To Thomas Jefferson from the Ursuline Nuns of New Orleans, 23 April 1804
From the Ursuline Nuns of New Orleans
New Orleans 23d. April 1804
Sir
Emboldened by the favourable mention you have been pleased to make of their order, the Nuns of St. Ursula at New Orleans, take the liberty of addressing you on a subject highly interesting to their institution! they believe that without any direct application, the treaty of cession, and the sense of Justice which marks the character of the United States, would have secured to them the property they now possess, but considering a sacred deposit, they would fail in a duty they deem essential were they to ommit requesting, that it may be formally confirmed to them, and their successors, and that you may be pleased to communicate this request to the Legislative body1 in such a manner as you may deem proper,—It is dictated by no wish of personal gratification or private agrandizement, secluded from the World, its luxuries and vanities, wealth and the enjoyments it brings, would to them have no attraction.—devoted to religious duties, temporal advantages are not the objects of their pursuits but bound by a solemn obligation to employ their revenue in charitable uses, & their time in the education of Youth, they cannot but be anxious to know that the property which is to enable them to fulfil these duties will be secure to them,—it is not therefore their own cause but of the Publick which they plead—it is the cause of the Orphan, of the helpless child of Want, of the many who may be snatched from the paths of Vice & infamy under their guidance, & be trained up in the habits of Virtue & religion to be happy and useful—of Society which will be spared the burthen of the indigent & the depredations of Vice—of their Country itself, which cannot but acquire honour in fostering & protecting such benificent purposes.
These considerations, they know Sir, will have weight with you—they anticipate your support, because they are concious they deserve it—and they conclude with their ardent prayers for your personal happiness, & the prosperity of the Country whose affairs you direct, & have the honor to be, with the highest respect,
Sir, yr. most obedt. humble Serts
Sr. Therese de Ste Xavier Farjon Superieure
Sr de Ste Marie Olivier Assistante
Sr de Ste Felicité Alzas Zelatrice
Sr. Christine de St André Madier
Sr. Charlote de Ste Therese de Mouÿ
Sr Emélie de St François Jourdan
Sr Rosalie de Ste. Scolastique Broûtin
Sr. Marie de Ste Madelaine Rillieux
Sr Margerite de St charle carrier
Sr. Marthe de St. Antoine Délattre
Sr Marie Joseph Braux
Sr Félicité de St Jean Nicola Novice
Marie Blanc agregée pour Servir la communaute
RC (DNA: RG 59, MLR); in a clerk’s hand, signed by all; at head of text: “To Thomas Jefferson. President of the United States of America!”; endorsed by TJ as received 8 June and so recorded in SJL. Dupl (DLC); dated 13 June; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Farjon and others, with exception of Marie Blanc; endorsed by TJ: “Ursula nuns of St.”; enclosed in William C. C. Claiborne to TJ, 15 June. FC (Lb in Ursuline Academy, New Orleans); dated 21 Mch.; in French, with English translation.
In 1727, 12 French nuns of the Order of St. Ursula founded a convent in New Orleans under the auspices of the Company of the Indies to run a military hospital and provide education for young women. At the time of the retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France, the convent numbered about 25 sisters, but several who had ties to Cuba returned to Havana, leaving the convent exclusively in the hands of French and French Creole nuns. In December 1803, William C. C. Claiborne reported after a visit to the convent: “There is an Abbess and eleven nuns, the Sole object of whose temporal Care is the education of female youth. They at present accommodate 73 boarders, and 100 day scholars, each of whom contribute to the support of the house in proportion to the means and condition of the respective parents: and many receive tuition gratis.” The Ursulines’ school accounted for the majority of the convent’s income by 1802, with other funds deriving from property rents and the labor of slaves owned by the order (Emily Clark, Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834 [Chapel Hill, 2007], 267-70, 273; Emily Clark, “Peculiar Professionals: The Financial Strategies of the New Orleans Ursulines,” in Susanna Delfino and Michele Gillespie, eds., Neither Lady nor Slave: Working Women of the Old South [Chapel Hill, 2002], 200, 204; , 6:231).
Thérèse Farjon (ca. 1753-1810), also known as Sister Saint Xavier, was one of three French nuns recruited by the New Orleans Ursulines from the convent at Pont Saint Esprit, France, in 1785. In the 1790s, she was elected sister superior. During an 1805 ecclesiastical schism within the New Orleans Catholic church, the Ursulines under Farjon sided with Patrick Walsh, the former vicar general under Spanish rule (Heloise Hulse Cruzat, “The Ursulines of Louisiana,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 2 [1919], 20; Clark, “Peculiar Professionals,” 198; Clark, Masterless Mistresses, 136-7, 232-3, 269).
favourable mention: during Claiborne’s “visit of Ceremony” to the convent in December, as he informed Madison, “In the name of the President of the U.S. I undertook to give the nuns a solemn assurance that they would be protected in their persons, property, and Religion & they in return expressed the highest confidence in the government.” The governor went to the convent again on 8 Apr. with Walsh and other clergymen and repeated his assurance that “Under the free and mild Government of United America, you may with certainty calculate on the uninterrupted enjoyment of your present tranquil and hallowed retreat, and the exercise of the Honorable avocation to which your temporal cares are directed.” According to an account of the April meeting that was published in the Moniteur de la Louisiane and widely reprinted, the views expressed by Claiborne confirmed that “there can be no doubt that under the government of the United States, this valuable institution will continue to prosper, and become more extensively useful” (, 6:231; 7:32-3; , 2:86; Philadelphia United States Gazette, 26 May).
agregée pour servir la communaute: that is, joined to the convent to serve the community of sisters.
1. Dupl: “to the Congress of the United States.”