The 272 : the families who were enslaved and sold to build the American Catholic Church / Rachel L. Swarns.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Random House, [2023]Copyright date: ©2023Edition: First editionDescription: xviii, 326 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map, portraits (some color) ; 25 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780399590863
- 0399590862
- Two hundred seventy two, the families who were enslaved and sold to build the American Catholic Church
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
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Dr. James Carlson Library | NonFiction | 306.362 S973 | Available | 33111011093032 | ||||
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Adult Book
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Main Library | NonFiction | 306.362 S973 | Available | 33111011207939 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"An absolutely essential addition to the history of the Catholic Church, whose involvement in New World slavery sustained the Church and, thereby, helped to entrench enslavement in American society."-Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On Juneteenth
New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice .Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR- The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Time, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews
In 1838, a group of America's most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion.
The story begins with Ann Joice, a free Black woman and the matriarch of the Mahoney family. Joice sailed to Maryland in the late 1600s as an indentured servant, but her contract was burned and her freedom stolen. Her descendants, who were enslaved by Jesuit priests, passed down the story of that broken promise for centuries. One of those descendants, Harry Mahoney, saved lives and the church's money in the War of 1812, but his children, including Louisa and Anna, were put up for sale in 1838. One daughter managed to escape, but the other was sold and shipped to Louisiana. Their descendants would remain apart until Rachel Swarns's reporting in The New York Times finally reunited them. They would go on to join other GU272 descendants who pressed Georgetown and the Catholic Church to make amends, prodding the institutions to break new ground in the movement for reparations and reconciliation in America.
Swarns's journalism has already started a national conversation about universities with ties to slavery. The 272 tells an even bigger story, not only demonstrating how slavery fueled the growth of the American Catholic Church but also shining a light on the enslaved people whose forced labor helped to build the largest religious denomination in the nation.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-313) and index.
Arrivals -- A church's captives -- Freedom fever -- A new generation -- The promise -- A college on the rise -- Love and peril -- Saving Georgetown -- The sale -- A family divided -- Exile -- New roots -- Freedom -- The profits.
"In 1838, a group of America's most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their mission, the fledgling Georgetown University. Journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns has broken new ground with her prodigious research into a history that the Catholic Church has edited out of its own narrative. Beginning in the present, when two descendants of a family enslaved by the church reconnect, Swarns follows their ancestors through the centuries to understand how slavery enabled the Catholic Church to establish a foothold in America and fuel its expansion. Ann Joice, a free Black woman and progenitor of the Mahoney family, sailed to Maryland in the 1600s as an indentured servant, but her contract was burned and her freedom stolen. Harry Mahoney, Ann's grandson, saved lives and a Church fortune with his quick thinking during the British incursions in the War of 1812. But when the Jesuits fell into debt and were at risk of losing Georgetown University, they sold 272 people, including Harry's daughter Anna, to plantation owners in the Gulf. Like so many of the families the Jesuits' sale tore apart, Anna would never again see her father or her beloved sister Louisa who stayed with Harry in Maryland. Her descendants would work for the Jesuits well into the 20th century. The two sides of the family would remain apart until Swarns' original reporting on the 1838 sale in the New York Times reunited them and led directly to reparations for all the descendants of the enslaved"-- Provided by publisher.