Georgetown President Offering Provisions for the Enslaved, 1805

Georgetown President Offering Provisions for the Enslaved, 1805

Financial Records

Provisions

Georgetown College

Slave conditions

Catholic Church

Leonarde Neale was the president of Georgetown College in 1805. He financially provided provisions for three enslaved people working in the college at the name; named John, Jack and Nace. These provisions included shoes, breeches and a hat.

Georgetown University Archive

https://findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/1432001

Georgetown Slavery Archive

1805

Cory Young

Elsa Barraza Mendoza

Georgetown University Library

PDF

English

Financial Records

GSA204

To begin with, the source is a document of financial records that was written by Bishop Leonard Neale. Published as a PDF document by the Georgetown Slavery Archive, the record depicts the president of Georgetown College (Leonard Neale) in 1805 purchasing provisions for three enslaved individuals. This illustrates the direct contribution between Georgetown and the enslaved, whilst providing detailed reports on the price of each provision and for what persons. Individuals who have contributed to uploading this source on the Georgetown Slavery Archive are Cory Young and Elsa Barraza Mendoza. The formal title of this source on the website is the following “Bishop Leonard Neale Provisions Enslaved People At Georgetown College, 1805.”

This source was created for many different reasons; to depict how religion was used to justify slavery, the extent to which the institution used the enslaved as laborers. However, in the context of slavery now, the main reason was to illustrate the relationship between Georgetown as an institution and its involvement in the slave trade. In the book, “Facing Georgetown’s History,” document five exposes why Jesuits became slaveholders, similar to this source. The transactions are listed next to a final settlement in which Maryland Jesuits also enslaved eight adults and seven children. In this source on provisions, Bishop Leonard Neale was a prominent figure in the institution, as he was the President of Georgetown for a certain period of time. He also represented a religious leadership role as Bishop. It’s recorded that the Bishop paid transactions within the range of a dollar for all three enslaved. With this being said, this source highlights the hypocrisy of the Jesuits as a religious group who justified enslavement despite the Catholic religion proving otherwise. Since the Jesuits preach religion, it is prominent that religion does not allow slavery within its doctrine. If this is the case, why were prominent religious figures such as Bishop Leonarde offering provisions to these enslaved, rather than offering them a way out? These enslaved were employed by the university and was finalized by the president himself. The president has control over his university, and only him can regulate what happens within his institution.
The source appears to be positive at first glance, as its title reveals the bishop buying what seems to be mended shoes and breeches, and a hat for three specific enslaved individuals. However, when analyzing the source, one begins to question why only a certain number of individuals were given provisions, and to what extent were they working in order to need new provisions? This is impactful as it introduces a new perspective to the source that may not be seen on the surface.

Since this source was reported in 1805, this story fits into the context of the Atlantic World as it highlights the events happening around the time the source was reported. It is understood that previously the Northern US states attempted to abolish slavery between the years 1774 and 1804. Also, during this time, in 1808, the US congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, which unfortunately caused the enslaved community to increase drastically as the domestic trade flourished. This reminds us of the events that were happening when these provisions were given.