Elizabeth Clovis Lange was the founder and the initial
"Superior-General" of the Oblate Sisters of Providence , the first black Roman
Catholic order to operate in United States. Mother Mary Elizabeth, as she was
known, was a towering figure in 19th-century educational circles around Baltimore,
Maryland, for over 50 years. Elizabeth was born in the French colony Saint Domingue,
to Clovis and Annette Lange in 1784. She migrated to eastern Cuba and lived near
the city of Santiago, Cuba. Because of the Haitian Revolution, she had to flee
eastern Cuba, coming to the United States in 1817 and settling in Baltimore in
1827.
Soon after arriving in Baltimore, she opened the first school for the city's French
speaking immigrants using her inheritance in spite of strong attempts to discourage
black education in antebellum Maryland. Elizabeth's persistent service to her
church and help to the educationally deprived won approbation from Rome under
Pope Gregory XVI to organize the Oblate Sisters of Providence Order.
Although she ran primarily an educational order she became involved in many needy
community outreach programs. During the Civil War years, she also became local
superior of St. Benedict's school in Baltimore and later spearheaded the establishment
of other schools in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. During 1880, she
began the order's first mission school in St. Louis, Missouri. By the time she
died, the influence of the Oblate order had extended across the United States,
the Caribbean, and Central America. More than 100 years after her death there
are attempts to make her the first African-American female to be canonized by
the Roman Catholic Church.
A more detailed biography can be found at Baltimore
City Community College: Social and Behavioral Sciences - Baltimore Bicentennial
Page: Elizabeth Clovis Lange (c. 1784-1882)
Twenty-two vessels from the island of St.
Domingue anchored off Fell's Point near Baltimore, Maryland, on July
9,1793, with more than 500 black and white people on-board. All were
fleeing the Haitian Revolution. The well to do French speaking Black
Haitians would join the 15,800 black Roman Catholics already in
Maryland and bring new life to Black Catholicism in America. That new
life began with a Sulpician Priest, Father Jacques Hector Nicholas
Joubert, and Elizabeth Lange, a Haitian refugee
Joubert, who had been assigned pastoral charge of the refugees, soon
discovered that the children had difficulty learning their catechism
because they were unable to read French or English. The priest
approached Lange, who had already begun operating her own day school,
about establishing a teaching community consecrated to God in which
the children could be taught to understand their catechism. Lange and
another teacher, Marie Madeleine Balas, had already considered such
an idea, however, and on July 2,1829, it was realized with the
establishment of the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
The beginnings of most religious communities are difficult, but this
was particularly true for the four original Oblates, Lange, the
founder, and Balas, plus Rosine Boegue and Almeide Duchemin Maxis.
The white residents of Baltimore were sympathetic to Southern
attitudes and did not peacefully accept the formation of these Black
women into a religious society, especially while some 400,000 of
their brethren were enslaved in Maryland. One record reports that
when the Oblate Sisters first appeared on the streets they were
stoned by angry white residents. With encouragement from Joubert,
however, they were nonetheless able to combine the activities of
teaching and devotional living into a religious community. In their
habits of black dress, with a white-collar and a large white bonnet
for convent wear, they taught Black children arithmetic, English,
penmanship, religion, and housekeeping. In a black bonnet and cape
for outside wear they also tended to sick people outside the convent.
The Sisters had a great influence on their students, some of whom
became Oblates, while others went on to establish their own
schools.
When Joubert died on Nov. 5, 1843, the order faced four desperate
years. When it appeared that the church had deserted them, the
Sisters took in washing, sewing, and embroidery to support
themselves. Believing that the order would be disbanded, some of the
Sisters withdrew in 1845. in 1847, however, when a Redemptorist
priest named Thaddeus Anwander came to their assistance, the
community began a resurgence and the order began to grow and
flourish. During the Civil War years, a Jesuit priest named Father
Peter Miller carried them through. Still later, the Josephite fathers
helped to solidify the struggling but determined order.
the Oblates proved that virtue and intelligence know no race,
sanctity heeds no color, and determination has no end. They
demonstrated courage and tenacity in perilous times and gave hope to
their persecuted race. Most of all, they contributed to the history
of Black Catholics in America.
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