The Oblate Sisters of Providence

I just have to brag about a great program that we presented today at Surratt House Museum in conjunction with Black History Month. It had nothing to do with Lincoln or his assassination and very little to do with the Civil War. However, it was one of the most educational and enjoyable talks that I have heard in a long time.

Our program was entitled "Black Nuns in a Slave Society." The Oblate Sisters of Providence traces its roots to the Haitians who fled French rule and came to Maryland in the late-1700s. They brought with them their Catholic faith at a time when the Catholic-founded State of Maryland was persecuting Catholics. They also came as free blacks to a slave state with a heavy influence of Jesuits who were slave owners.

In a nutshell, the Order was founded in Baltimore in 1829 by Sister Mary Lange under the support of the Sulpician Order and has survived to this day - the first and oldest religious order of women of African American descent. Our speaker, Sister Mary Reginald is in her 70s and just as learned - and feisty - as can be. She was a teacher and principal, and I could just imagine her striking fear in the heart of her students and giving complete support to worthy teachers.

I am hoping to have further contact with her because of her knowledge of Maryland history. I have been trying for years (whenever I could get a chance) to find out information on the Maryland Slavehiolders Convention held in Baltimore in the 1850s. Some of the proposals that came out of that convention was to outlaw all black people, return them to Africa, etc. It appears to have been a radical outgrowth of the American Colonization Society. I first leearned of it because of some familiar Southern Maryland families that participated in it as well as in the Confederate underground during the Civil War.