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July 13, 2023
Anny Mahoney Jones was in her early 20s when her family was torn apart. In 1838, she and her two enslaved children, Arnold Jr. and Louisa, were sold by the Maryland Jesuits to a Louisiana plantation. They watched in despair as the enormous ship Katharine Jackson pulled up to the wharf at Alexandria, Va., to bring them and some 130 other enslaved men, women and children to the Deep South. Scared, Anny wondered about their future and whether she would see her husband or her parents or the siblings she had left behind ever again.
With great detail, Rachel L. Swarns relays Anny and her family’s history in her powerful and moving new book, “The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church,” an account of the individuals sold by the Jesuits in 1838 to save Georgetown College, today’s Georgetown University.
Washington Post, July 2023.