Title: Georgetown Co-Hosts Conference on Illuminating Catholic Records of the Enslaved

Georgetown co-hosted a conference for religious leaders and researchers on increasing access to Catholic archives to better understand the history of the Catholic Church and slavery in the U.S.

The conference was organized by the Catholic Religious Organizations Studying Slavery (CROSS), a nonprofit made up of diocesan leaders and members of religious organizations. The organization works to improve access to the records of enslaved people in Catholic archives to provide a more comprehensive account of enslavement within the Catholic Church.

From Nov. 13-14, diocesan leaders, archivists and researchers, college students, university faculty and members of the Descendant community discussed best practices to uncover and analyze historical records, study Catholic cemeteries and incorporate archival material into the classroom. 

Staff from Georgetown’s Booth Family Center for Special Collections also contributed their expertise in researching Georgetown’s archives and shared tools that scholars, Descendants and the public can use to access these historical materials. 

“We appreciate CROSS’s dedicated efforts to enhance access to and engagement with Catholic archives and their work to build a greater understanding of Catholic slaveholding and its legacies in the United States,” said Joseph Ferrara, senior vice president and chief of staff to the president at Georgetown, in welcoming conference attendees.

“And yet this work — to uncover the histories and connections of enslaved people within the history of the Catholic world — is unfinished, just as our nation’s response to this history remains unfinished and ongoing.”

Georgetown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Its Legacies collaborated with CROSS on the conference. Its founding director, Adam Rothman, led a walking tour of sites on Georgetown’s campus that are part of the university’s historical ties to slavery.

“Understanding our history begins in the archives and continues into the classroom and in conversations with the broader community,” said Rothman. “To be able to bring together archivists, scholars and Descendants here at Georgetown for the CROSS conference is part of what reconciliation means.” 

The conference took place on the 187th anniversary of the day the ship Katherine Jackson sailed from Alexandria to Louisiana carrying more than one hundred of the 272 children, women and men who had been enslaved on Jesuit plantations and were sold, the sale of which benefitted Georgetown.

A group of Descendants of the enslaved people held a moment of remembrance and gratitude for their ancestors, and attendees celebrated Mass together in Dahlgren Chapel.  

After Mass, Rachel Swarns, a New York University professor, New York Times writer and author of The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church, presented the conference’s keynote address on reckoning with Catholic slaveholding. The conference also featured reflections by Bishop Roy Campbell, Jr., an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Washington.

The university launched the Georgetown Slavery Archive in February 2016, which contains records relating to Georgetown, the Maryland Jesuits and slavery. Later that spring, Swarns reported on the story of the Descendants on the front page of The New York Times. 

In June of that year, she wrote about a meeting between then-President John J. DeGioia and a Descendant, Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, who had already discovered her connection to the families enslaved by the Maryland Jesuits. Bayonne-Johnson was honored at the CROSS keynote event for her pioneering genealogical research. 

“Over these ten years, it has been a privilege for us to seek new ways to explore, honor, and share this history, to pursue a path of reconciliation and to advance racial justice, both here at Georgetown and across our nation,” Ferrara said. 

“This work — what you are all doing — is helping to reknit those bonds so brutally broken by injustice nearly 190 years ago. There is perhaps nothing more important than this work of reunification.”