Andrew White

Andrew White (1579 – December 27, 1656) was an English Jesuit Catholic missionary who was involved in the founding of the Maryland colony. A chronicler of Colonial Maryland, his writings remain a primary source on the land, the Native Americans and the Jesuit mission in North America.

For his efforts in converting and educating the Native American population, White has been frequently referred to as the "Apostle of Maryland". He is considered a forefather of Georgetown University, and is memorialized in the White-Gravenor building

Early life in Europe Andrew White was born in London in 1579 to a Catholic family. Since Catholic schools were banned in England, his family sent him at age 14 to attend the English College in Douai, France. In 1595, White went to Spain to attend the English College of St. Alban's in Valladolid. He then continued his education in Seville.

White was ordained a priest in Douai in 1605. Despite the risks to Catholic priests in England, he returned there to minister to a group of hidden Catholics. Following the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, White was arrested and in 1606 banished from England. Moving to Leuven in what was then the Spanish Netherlands, he joined the Society of Jesus on February 1, 1607.

Defying the threat of execution White returned in 1609 to preach in Southern England. He would spend the next ten years there. White made his solemn vows to the Jesuits in 1619 and they sent him to Valladolid in Spain to teach in an English novitiate that was recently established by the Jesuits. During this period, he also held positions as prefect of the seminaries at Leuven and Liège, also in the Spanish Netherlands.

After a four month voyage, the three ships arrived at the Jamestown Colony to resupply. They then moved north up Chesapeake Bay. They landed on March 25, 1634, on St. Clement's Island off the north shore of the Potomac River. That day, White erected a large cross and celebrated a mass of thanksgiving. He became the first priest to celebrate a mass in the original thirteen English colonies. In these letters, White also recounts colonizing the land that is the present day site of St. Mary's City, Maryland. Originally, "in order to avoid every appearance of injustice" White's party "bought" the land from the Indigenous, paying in "axes, hatchets, rakes, and several yards of cloth" in exchange for "thirty miles of that land." To further his missionary work, White wrote dictionaries and translated the catechism into the native languages. On July 5, 1640, he famously converted Chitomachon, the chief of the Piscataway people, to Christianity. The following spring he brought his seven year old daughter Mary Kittamaquund to be educated by Governor Calvert and Margaret Brent, and in due course brought his two sons to be educated. The chief was baptized as Charles. White later baptized a daughter of the Patuxent people, along with most of her tribe.

White is also the source for one of the names of the first people of African descent to arrive in Maryland. He states that he and the other missionaries brought four "servants" into Maryland from Virginia in 1635, one of them "Francisco". A much later historian names two others as John Price and Mathias Tousa.

Return to England The beginning of the English Civil War in 1642, with its conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, ended White's mission in the Maryland Colony. In 1644, Richard Ingle, a Protestant privateer, assembled a party of Puritans who had been expelled from Jamestown and seized St. Mary's. They imprisoned the colonial leadership, looted Catholic properties and burned most of the town.

Father Andrew White School in Leonardtown, Maryland was founded in 1954 and named in honor of Andrew White.

Works A Declaration of the Lord Baltimore's Plantation in Mary-land, nigh upon Virginia: manifesting the Nature, Quality, Condition and rich Utilities it contayneth. London 1633. Facsimile ed. by Lawrence C. Wroth, Baltimore 1929. Declaratio Coloniae Domini Baronis de Baltamoro in Terra Mariae prope Virginiam. qua ingenium, natura et conditio Regionis, et Multiplices Ejus Utilitates Ac Divitiae Describuntur. Compiled in Woodstock Letters 1, Bethesda 1872. A Relation of the Sucessefull Beginnings of the Lord Baltimore's Plantation in Maryland. Being an extract of certaine Letters written from thence, by some of the Aduenturers, to their friends in England. To which is added, The Conditions of plantation propounded by his Lordship for the second voyage intended this present yeere, 1634. London 1634. Incomplete reproduction in John D.G. Shea: Early Southern Tracts 1, New York 1965. The original manuscript version (specified as the Lechford version) first printed in The Calvert Papers, volume 3, Maryland Historical Society Fund Publications 28, 34 - 35, Baltimore 1899. A Relation of Maryland. London 1635. Objections Answered Touching Maryland. In: A Moderate and Safe Expedient to Remove Jealousies and Feares, of Any Danger, or Prejudice to This State, by the Roman Catholicks of This Kingdome, and to Mitigate the Censure of Too Much Severity towards Them, with a Great Advantage of Honour and Profit to This State and Nation. London (?) 1646.