Subseries 2.5 contains financial records pertaining to estate properties in southern Maryland and Pennsylvania held by the Jesuits of the Maryland Province. These records document the management of plantations that depended upon enslaved labor, and of lands leased to tenant farmers. The Province’s Procurators maintained financial records of the estates detailing day-to-day expenses; accounts with overseers, vendors, and trading partners; the costs of provisions for enslaved laborers; the construction and repair of buildings; and tenants’ rent books. This subseries contains both compiled and individual records of the Province’s estates, and documents the following properties: Bohemia, Bushwood Farms (near Newtown), Conewago, Goshenhoppen, Newtown, St. Inigoes (and the nearby St. Clement’s Island), St. Joseph’s Church, St. Thomas Manor (including Chapel Point and Cedar Point Neck), and White Marsh.

Collectively, these records reveal transformations in commercial agriculture from the early years of colonization through the beginning of the twentieth century. Documents from the eighteenth century reflect the bookkeeping practices of the Chesapeake mercantile elite, while after the American Revolution, the Jesuits began to emphasize grain production and processing, and they considered withdrawing from slave ownership.