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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 9 April 2022 [1].

1838 Jesuit slave sale

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Nominator(s): Ergo Sum 05:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been a long time in the making and is long overdue. It is about a fascinating historical event that has become the subject of much inquiry in recent years. I believe the article is now at featured quality and suitable for submission. Ergo Sum 05:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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  • The switcher does not appear to be tab-accessible - suggest moving this into the body as a more standard multi-image
    • What do you mean by tab-accessible? Ergo Sum 01:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • I was referring to [2] but I think I was mistaken on this point - although I still think it makes sense to present this in a multi-image inline, it's less pressing. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:05, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • I tried to think of the best way to present the images, but I since the images really don't do much as thumbnails (you can't really read the text without clicking on and enlarging the images), I think having all the images presented at once might not be terribly useful for a reader. Ergo Sum 02:34, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • Why then is it useful in the present form? All that changes is you need more clicks and the rest of the content gets pushed down. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:17, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think it's the same logic of having an image of the first page of the Constitution of the United States in its infobox. It gives readers a visual idea of what kind of document represents the ideas discussed in the article, e.g. on parchment, handwritten, its formality, etc. And, if readers are so inclined, they can flip through the whole document, especially to the signature pages and list of slaves, which are of interest. Ergo Sum 12:27, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looks pretty bad on my screen too[3], and it appears the long row of pages is pushing other images down, so that the two photos of building are now in the reference section, with references superimposed over them. I would also suggest a better solution would be some sort of gallery or multiple image template. FunkMonk (talk) 17:49, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Having just the first page, as in the constitution article, would also work. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've done a bit of reorganizing. What do you think now? Ergo Sum 02:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely better. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:25, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yep! FunkMonk (talk) 08:47, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by ChrisTheDude

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  • Making a start on this now but probably won't make it all the way through as I only have 15 minutes of my lunch break left :-)
  • "Roothaan removed Mulledy as provincial" - feels like there's a word missing there, unless his title was simply "provincial".....?
  • I would merge the last two paragraphs of the lead as they are both very short
  • That's all I got as far as the end of the "background" section. More later.......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:39, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
More comments
Thank you for your review, ChrisTheDude. Glad you found it interesting. Ergo Sum 01:21, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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  • I would give Mulledy's full name in the lead, and link his article from there.
  • "on the Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert's, voyage" and "from the Lord Baltimore in 1636": can we make this just "on Lord Baltimore's voyage" and "from Lord Baltimore in 1636"? I don't think we need the "the", and his name is available via the link if a reader is interested.
  • "Due to these extensive landholdings, the Catholic superiors at the Propaganda Fide in Rome had come to view the American Jesuits negatively for living opulently like manorial lords." Two -ly words near each other is unharmonious, but another issue is that the reader takes this at face value, but finds out in the next sentence that it is a mistaken view. And I think we could lose "like manorial lords" or "opulently"; they mean more or less the same thing. Can we use a verb like "assumed" or find another way to warn the reader what's coming?
    • I've tweaked the sentence slightly to make it flow better. I'd be hesitant to rephrase because I think it might just become wordier at the cost of clarity. I also think opulence and manorial lords are both necessary because they communicate different things; simply saying like a manorial lord could mean a variety of things and saying only opulently does not communicate exactly the way they were viewed. I'm not really sure a preview is necessary since the contradiction occurs in the very next sentence, which begins with a transition. Ergo Sum 02:38, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "as a canonical visitor in 1820": I think most readers won't realize that this "visitor" is there to find and correct abuses; a couple of words of clarification would be good.
  • "The condition of slaves on the plantations varied over time, as did the condition of the Jesuits living with them. While Kenney found the slaves facing arbitrary discipline, a meager diet, pastoral neglect, and engaging in vice, by the 1830s, their physical and religious conditions had improved considerably." Does the first sentence give us any information not in the second sentence? And instead of "While" for the second sentence the date would help the reader, since we are comparing decades. How about tweaking the sentence order here to mention Kenney's visit at the end, instead of in the middle? That naturally gives us the 1820 date for comparison with the 1830s.
    • On second look, I think it makes sense to split this into two sentences. 02:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
  • "The Maryland Jesuits, having been elevated from a mission to the status of province in 1833": "province" clearly has some specific meaning in the Society of Jesus; is there a suitable link?
  • "Not all of the 272 slaves intended to be sold to Louisiana met that fate. In total, only 206 are known to have been transported to Louisiana, while 91 remained in Maryland." Reading the rest of the paragraph I see how the arithmetic works, but can we make it clearer on first reading that 91 + 206 is not intended to equal 272? Perhaps delay giving the number 91 until after the explanation. I see there's a footnote, but something inline would be better.
  • "There was outcry from numerous Maryland Jesuits": this sounds wrong to my ear. I assume you're avoiding "an outcry" because it's multiple Jesuits? I think that would be better, but if you don't like that I think another word or a rephrase is needed. Also, the second clause as structured ought to be referring to the subject of the first clause, but here that's "outcry". How about "Numerous Maryland Jesuits considered the sale to be immoral and were outraged, and many of them wrote..."? Or ""Numerous Maryland Jesuits were outraged by the sale, which they considered to be immoral, and many of them wrote..."?
  • "However, the remaining $90,000 did go to funding Jesuit formation": how can this be squared with the statement in the next paragraph that the Jesuits never received the full balance of the sale money?
  • Johnson's sale of his slaves in 1844 is mentioned twice, once in the financial outcome section and once in the subsequent fate section. I think if you combine these sections under a title such as "Outcome" you could reorganize this a little and avoid the duplication.
  • "While the 1838 slave sale gave rise to scandal at the time, the event largely faded out of the public awareness over time." Can we avoid "...at the time...over time"?

