Remembering Antônia Teixeira

Uncover the truth about the scandal that shook the Texas Baptist community, buried for over a century.

In 1894 Steen Morris raped Antônia Teixeira. Both had been guests in the house of Baylor University president Rufus Burleson. The assault took place in Burleson’s backyard and was the first of a series of assaults that eventually left the young Baylor student pregnant. Rather than hold the guilty party accountable, Rufus Burleson and other prominent members of the Baptist community in Waco launched a campaign of intimidation, victim-blaming, and cover-up to preserve the virtuous image of their institution.

In Remembering Antônia Teixeira, Mikeal C. Parsons and João B. Chaves painstakingly peel back the layers of concealment that have accumulated over a century of enforced silence about the case. Beginning with Antonia’s father Antônio Teixeira, a priest who had renounced Catholicism and become a pillar of the Baptist community in Brazil, Parsons and Chaves uproot romanticized and hagiographical accounts of the Southern Baptist Convention’s foreign missions. They then follow Antônia’s journey north, her assault, and the subsequent scandal that shook Texas—until it was intentionally erased.

Iconoclastic and meticulous, Remembering Antônia Teixeira calls attention to how religious institutions have used selective memory to maintain power. In doing so, this book takes a first step toward dismantling those structures of oppression.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Bill J. Leonard

List of Abbreviations

Prologue: Bloody Cotton

Introduction: Power and Transnational Histories

PART 1: TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXT

          1. Brazilian Baptist Memorialization: The Myths about Antônio Teixeira de Albuquerque

          2. The Rise of the (in)Famous Ex-Priest: Catholic and Protestant Journeys

          3. The Making of a Baptist Celebrity: Antônio Teixeira in Public Imagination

          4. Voyage to Waco: Crossing Borders

PART 2: THE RAPE OF ANTÔNIA TEIXEIRA

          5. Case 1165: The State of Texas v. Steen Morris Examining Trial

          6. The War of Words: W. C. Brann v. Rufus Burleson

          7. The Jury Trial: The Verdict and Its Aftermath

          8. Constructing and Protecting Institutional Memory: Beyond Antônio and Antônia

Conclusion: Forgetting Antônia and Narratives of Institutional Goodness

Epilogue

Appendixes

Bibliography