Finding Our Roots African American Museum Receives Slave Records
By Dan Copp Staff Writer
Sept 27, 2018 at 10:19 PM
The historical documents Houma-Thibodaux Bishop Shelton Fabre presented to the Finding Our Roots African American Museum today were much more than just a list of names.
Each of those names represented a slave who was baptized into the Catholic Church and who helped shape the culture of south Louisiana itself, Fabre said.
“These are records of slaves who were baptized,” the bishop said. “They can be tremendously helpful in genealogy and research. They’re spiritual records, but they are also historical documents.”
During a ceremony, the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux presented the museum’s founders with more than 3,000 baptismal records providing information on slaves, dates and owners from 1820-1895. It marks the largest donation of historical documents to the Houma museum, which opened in 2017.
Fabre, the area’s first black Catholic bishop, acknowledged the church doesn’t have a perfect history when it comes to race relations but hopes the historic documents reflect that church leaders viewed slaves as human beings.
“I’m not dismissing some of the pain and suffering caused in the lives of those who were enslaved, but the fact that they were baptized is an acknowledgment there was a soul there to save,” the bishop said. “This was a human person who had a soul and needed to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We struggled a lot as a church with how slaves and African-Americans were treated, but they were recognized as souls to save.”
When someone is baptized in the Catholic Church, a handwritten entry is made into a baptismal record containing that person’s name and some biographical information, Fabre said.
“In the Catholic Church we keep records such as baptism, confirmation and marriage,” the bishop said. “So we have given them copies of these baptismal records of slaves that were in our archives.”
For museum founders Margie Scoby and Alvin Tillman, the documents represent an opportunity to explore more of the area’s rich history.
“You don’t know how much it means to me to receive those documents,” Scoby said. “It means the world to me. I feel like now once again slaves have been set free.”
It was a common practice for plantation owners to baptize their slaves into the Catholic Church, the bishop said. Today south Louisiana has one of the largest black Catholic populations in the nation.
The museum recently opened an exhibit dedicated to the Georgetown University slave sale. The exhibit traces the chronology of the 272 slaves sold by the Catholic university in Washington, D.C., to plantations in Louisiana in 1838.
Men, women and children were sold to plantations in Terrebonne, Iberville and Ascension parishes. Money generated from the sale was used to settle the future Georgetown University’s mounting debts.
Although such exhibits reveal the tragedy and heartache slaves endured, they also represent hope and resiliency, Fabre said.
“This place is a place of remembering,” he said. “It’s a place of remembering tears, heartache and suffering. It’s also a place of remembering hope and those who had a resilient spirit and were strong in their resolve.”
--Staff Writer Dan Copp can be reached at 857-2202 or at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@DanVCopp.
Sept 27, 2018 at 10:19 PM
The historical documents Houma-Thibodaux Bishop Shelton Fabre presented to the Finding Our Roots African American Museum today were much more than just a list of names.
Each of those names represented a slave who was baptized into the Catholic Church and who helped shape the culture of south Louisiana itself, Fabre said.
“These are records of slaves who were baptized,” the bishop said. “They can be tremendously helpful in genealogy and research. They’re spiritual records, but they are also historical documents.”
During a ceremony, the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux presented the museum’s founders with more than 3,000 baptismal records providing information on slaves, dates and owners from 1820-1895. It marks the largest donation of historical documents to the Houma museum, which opened in 2017.
Fabre, the area’s first black Catholic bishop, acknowledged the church doesn’t have a perfect history when it comes to race relations but hopes the historic documents reflect that church leaders viewed slaves as human beings.
“I’m not dismissing some of the pain and suffering caused in the lives of those who were enslaved, but the fact that they were baptized is an acknowledgment there was a soul there to save,” the bishop said. “This was a human person who had a soul and needed to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We struggled a lot as a church with how slaves and African-Americans were treated, but they were recognized as souls to save.”
When someone is baptized in the Catholic Church, a handwritten entry is made into a baptismal record containing that person’s name and some biographical information, Fabre said.
“In the Catholic Church we keep records such as baptism, confirmation and marriage,” the bishop said. “So we have given them copies of these baptismal records of slaves that were in our archives.”
For museum founders Margie Scoby and Alvin Tillman, the documents represent an opportunity to explore more of the area’s rich history.
“You don’t know how much it means to me to receive those documents,” Scoby said. “It means the world to me. I feel like now once again slaves have been set free.”
It was a common practice for plantation owners to baptize their slaves into the Catholic Church, the bishop said. Today south Louisiana has one of the largest black Catholic populations in the nation.
The museum recently opened an exhibit dedicated to the Georgetown University slave sale. The exhibit traces the chronology of the 272 slaves sold by the Catholic university in Washington, D.C., to plantations in Louisiana in 1838.
Men, women and children were sold to plantations in Terrebonne, Iberville and Ascension parishes. Money generated from the sale was used to settle the future Georgetown University’s mounting debts.
Although such exhibits reveal the tragedy and heartache slaves endured, they also represent hope and resiliency, Fabre said.
“This place is a place of remembering,” he said. “It’s a place of remembering tears, heartache and suffering. It’s also a place of remembering hope and those who had a resilient spirit and were strong in their resolve.”
--Staff Writer Dan Copp can be reached at 857-2202 or at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@DanVCopp.
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