Newsletter Vol. 1 Issue 30

Reconciling the Sale of 272 Enslaved People by the Society of Jesus 

As noted last Monday, during the Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises, we will be focusing our first newsletter each week on ways in which work to advance racial justice and equity is enacted in our church and society. The first example we will turn to is Society of Jesus’ Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project. 
 

In recent years, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) have taken steps to publicly recognize, apologize, and begin to reconcile the horrendous ownership and sale of 272 men, women, and children, enslaved by the Jesuits, in 1838. These persons were sold to plantation owners in Louisiana. The need to sell these enslaved persons was for the financial benefit of Georgetown University. Mismanaged financially, selling the slaves ensured that Georgetown had a financial future. 
 

Those in charge of the sale guaranteed that those who were sold would be able to retain their Catholic faith and practice it as they pleased and that they would not be separated from family members. Neither of those promises was upheld.
 

Working together with Georgetown University, the Jesuits worked to identify more than 10,000 descendants of those persons sold in 1838. Together, they founded the GU272 Descendants Association to come together and advance educational and economic aspirations moving forward. This led to the announcement of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation “which will work to address and heal the wounds of that betrayal of human dignity and the millions of others like it that have occurred in America before and since.” This includes a $1 billion dollar campaign to support racial healing initiatives, educational opportunities, and care for elderly and infirmed descendants. 
 

These initiatives are profound in that they are led by the diverse desires, needs, and experiences of the descendants themselves. They also bring together others who have experienced racism and provide for grants to further antiracism initiatives across the country. 
 

For those of us who are not descendants of slaves, but are members of Jesuit institutions – including our parish – we may be tempted not to see this work as part and parcel of our own. As an Ignatian family, though, to grow in the solidarity that comes with journeying with Christ suffering in the world today is to see our own story is tied together with those of the descendants.
 

Learning about and accompanying African Americans experiencing racism today through the Foundation and Association is one concrete way we can commit to becoming more antiracist. To link the stories of the enslaved and their descendants with our own respective spiritual journeys helps us see that the cross does not have to have the last word. Just as the story of Exodus and the cross of Jesus Christ helped bolster the faith of the enslaved – knowing that God and not slavery or death – ultimately triumphs, so too resisting racism produces Christ resurrected in our communities today.

Like contemporary Jesuits, none of us owned slaves and few of us have directly contributed to the racist culture of our nation. But like the Jesuits of today, it is important to recognize and renounce the social, cultural, legal and other barriers to full participation in our society and take concrete, specific and real actions to right them.

Resource: Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project

Questions for Reflection: