|
Black
Catholic History
in the Archdiocese of Baltimore
I
Aboard the Ark and Dove, ships from England which landed in
Southern Maryland, it has been reported by historians that there
were 100 Catholics, two (2) priests and a servant Catholic Negro
on board. This was in 1634 (Henry S. Spaulding, Catholic
Carolina Maryland, 1931, p. 102.
The Afro-American reports that there were two Blacks aboard
these ships. One, John Pierce from England, sometimes referred
to as Joyce, and one from Barbados, Matthias de Sousa, who
assisted in the rebuilding of one of the above ships as it was
shipwrecked during its village. Both men were indentured
servants.
yet another report from Rev. John Gillard speaks of a black
man named Hannibal, a servant in the family of Leonard Calvert,
who remained with he family until his death. this man, Hannibal,
may have been catholic since it was customary for servants to be
instructed in the faith of the family he/she served.
II
By 1636 more Blacks must have come into the Catholic
community. There is a report that a Jesuit traveled from Newton
to Blackstone Island in southern Maryland to "offer Mass
for the English and Colored people."
III
In 1790 there was a congregation of Blacks that
attended services in the basement of St. Mary's Seminary, Paca
Street.
St. Patrick's Church on Broadway, was built by
indentured French and Blacks, and Black slaves.
The baptismal registers of St. Peter's
pro-cathedral and of the Cathedral of the Assumption (downtown
Baltimore) includes records of baptisms of Black people as far
back as 1707, with the baptism of an eighteen year old woman,
Jeanne Antoinettee Sanite (Cyprian Davis, The History of Black
Catholics in the United States)
IV
In 1801, a father Johns Souge from Meldley's neck,
St. mary's County, publicly spoke out against slavery and called
for insurrection
V
That the Oblate Sisters of Providence were formed
in 1829. Mr. George Hoffman gave this religious order a home at
the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and St. Mary's Court. (There is
a Hoffman Street in West Baltimore to this Oblate Sisters site.)
The Oblate Sisters established the first institution for learning
for Blacks in the United States.
VI
The Oblate Sisters build a chapel on Richmond
Street (where the fifth Regiment Armory today). This site held
their Convent and Academy in 1836
VII
In 1843 the first Black Catholic Organization was
founded, with a membership of 270 people. They met in the basement
of St. Ignatius Church, in what was known as Calvert Hall. St.
Ignatius Church is on Calvert Street in Baltimore City.
VIII
In 1863, St. Francis Xavier Parish in East
Baltimore was founded , becoming the first official Negro parish.
This faith community brought a historic Universalist Church for
$6,000. Father Michael O'Connor, S.J., helped to raise funds for
this purchase. this church was once the site of Henry Clay's
nomination address
William A. Williams, a black man who once studied
at Rome's Urban college from 1855-1862, was active at St. Francis
Xavier Parish. During the period from 1863-1865, Williams
published in Baltimore a journal call The Truth Communicator,
directed to freed slaves. (James Hennesey, S.J., American
Catholics, pp. 144-145)
IX
The Jenkins family assisted the Josephite fathers
and brothers in establishing an orphanage for Black children
during the Civil war at the corners of Hilton Street near Carlisle
Avenue in the Walbrook section of Baltimore, which is the St.
Cecelia's parish
Epiphany College established by the Josephites was
also located at the above site and then moved to another section
of Walbrook Junction closer to Hilton-Leakin Park areas.
There was a Black Catholic Parish located in the
Camden Yards section of Baltimore. This faith community, St.
Monica's, was named after the mother of St. Augustine, of African
descent. father John Dorsey, the second Black Josephite priest,
served as pastor of this faith community.
X
St. Peter Claver Church in West Baltimore was once
the largest Black catholic community in the United States,
organizing over 10,000 people to participate in their annual May
Processions.
XI
Ordained in 1891, Father Charles Uncles, a
Baltimorean, was the first Black Josephite priest and in fact was
the first Black priest ordained in the United States. (Father
Augustine Tolton was the first Black priest ordained in Rome.)
XII
The St. Benedict de Moor Center housed at St.
Edward's Parish and at one time at St. Bernardine's parish in West
Baltimore, was at one time the only center of this kind on the
East Coast. The center was founded by Father Maurice J. Blackwell
for the purpose of assisting African American youth, discerning a
vocation.
