Book

The 272

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

Rachel L. Swarns

2023

Associated Ideas, People, and Places

Book Review

How Bondage Built the Church

Swarns’s book about a sale of enslaved people by Jesuit priests to save Georgetown University reminds us that the legacy of slavery is the legacy of resistance.

by Tiya Miles via New York Review of Books on May 2, 2024
Book Review

Confronting Georgetown’s History of Enslavement

In “The 272,” Rachel L. Swarns sets out how the country’s first Catholic university profited from the sale of enslaved people.

by Paul Elie via The New Yorker on June 27, 2023
Book Excerpt

The Families Enslaved by the Jesuits, Then Sold to Save Georgetown

In 1838, leaders of the Catholic order faced opposition from their own priests, but pressed forward with the sale of 272 human beings anyway.

by Rachel L. Swarns via Retropolis on June 15, 2023

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