The Jesuits' complicated past in Haiti: From owning plantations to serving the Black community
Benjamin E. Heidgerken
June 17, 2022
As the enslaved woman handed her newborn daughter to her master, she could not look him in the eye. It was hot (it was always hot), and she had to get back to the cane field that afternoon. But her manner had nothing to do with her duties.
The man took the girl, turned and walked to the baptismal font. He always moved confidently—his confidence was typical of the grand blancs in the Haitian colony. The enslaved persons he trusted were there, along with his wife and children. His family had begrudgingly accompanied him from France to the remote island. They all saw the colony the same way: just another step toward a lucrative return to the motherland and a château on the Loire.
The grand blanc held the child over the font, waiting for the Priest of the Blacks to start the ceremony. In his Roman collar, the Jesuit’s poise nearly matched the master’s. Having supplanted the Capuchins in northern Saint-Domingue in 1704, the Society of Jesus knew what it took to maintain its ecclesiastical rights and position in the colony. Despite many financial and civil obstacles, it had built a substantial missionary enterprise, preaching and teaching on an island where survival and profits were the order of the day. God had formed servants from the soil, but the Society had to get its hands dirtier to return humanity to God’s service. It had five plantations on the island with many enslaved Africans to fund its mission.
The priest smiled at the baby girl, then looked sternly at the supposed owner of this tiny image of God. Her skin was unlike that of her siblings—much lighter in tone. The Jesuit noted the downcast look on the mother’s face.
More:
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/06/17/jesuits-slavery-haiti-plantations-243171
