Below is an announcement from Wilmington Community Television’s “Book Stew:”
WILMINGTON, MA — Eight years ago, in April 2016, New York Times reporter Rachel Swarns received a forwarded email from an alum of Georgetown University, the first college established by the Catholic Jesuit order in America. The author of the email had discovered that not only had the order owned five Maryland plantations where enslaved people toiled, but in 1838, 272 of them had been sold to keep the university from becoming insolvent.
The astounding product of seven years of research, Rachel’s history book, The 272, is the subject of the April “Book Stew.”
My discussion with Rachel covers the rationalizations used by the Jesuit fathers, who strove to fulfill the spiritual needs of the plantation workers, while ignoring the impact of slavery on their bodies and the horrifying act of splitting up their families.
Eileen MacDougall is the host/producer of 120+ episodes of Book Stew, a web series and podcast originating in 2013, featuring every variety of authors, illustrators, poets, and playwrights, plus a cat that survived a tornado and lived to write about it!
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