The Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project was an initiative of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States that ran from 2016-2021. The project’s offices were in St. Louis and this website contains many resources developed from that project. As the Jesuits in the United States learned more and dialogued with Descendants, the Jesuit Conference re-allocated resources to support genealogical study and partnership with Descendants.
The Society of Jesus relied on the labor of enslaved people globally, almost from their founding. In colonial North America, and, over time, in the United States, their involuntary labor helped establish, expand, and sustain Jesuit missionary efforts and educational institutions until the abolition of slavery in 1865.
Jesuits in the colonial period held people in bondage in what are now Maryland and Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Canada and the Great Lakes region. In the nineteenth century, the labor of enslaved people supported Jesuit missions, churches, and schools in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Illinois, and Kansas. Georgetown University, Saint Louis University, Spring Hill College, relied directly upon enslaved labor, as did closed colleges in Kentucky and Louisiana.
Image courtesy of the Jesuit Archives and Research Center.
We, the Jesuits, deeply regret our participation in this evil institution. No one today can reconcile these actions with the current teaching of the Church or with our commitments as Jesuits, but they are an undeniable part of our history. We are called now to an intentional response: one that foregrounds the lived experiences of enslaved people, acknowledges the legacies of Jesuit slaveholding, and is made in collaboration with Descendants and those in our communities who continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery.
We began by conducting extensive research with an intentional focus on the lives of enslaved people. This process of creating a more complete picture of the past enabled us to trace family lineages and connect with Descendants enabling our current work and partnerships.
The Society of Jesus participated in the institution of slavery in North America from the colonial era until the passage of the 13th Amendment. The involuntary labor of the people the Jesuits owned, rented, and borrowed helped establish, expand, and sustain Jesuit missionary efforts and educational institutions in colonial North America and, over time, across the United States. The Jesuits’ use of enslaved labor is a legacy shared by all Jesuits and Jesuit institutions.
Kaskaskia, Illinois Country
At its height, the forced labor of 68 indigenous and African enslaved people supported the Jesuits on their Kaskaskia plantation in Illinois Country.Maryland
Jesuits owned enslaved people at several plantations, farms, and schools in Maryland and Pennsylvania, including at Georgetown University. They sold more than 272 enslaved people from their plantations to southern Louisiana in a notorious sale in 1838. Learn more at the Georgetown Slavery Archive.New Orleans, Louisiana
French Jesuits expanded their slaveholding from the Caribbean to colonial New Orleans, where they established a plantation on which about 150 enslaved people cultivated sugar, figs, indigo, oranges, and other products. These plantations supplied the income Jesuits used for their educational and missionary activities.Missouri
In 1823, Thomas and Molly Brown, Moses and Nancy Queen, and Isaac and Susanna Hawkins were forced on a journey from Maryland with twelve Jesuits to found the Missouri Mission. The families of Proteus and Anny Hawkins and Jack and Sally Queen were forced on the same journey seven years later.St. Mary’s College, Lebanon, Kentucky
French Jesuits assumed the ownership of enslaved people at St. Mary’s College when they took over its administration. They relied on the forced labor of Rachel, Teresa, and more than 15 other people until they left to run what is now Fordham University in New York. They left their enslaved people with the priests who took over St. Mary’s College.St. Charles College, Grand Coteau, Louisiana
When French Jesuits opened St. Charles College, they purchased three enslaved people: Philodie and her daughter Rachel, and Ignatius Gough. In addition, Jesuits rented or borrowed enslaved people from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and local slaveowners. Over time, the number of people the Jesuits owned grew.Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama
Slavery pervaded Spring Hill College’s history since its founding in 1830. We know little about the lives of enslaved people at the college, especially after Jesuits took over in 1847, primarily because fires destroyed many of the college’s earliest records.St. Joseph College, Bardstown, Kentucky
When Jesuits took over operation of St. Joseph College from the diocese of Louisville, they kept all of the enslaved people then at the college, except Charles, Dave and his wife Maria, and their children. In addition to the people they owned, they rented other enslaved people from local lay slaveowners, clergy, and women’s religious orders.
Image taken by Kenneth C. Zirkel
During the 19th century, enslaved people maintained Spalding Hall, the main building of St. Joseph College.
The experiences of people held in bondage by Jesuits were similar to those of other enslaved people in the United States. Although they endured abysmal living conditions, physical violence, family separation and the rupture of relationships, enslaved people were resilient, going to courageous lengths to protect themselves and their families, resist their enslavement, and achieve freedom.
Slavery was not an institution that operated in isolation. Slaveholders, and slaveowning institutions, shared in their complicity of holding human beings in bondage.
By saying “owned, rented, and borrowed,” we acknowledge that the Jesuits’ participation in the systems of slavery was far more widespread than it appears if we only pay attention to the lives of people they owned directly. Jesuits exploited the lives and labor of people they rented from other local owners, and people they received as loans without the expectation of compensation to the slaveowner.
These are some of the stories about the lives and experiences of the enslaved adults and children whose unfree labor helped establish and sustain Jesuit missions and schools in places like Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, Louisiana and Alabama.
Co-Director Danielle Harrison and Research Coordinator Kelly Schmidt speak to Angela Pancella of St. Francis Xavier College Church in St. Louis about the work of the SHMR project.
Peter Hawkins was the first child born into slavery at the Jesuits’ St. Stanislaus Novitiate and Farm in Florissant, Missouri, and the last formerly-enslaved person to leave the seminary after emancipation.
Members of the Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation (SHMR) team spoke at the Catholic Research Resources Alliance’s virtual annual meeting about the lives of people enslaved to members of the Society of Jesus and of the Catholic Church; the impact of this shared history upon archives and modern reconciliation efforts; and contemporary work to facilitate conversations between Jesuits and Descendants of people they held in bondage.
Ashley McKinless and Zac Davis of the Jesuitical podcast from America Media interview SHMR project members about the lives of the enslaved people owned by the Jesuits in the Midwest, how they are working with Descendants and the meaning of reconciliation.