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:53, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your review, Mike Christie. Sorry for the delay. Ergo Sum 02:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support. My issues have been addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:21, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Coming up. JBchrch talk 04:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • The 1838 slave sale returned to the public's awareness in the mid-2010s, due to new attention paid to two buildings on Georgetown University's campus named after Thomas Mulledy and William McSherry. Is this sourced?
    • Not really. I meant it as a general sentence to introduce the rest of the section, which would otherwise seem a bit disjointed. I suppose I could trim it a bit to minimize any perception of OR. What do you think? Ergo Sum 22:54, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • I see. To me, the paragraph seems legible if we just drop the whole thing altogether, but I don't want to encroach on your style too much. So yes, if you could trim it a little bit, that would be great. For instance, if we just keep The 1838 slave sale returned to the public's awareness in the mid-2010s, that is IMO sufficient. JBchrch talk 23:53, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Aren't there any chapters from Facing Georgetown's History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation that would be worth citing in the article? JBchrch talk 14:18, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I only have access to the preview through Google Books. But, from the table of contents, it seems that everything that is encyclopedic (i.e. not a primary source or purely opinion) has already been cited. There isn't anything that strikes me as lacking. Ergo Sum 22:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your review, JBchrch. Ergo Sum 22:55, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ergo Sum. There's only one point outstanding above, and no other problems, so I will move to the spot checks. I will do about 10-15. JBchrch talk 23:53, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Spot checks

  • 2 OK
  • 5a OK
  • 8a OK
  • 18b OK
  • 24f Does the source say that it was contrary to Roothan’s orders? 90k out of the 115k were still allocated to training.
  • Thanks, I had seen that part, but does it say that all the money had to go to training and that the actions were contrary to Roothan's order? I have not read Cooran's primary source but perhaps it was acceptable under his orders ("that the money be invested for the support of Jesuits in training") that 20% of it go to repay some debts? JBchrch talk 03:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source does not explicitly say that his order said all of the money should go to training. It just simply says that the money should go to training, which in my mind implies all. Ergo Sum 13:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't really see an issue with how it is phrased now. I think it accurately reflects the text. The text (pp. 46-47) says that Roothaan said the money had to go to Jesuit training and that part of it didn't go to that, so I think it's not a stretch to say that that was contrary to his order. Ergo Sum 02:00, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm reading that Roothaan said that the proceeds needed to go to training, and the money was then allocated at 80% to training and at 20% to repay some debts. The concept that the actions were in contradiction to Roothaan's instruction is not evident from the sourcing. I don't intend to fail this source review for this point, so I'll let you decide what you want to do. JBchrch talk 02:36, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 26 OK. I’m reading "the sale got the Jesuits out of an unprofitable business and raised much-needed capital for their operations". Is this covered somewhere in the article?
    • The unprofitable business was the plantations and, by extension, slavery itself. The floundering finances of the plantations are discussed in the Background section. Ergo Sum 02:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    👍 JBchrch talk 03:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 27d OK
  • 31 OK
  • 47 OK
  • 48 OK
  • 51c OK
  • 67 OK
  • 70 OK

JBchrch talk 02:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-georgetown-jesuits-and-slavery-descendants-bid-for-racial-healing-sours-over-reparations-11648232089. Interesting article from today. Maybe there's something useful in there. JBchrch talk 15:05, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a few points to the article from this WSJ article. Ergo Sum 17:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, that's fine. Source review is a pass. JBchrch talk 17:21, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

HF - support

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Seeing as this needs another review, I'll take a look at this. Hog Farm Talk 01:36, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The Ark and The Dove on Lord Baltimore's, voyage to settle Maryland in 1634" - I don't believe the comma belongs there
  • I think it should be directly glossed somewhere the Society of Jesus = Jesuit as it's not a necessarily obvious connection (I don't think I learned this until college)
  • Since they owned land in both MD and PA, wouldn't it be significant to mention that slavery was allowed in MD but not in PA by the 1800s?
    • Maybe it's just me, but it strikes me as just a bit too far outside the scope of the article's narrative, since PA is really only mentioned in passing. Ergo Sum 14:18, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "three-week voyage aboard the Katherine Jackson" - is the type of ship known? Presumably a steamer?
  • So in August 1839, McSherry is still in a position to get Mulledy to resign, but he's described as being in a dying state back in 1837?
  • " This coincided with a protest by a group of students the day before" - for or against the name change?
  • "This admissions preference has been described by historian Craig Steven Wilder as the most significant measure taken by a university to account for its historical relationship with slavery" - not sure this is the best way to summarize the source. We've got "go beyond any initiatives enacted by a university in the past 10 years" but our article doesn't time-limit it, and "“It goes farther than just about any institution,” he said. “I think it’s to Georgetown’s credit. It’s taking steps that a lot of universities have been reluctant to take.”" but our article seems to be phrased a bit stronger than the second one as well
  • Should the Facing Georgetown's History source in the further reading be used?

I think that's it from me. Hog Farm Talk 03:05, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the review, Hog Farm. Ergo Sum 14:18, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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