The Price of Georgetown

The cannons standing outside of Healy Hall are a persistent reminder of the Jesuits’ reliance on slave labor to operate their plantations. The cannons’ provenance bespeaks a long history of European military engagements when imperial powers competed for Atlantic and global control. The cannons were cast by the Spanish Armada, commandeered by the English, and later, a part of Lord Baltimore's expedition to St. Mary's County in 1634. In 1824, the cannons were raised from St. Mary’s River and housed at the Jesuits’  St. Inigoes plantation  where hundreds of enslaved people labored for generations. The cannons were brought to Georgetown in 1888 and placed in their current location in front of Healy Hall in 1889.

Located just beyond the front gates, Georgetown University’s flagship building, Healy Hall, commands the campus’s landscape and commemorates  Patrick Healy , President of the University from 1874 to 1882. Healy is credited with transforming Georgetown from a small nineteenth-century college into a major, modern university. 

Despite being born into slavery in 1834, as the son of Michael Morris Healy, an Irish immigrant plantation owner, and Mary Eliza, a mixed-race enslaved woman, Healy was raised free and identified as Irish American. His private journals refer to African Americans as racial ‘others.’ Healy distanced himself from darker-skinned members of his family in order to more readily pass as white. He entered the Jesuit Order in 1850, earned a Ph.D. and became the president of Georgetown, an exclusively white institution at that time. During Healy’s tenure as president, he raised funds for Healy Hall, oversaw construction, and expanded the academic range and rigor of the institution. In the 1970s, Georgetown University began explicitly identifying Healy as a Black American -- resituating itself as a racially progressive school.

Founded in 1830 on ideals of Enlightenment rationality and constitutionalism, the Georgetown Philodemic Society debated topics concerning the morality and legality of slavery and abolition from its inception to the eve of the Civil War. Often debaters, many of whom hailed from Southern states, opted to focus on the disorder they anticipated abolition to cause the Union rather than the virtues of slavery. In 1830, the question  “Should slaves be liberated?”  was negated by the Society’s members. On December 12, 1855, 12 members disagreed with the notion of  reopening the African slave trade  while 3 affirmed the idea. In 1859, a debate over the topic of slavery brought tensions to a head, resulting in a brawl between members leading to a three-month suspension of the Society and a termination of their debates for the rest of the year. The Society is active today, making it Georgetown’s oldest student organization, conducting debates for nearly two centuries.

William Gaston was the first student to matriculate at Georgetown College in 1791. During his short time at the college, he was regarded as the “best scholar” among his peers despite being only 13 years old. However, he returned home on April 24, 1793, and later finished his college education at Princeton University. 

Gaston was from the South and owned numerous slaves. In a  letter to Joseph Carberry  in September 1824, Gaston wrote, “I place my boy Augustus under the charge of the Rev. Joseph Carberry to receive moral and religious instruction, to be taught an useful trade, and when qualified to make a fit to use his freedom, to be emancipated.” Six years later, in St. Mary's County Court, Fr. Joseph Carberry, manager of St. Inigoes plantation, recorded the  manumission  of an enslaved man named Augustin Linsey.

In 1842, James Ryder, S.J., President of the college and a supporter of slavery, invited Gaston to be the orator for the Forefather’s Day, but Gaston declined. Gaston’s grandchildren, William and Hugh Gaston, were students of the University, and like more than two-thirds of Georgetown students and alumni who fought in the Civil War, Hugh took up arms for the Confederate Army.

Read More:  Georgetown College Journal: William Gaston ;  “William Gaston. The First Student of Georgetown College” 

Located on the fifth floor of Lauinger Library, the  Booth Family Center for Special Collections  is the site where the  Maryland Province Archives  and  Georgetown University Archives  are held. These collections contain original documents and photographs that serve as a window into the lives of Jesuits and life at Georgetown many years ago. Open to all members of the Georgetown community and visitors, the Center helps curious students, scholars, Descendants, and others research the  history of slavery at Georgetown  and beyond. The Library also contains additional primary and secondary sources to support research in these areas and others. Experienced archivists and librarians are available to assist researchers with using the  Library’s collections . 

Explore the Archive:  Slavery at Georgetown College 

Built at the turn of the 19th century, this space was originally given the name Mulledy Hall after  Rev. Thomas Mulledy, S.J. , the  architect of the sale of the GU272  and former President of Georgetown. The building is now named after  Isaac Hawkins , one of the  “GU272.”  The building had previously served as the residence for Jesuit priests on campus. After student activism in late 2015, the building was renamed Freedom Hall. In September 2017, the  residence hall  officially took the name, Isaac Hawkins Hall. Born around 1773, Hawkins and his family were held at White Marsh and his children and grandchildren were sold to Henry Johnson’s Chatham plantation and Jesse Batey's West Oak plantation in Louisiana. While the University might not exist today had it not been for this sale by Mulledy, the lasting impact on the enslaved persons who were sold and their families must not be forgotten. 

Explore the Archive:  Sale of Maryland Jesuit’s Enslaved Community to Louisiana in 1838 

Listen:  Buildings and Memorials Podcast 

 Anne Marie Becraft  (1805-1833) was a 19th-century free Black woman who devoted her life to educating Black girls. She founded one of the first schools for Black girls in Georgetown and went on to become one of the first Black nuns in America. After years of being an educator, Becraft passed the torch to a successor and joined the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore. While Becraft was engaging with her work in the Georgetown community, she remained surrounded by the institution of slavery on the University’s campus. Her achievements are particularly profound because she lived in a society in which slavery and racism were deeply entrenched. 

