The 272 The 272

The 272

The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church

    • $17.99
    • $17.99

Publisher Description

“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.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2023
13 June
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
352
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Random House, LLC
SIZE
22
MB

More Books Like This

The Weeping Time The Weeping Time
2017
Complicity Complicity
2005
Forbidden Fruit Forbidden Fruit
2005
New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America
2016
The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
2013
Black Gotham Black Gotham
2011

More Books by Rachel L. Swarns

American Tapestry American Tapestry
2012
American Tapestry American Tapestry
2012
Unseen Unseen
2017
A Teacher's Guide to American Tapestry A Teacher's Guide to American Tapestry
2014

Customers Also Bought

The Second The Second
2021
After the Ivory Tower Falls After the Ivory Tower Falls
2022
The Trials of Nina McCall The Trials of Nina McCall
2018
Reconstruction: Voices from America's First Great Struggle for Racial Equality  (LOA #303) Reconstruction: Voices from America's First Great Struggle for Racial Equality  (LOA #303)
2018
A Madman's Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom A Madman's Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom
2023
The Antiracist The Antiracist
2020