflict was justified by perceiving slave ownership as a means for extending religious liberty –an opportunity to spread Catholicism.3 Jesuits allowed their slaves to be baptized, receive the Eucharist (as depicted in the film “The Last Supper”) and even marry. 4 These services were not an extension of their kindness, but an act of seeking religious justification for the ownership of slaves. Jesuits saw the idea of slave freedom and the abolition movement being driven from Protestant propaganda. The Protestant view of all men being free and equal, along with granting them agency, threatened the institution of established religion.5 The school at Trinity Church was seen as a venue where they could protect the enslaved people from the so-called Protestant propaganda, and also fulfill the religious obligations of slave ownership.
Interestingly, this school was founded when slavery was being viewed with increased resentment, particularly in the North. Maryland Jesuits were among the few groups in the region actively engaged in Plantation slavery. Plantations failed to provide high profits resulting in financial pressures as well. In 1838, due to societal and financial pressures combined, 272 slaves were sold by Jesuit run plantations in Maryland, a sum from which was used to pay a loan for a Georgetown building (an estimated value of $3.3 million today).6 At the moment of sale, it was directed that the slaves be granted their basic rights and be allowed to practice Catholicism as they had learned so at the school of Trinity Church. The school satisfied Jesuit sellers of having fulfilled their religious obligation of training and educating the slaves before sale.
The institution laying behind the “Hoya Saxa” chants is foundationally based on the institution of slavery. In its early, post-Revolutionary War years, Georgetown’s community was dominated by Jesuits and an all-male, all-white Christian cohort. Yet its functioning was almost entirely supported by plantations run on African descended slave labor.7 The separate School for Colored Person at Trinity Church in 1819 served as an incubator that molded the slaves owned by Jesuits into better Christians, so that their ownership could be justified with a religious overtone. They turned out to be learned, and practicing Christians, but bound by the shackles of slavery, nevertheless.
The repercussions of Georgetown’s historical paradigm of racial discrimination still haunt some to this day. A few descendants of the slaves sold by Georgetown expressed the horror of learning about their ancestors’ past. Some claimed that their toes would curl when they would think of family’s history in Maryland, while others completely wanted to remove that phase from their family’s horrific past.8 As they learn about their families’ histories, they call upon Georgetown to make reprimands for its troubled history, along with compensating the families affected.
Waqar Basit Butt
GUQ Class of 2023
Notes
- Georgetown University Library, “School for Colored Persons at Trinity Church, 1819,” Georgetown Slavery Archive, accessed November 28, 2020, https://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/32.
- Suzzane Monyak, “Built by Slaves and Jesuits,” The Hoya. January 30th, 2015.https://thehoya.com/slavery/
- Adam Rothman, "Georgetown University and the Business of Slavery." Washington History29, no. 2 (2017), 18 https://www.jstor.org/stable/90015020.
- Monyak, “Built by Slaves and Jesuits”
- Monyak, “Built by Slaves and Jesuits”
- ROTHMAN, "Georgetown University and the Business of Slavery," 21
- Mathew Quallen, “Georgetown, Financed by Slave Trading,” The Hoya. September 14th, 2014. https://thehoya.com/georgetown-financed-by-slave-trading/
- Sona Patel. and Swarns, Rachel L, “‘A Million Questions’ from Descendants of Slaves Sold to Aid Georgetown,” New York Times. May 20th, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/20/us/-descendants-of-slaves-sold-to-aid-georgetown.html?_r=0
Bibliography
Georgetown University Library. “School for Colored Persons at Trinity Church, 1819.” Georgetown Slavery Archive, Accessed November 28, 2020.https://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/32.
Monyak, Suzzane. “Built by Slaves and Jesuits.” The Hoya. January 30th, 2015. https://thehoya.com/slavery/
Patel, Sona, and Swarns, Rachel L. “‘A Million Questions’ from Descendants of Slaves Sold to Aid Georgetown.” New York Times. May 20th, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/20/us/-descendants-of-slaves-sold-to-aid-georgetown.html?_r=0
Quallen, Mathew. “Georgetown, Financed by Slave Trading.” The Hoya, September 14th, 2014.https://thehoya.com/georgetown-financed-by-slave-trading/
Rothman, Adam. "Georgetown University and the Business of Slavery." Washington History 29, no. 2 (2017): 18-22. Accessed November 14, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/90015020.