'Let Us Go Free' - Slavery and Jesuit Universities in America

A vivid and disquieting narrative of Jesuit slaveholding and its historical relationship with Jesuit universities in the United StatesThe Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, is renowned for the quality of the order's impact on higher education. Less well known, however, is the relationship between Jesuit higher education and slavery. For more than two hundred years, Jesuit colleges and seminaries in the United States supported themselves on the labor of the enslaved. "Let Us Go Free" tells the complex stories of the free and enslaved people associated with these Catholic institutions. Walker Gollar shows that, in spite of their Catholic faith, Jesuits were in most respects very typical slaveholders. At times, they may have been concerned with the spiritual and physical well-being of the enslaved, but mostly they were concerned with the finances of their plantations and farms. Gollar traces the legacies of the Jesuits' participation in the slaveholding economy, portrays the experiences of those enslaved by the Jesuits, and shares the Jesuits' attempts to come to terms with their history. Deeply based on original research in Jesuit archives, "Let Us Go Free" provides a vivid and disquieting narrative of Jesuit slaveholding for the general reader interested in the historical relationship between slavery and universities in the United States.

About the author

C. Walker Gollar is professor of church history in the Department of Theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He specializes in the history of American Catholicism. He is the author of American and Catholic: Stories of the People who Built the Church (2015).

Product details

• Authors: C. Walker Gollar, C.walker Gollar
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.12.2023
• EAN: 9781647123857
• ISBN: 978-1-64712-385-7
• No. of pages: 416
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; USA, RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Slavery, United States of America, USA, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church, Slavery & abolition of slavery, Higher & further education, tertiary education, Higher education, tertiary education, Slavery and abolition of slavery, EDUCATION / Schools / Levels / Higher