* * * *
*
New York's Pioneer Colored Catholics By
Thomas F. Meehan, KSG
When Saint Isaac Jogues, S.J., the first
priest to set foot on Manhattan Island, 1643, he found two
Catholics,-- a young Irishman and a Portuguese woman. When did
the first Catholic Negro appear? It was at an early date no
doubt. There may may have been representatives of the black race
among the crews of the ships of Verrazano and Gomez that visited
these shores nearly a century before Hudson's half Moon dropped
anchor in what is now the Bay of New York.
The Dutch were far-sailing traders, and their
voyages and the wars between Spain and the English, who followed
them as rulers of New York, probably brought many Negroes to the
port as part of the crews of ships which were constantly sailing
in as the prizes privateers. There is no positive record of the
first arrival, but such data as chronicle the local existence of
Catholic Negroes detail also persecution and the martyrdom of
one for his Faith.
Between the years 1701 and 1726 it is
estimated that 1,573 slaves were brought into New York from the
West Indies. By 1740 the city's population had increased to
about 12,000, of which number 2,000 were Negro slaves. In May of
this year a Spanish prize-ship was among the arrivals at the
port and of her crew five Negroes, Antonio de St. Benedito,
Pablo Ventura Angel, Antonio de la Cruz, Juan de la Sylva, and
Augustine Guiterez, although claiming to be free Spanish
subjects, were sold into slavery by order of the Court of
Admiralty.
A few months after this (April and March,
1741), the city went crazy over an alleged "Popish
Plot" to burn the whole place and slaughter the people
during a Negro uprising. Before the mania subsided and the
community was restored to its normal conditions, four white men
were hanged, eleven Negroes were burned at the stake and fifty
transported. Included in this tragic sacrifice to an almost
unaccountable public hysteria, were the five Spanish Negroes
above mentioned. Although Peter de Lancey, Abraham Peltreau and
other prominent citizens testified to their good characters, a
jury found them guilty of participating in the alleged plot.
Sylva was condemned to be hanged and the others to be
transported to the West Indies. In the history of the
"Negro Plot" compiled by Judge Daniel Horsmanden, who
presided at the trials of the alleged conspiracy he thus records
the fate of this Catholic Negro martyr:
|
Juan de Sylva, the Spanish Negro
condemned for conspiracy, was this day (August 15),
executed according to sentence; he was neatly dressed in
a white shirt, jacket, drawers and stockings, behaved
decently, prayed in Spanish, kissed a crucifix,
insisting on his innocence to the last. -- (The New York
Conspiracy; or a History of the Negro plot at New York.
new York, 1810) |
In the preface of the second edition of this
Horsmanden history, it is stated of public sentiment at the
time: "A holy hatred of the Roman Catholic was inculcated
by Church and State."
Other testimony of the early presence of
Catholic Negroes in New York is to be had from the baptismal
records of old St. Peter's, Barclay Street, the first Catholic
church built in the city. Among the names registered on the
opening pages of this list, these of Catholic Negroes are to be
found:
|
Thomas Benisson (slave of Joseph
Benisson), born May 2, 1784; baptized january 14, 1788.
Sponsors, Louis Abraham Walsh and Barbara Feinea.
Margaret Butler (slave) born April
15, 1779 -- the first convert recorded in St. Peter's
list. Her sponsor was her mistress, Mrs. Margaret
Cunningham.
John Cashel, born September 2, 1789.
His sponsor was Andrew Morris, one of the founders of
St. Peter's and for years among the most prominent
catholic merchants in the city. |
The social prominence of many of the sponsors
tells how carefully the Catholics of that time looked after the
spiritual welfare of their households.
After the revolution of August, 1791, broke
out in Haiti and Santo Domingo, a number of the planters who had
estates in those islands fled to New York with their families,
bringing also some of their slaves. The most notable of these
was Pierre Toussaint, the son of a slave, born in 1766 in St.
Mark's parish, Santo Domingo. He was the slave and confidential
servant of a planter named John Berard. His splendid character
and remarkable career mark him as the most notable colored
Catholic in the records of the race in New York and the details
have already been given in previous issues of the INTERRACIAL
REVIEW.
The Republic of Liberia, on the west coast of
Africa, originated in a scheme of the American Colonization
Society to found in Africa a place to which free Negroes and
persons of African descent might return from the United States.
