By Mackenzie Grizzard | Staff Writer
In 1894, when a young Baylor student was sexually assaulted in the university president’s backyard, she was referred to as “that Brazilian girl.” Today, the name Antônia Teixeira is a symbol of resilience in the face of the institutional oppression which Baylor played a regrettable role in, according to a lecture in the Baylor Libraries Author Series.
The Baylor Libraries Author Series hosted faculty authors Dr. João Chaves, an assistant professor of religion, and Dr. Mikeal Parsons, a professor in the religion department and holder of The Kidd L. and Buna Hitchcock Macon Chair in Religion.
The lecture highlighted their book, “Remembering Antônia Teixeira: A Story of Missions, Violence and Institutional Hypocrisy.” The book details the rape of Teixeira, a young Baylor student from Brazil, which Baylor attempted to cover up.
“I pass the statue of Rufus Burleson every day,” Parsons said. “I just thought, what do I not know about Rufus Burleson?”
This was the beginning of Chavez and Parson’s uncovering of Teixeira’s story. Rufus Burleson was one of Baylor’s first presidents, serving from 1851-1861 and from 1886-1897. His son-in-law, Steen Morris, was accused of assaulting Teixeira multiple times in the backyard of Burleson’s home, according to Parsons’ research.
“I went to the courthouse to see if there were any records about the trial, and the archivist there gave me about 25 pages of typed and handwritten notes from the trial that ensued after the arrest of Steen Morris for the sexual assault of Antônia,” Parsons said.
When researching more about Teixeira, Parsons said he found that she was actually the daughter of a well-known Baptist minister, who was a Brazilian national.
“The mythology around the Brazilian Baptist mission is deep and wide,” Parsons said. “Bagby Avenue is named for one of the first [Baylor] missionaries to Brazil.”
Chavez detailed how Teixeira was a descendent of American Confederate soldiers that fled to Brazil after the end of the Civil War. According to Chavez, the Teixeiras were “white Brazilians,” which greatly affected the way Antônia was treated.
“20th-century Americans sharing their impressions of Brazilians wasn’t surprising,” Chaves said.
Chavez cited trial transcripts where Teixeira was labeled as “promiscuous” in an attempt to discredit her claim.
“It wasn’t necessarily new, the violence she was faced with and the investment in blaming the victim,” Chavez said.
According to Parsons and Chavez, Teixeira’s story was almost completely erased by Baylor. While researching in local archives, they traced sources all the way back to Brazil, which allowed them to piece together Antônia’s story.
“When we stumbled onto this story, it became pretty clear the attempts to erase her story had been pretty successful,” Parsons said.
Despite extensive research by Parsons and Chavez, much remains unknown about Antônia and the aftermath of her assault. She recanted her testimony during the trial and Morris was exonerated shortly after, according to Parsons, who highlighted this conflict of interest while researching.
“There is the tendency to protect the reputation of the institution, but when you do it at the cost of the most vulnerable among you, there are ethical issues that have to be discussed,” Parsons said.
Dr. Beth Allison Barr, endowed professor of history, highlighted the entanglement of Baylor’s rich Baptist history and its connection to slavery.
“The heart of the story is how inseparable racism is to the beginning of Southern Baptist identity,” Barr said. “This story of Antônia brings that to the surface.”
Baylor’s website discloses that all three of the university’s original founders were slaveholders, which it says was “woven into the cultural and economic fabric of the Republic of Texas.” Baylor is currently in the process of constructing a Memorial to Enslaved Persons on Founders Mall, dedicated to recognizing Baylor’s history with slavery.
“I think this also speaks to why diversity matters when we think about telling history,” Barr said. “The story of Antônia, if only told from the Waco-Baylor perspective, would have been very incomplete.”