The building was initially named after William McSherry, S.J., a Jesuit at Georgetown involved with the GU272 sale. The name of the building was temporarily changed to Remembrance Hall in 2015 after student protests and  renamed after Becraft  on April 8, 2017, during a dedication ceremony.

On May 6, 1961, the centennial of the onset of the Civil War, the Alumni Association of Georgetown gifted this commemorative plaque to the University. This plaque was unveiled as part of the University-wide observance of the centennial held in memory of the 1,138 Georgetown students who fought in the Civil War. At least 906 of these men fought on the side of the Confederacy. The 1961 observance was filled with ceremonies and speeches, many sympathizing with the loss of the southern cause. In a speech in Gaston Hall during the centennial memorial, Fr. Edward Bunn, S.J., said “Georgetown loved them both and cherished them both...for each had to make his own agonizing choice, in the conviction of his conscience, in the persuasion of his principles.” The University’s official colors, Blue and Grey, were adopted after the victory of the Union. 

Explore the Archive:  Shades of Blue and Grey: Georgetown and the Civil War ;  Civil War and Georgetown University 

The construction of the Observatory in the early 1840s was done under James Ryder S.J.'s watch. He criticized abolitionism, stating that the Constitution must be defended to maintain social order. 

James Curley, S.J., funded the project through major financial contributions, many of which came from plantation owners. Thomas Meredith Jenkins, S.J., gave about $8,000 dollars. Charles Stonestreet, S.J., similarly gave about $2,000.

Observatory records indicate payments to unnamed  A  frican Americans  who worked there. 

White-Gravenor Hall is named after Andrew White and John Altham Gravenor, Jesuit founders of the Maryland Colony. The structure is often described as a “sermon in stone” due to the extensive external architectural details showcasing Catholic and Jesuit symbolism and history. The relief sculptures on the wall above the entrance, in particular, are telling of Georgetown’s history of slavery. They include plantations where enslaved people worked. The  “Mobberly” crest above the left entrance  recognizes  Br. Joseph Mobberly S.J. , a manager at  St. Inigoes Manor  plantation who later taught at Georgetown. In the 1820s, when abolitionists were arguing against the morality of slavery, Mobberly continued to justify slavery using the racist notion that people of African descent are inferior. In fact, the treatment of slavery at St. Inigoes was so brutal, he was dismissed due to complaints about his conduct.

The College Ground, located under the Reiss Science Building, was  the second cemetery for Holy Trinity Church .  Burials  took place on this site from roughly 1818 to 1833. Free white people, free people of color, and enslaved people were all buried here, including Rachel (1821), Charles (1832), and  Margaret Smallwood  (1837), who are identified in Holy Trinity Church burial records as belonging to the College.

The College Ground was largely abandoned in the late 19th century, and the Reiss Science Building was built on the site in the 1950s. Some human remains were re-interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery during the construction of Reiss.

Darnall Hall is named after Eleanor Darnall, the mother of Archbishop John Carroll. Eleanor’s grandfather, Henry Darnall, was a notable landowner in Prince George’s County, Maryland. At the time of his death, his estate included 35,000 acres of land, and he owned over 100 enslaved persons. Eleanor ultimately inherited this wealth. Eleanor Darnall married Daniel Carroll. Their first son, Daniel Carroll II, also a slave owner, became a Founding Father and signer of the Constitution.

Georgetown’s School of Medicine opened in May 1851. The founders, Drs. Charles Henry Liebermann, Noble Young, Flodoardo Howard and Johnson Eliot, were slave owners. In 1862,  Dr. Noble Young , Professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine, petitioned the federal government to be compensated for the emancipation of seven people whom he had enslaved and were freed as a result of the DC Emancipation Act.  Dr. Liebermann , Professor of Institutes and Practices of Surgery, followed suit claiming compensation for the emancipation of Daniel Jones. Liebermann had purchased Jones for $200, claimed $225 for compensation, but only received $65.70. Howard and Elliot are listed as slaveholders in the 1860 census as well. These actions were not uncommon; many members of the Georgetown community owned slaves and filed compensation claims after their emancipation. 

Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School is a private Roman Catholic school for girls located next to Georgetown University. The school was founded in 1799 by the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, also known as the Visitation Sisters, and Archbishop Leonard Neale, president of Georgetown College. The founders depended heavily on  enslaved labor . Enslaved persons owned by Georgetown Visitation School either worked directly for the institution or were rented to other establishments for profit. To date, Georgetown Visitation School has identified, either by name or by brief description, 107 enslaved persons owned by the Sisters of the Visitation between 1800 and 1862. 

 Yarrow Mamout,  an enslaved practicing Muslim, bought his freedom in 1796. After being taken from Guinea at the age of 14, Mamout found jobs loading vessels and basket weaving which provided him with the financial means to free himself and later buy a log cabin in Georgetown in 1800. His log cabin was located at lot No. 9, along the block 3330-3332 of Dent Place,  now 3324 Dent Place NW . He gained enough money to lend the house out. Mamout also became one of the  first shareholders of the Columbia Bank of Georgetown  and a financier for both Black and white merchants. 

Portraits of Mamout:  National Portrait Gallery ;  Philadelphia Museum of Art 

In the news (2020):  "Skeletons Were Found In A Georgetown Basement This Month. They Could Be Historic Treasures"