The venerable Charles Carrollton, the Catholic Signer of the
Declaration of Independence, was at one time president of this
Colonization Society, which sent out its first colony to Africa
on February 6, 1820. A number of Catholics from Maryland and the
adjoining States were among these pioneer settlers. At the
request of the Congregation of propaganda, and in answer to
reports received at Rome, the second Plenary Council of
Baltimore undertook to provide for their spiritual needs.
During the anti-slavery agitation of the
Civil War era the colored people had staunch advocates in New
York in Dr. Orestes A. Brownson, the famous philosopher and
publicist; the Rev. Dr. J.W. Cummings, rector of St. Stephen's
Church; the Rev. Thomas Farrel, rector of St. Joseph's, Sixth
Avenue and Washington Place, and the Rev. Richard Labor Burtsell,
the last two then young priests. Many colored people lived in
the vicinity of St. Joseph's, and Father Farrell was regarded as
the special and very enthusiastic champion of the race.
He was born in the County Langford, Ireland,
in 1823, and came to the United States as a boy. He was educated
at Mount St. Mary's, Emmitsburg, and ordained a priest there in
1847; the following year he was appointed chaplain at the old
convent of Mount St. Vincent, then located in what is now the
northeastern end of Central Park. Father Farrell died as pastor
of St. Joseph's in 1880, and by his will left $5,000 in Alabama
State bonds to found a church for the colored Catholics of New
York. the Rev. Dr. Burtsell, and Dr. McGlynn were named as the
executors to carry out the bequest, a further stipulation being
that if it was not acted upon within three years the bonds were
to be turned over to the Colored Orphan Asylum.
Dr. Burtsell was at that time pastor of the
Church of the Epiphany. In accordance with father Farrell's
desire he purchased the old Universalist church in Bleeker
Street, and after the necessary alterations were made it was
dedicated under the patronage of St. Benedict the Moor, on
November 18, 1183, as New York's first church for colored
Catholics. The Rev. John E. Burke, one of his assistants in the
Epiphany parish, was made the first pastor of the new
congregation.
In September, 1816, the Rev. A. la Font,
S.P.M., pastor of the church of St. Vincent de Paul, then in
Canal Street, opened in the basement of the church, a French and
English School for Colored Catholic boys and girls, with Mrs.
Mary Ligneu in charge and an evening school taught by Mr. de
Roulette. The fees were $3 a quarter for the day school and $1 a
month for the night class. It is of interest to note that the
grand parents of the LaFarge, Binsse, and other families
friendly to similar causes today, were active in promoting these
schools.
This is a brief outline of he pioneer colored
Catholic of New York. the modern and extensive movement for
education and interracial progress has followed in due time and
calls for more elaborate and authoritative treatment in detail.
Source: Interracial Review, September 1936
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
|
|
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
By Daniel Yergin
Renowned energy authority Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Prize, in this gripping account of the quest for the energy the world needs—and the power and riches that come with it. A master story teller as well as one of the world's great experts, Yergin proves that energy is truly the engine of global political and economic change, as well as central to the battle over climate change. From the jammed streets of Beijing, the shores of the Caspian Sea, and the conflicts in the Mideast, to Capitol Hill and Silicon Valley, Yergin takes us inside the decisions and choices that are shaping our future. Without understanding the realities of energy examined in The Quest, we may surrender our place at the helm of history. One of our great narrative writers, Yergin tells the inside stories—of the oil market, the rise of the "petrostate," the race to control the resources of the former Soviet empire, and the massive corporate mergers that transformed the oil landscape. He shows how the drama of oil—the struggle for access to it, the battle for control, the insecurity of supply, the consequences of its use, its impact on the global economy, and the geopolitics that dominate it—will continue to shape our world. He takes on the toughest questions—will we run out of oil, and are China and the United States destined to conflict over oil? Yergin also reveals the surprising and turbulent history of nuclear, coal, electricity, and natural gas. He investigates the "rebirth of renewables" —biofuels and wind, as well as solar energy, which venture capitalists are betting will be "the next big thing" for meeting the needs of a growing world economy. He makes clear why understanding this greening landscape and its future role are crucial. |
* * * * *
|
Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
|
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
update
5 January 2012
|
