The Catholic Church profited from slavery — 'The 272' explains how

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. There is a very dark part of the Catholic Church's history that has only recently come to the attention of the public. For more than a century, the church financed its expansion and its institutions with the profits from the enslaved people the church bought and sold. Without the enslaved, the Catholic Church in the United States as we know it today would not exist, writes my guest, Rachel Swarns. She says the priests prayed for the salvation of the souls of the people they owned, even as they bought and sold their bodies.

In 1838, the Jesuits sold 272 enslaved people, which helped save what is now Georgetown University from bankruptcy and helped stabilize the Jesuits in Maryland. In 2016, Swarns wrote an article, published on the front page of the New York Times, headlined "272 Slaves Were Sold To Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants?" Rachel Swarns' new book expands on that article and tells the story of the church's history of enslavement in America while illustrating the consequences by focusing on generations of one family that had several members among those 272 people sold by the church in 1838. Two descendants of the family she writes about in the book found each other as a result of her New York Times article. She was a reporter at the Times for 22 years and is now a contributing writer on race and race relations. She directs the New York University initiative "Hidden Legacies: Slavery, Race And The Making Of The 21st Century." Her new book is titled "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church."

Rachel Swarns, welcome to FRESH AIR. Thank you for writing this book. I learned so much from it. And I just want to emphasize, we're talking about people who were enslaved who the church bought and the church sold. The church did not free them. They sold them. What did the profits from slavery, the profits from the labor of the enslaved people and the sale of the enslaved people - what did that help the Jesuits fund and build?

RACHEL SWARNS: I think the best way for me to answer that question is to tell you a quick story. And to do that, I need to bring you back to November of 1838, to Alexandria, Va. And if you had been there on a wharf that day, you would have seen scores of people being loaded onto a ship - forcibly loaded. Parents were clinging to their children. Babies were wailing. Witnesses described people falling to their knees, weeping, begging for mercy. These were enslaved people who had been sold and were being shipped down south, far from the people they loved and the world that they knew. And they had been owned and enslaved and sold by the nation's most prominent Catholic priests, who happened to be among the largest slaveholders in Maryland. And when times got hard, they did what people at the time did, which was to sell their assets - in this case, 272 men, women and children who they sold to save the college that we now know as Georgetown University.

GROSS: So getting back to what did this horrible sale of 272 people - what did the money go to? And even before that, how was slave labor and the sales of enslaved people - because this was not the first time that the Jesuits sold people they had enslaved - what did those profits help build for the Catholic Church in America?

SWARNS: That's right. So, yes. So the priests who built the early foundations of the Catholic Church relied on slave sales and slave labor to build, for instance, the first Catholic institution of higher learning - Georgetown College, now known as Georgetown University - the first archdiocese, the very first cathedral. Priests who ran plantation and sold people established the first Catholic seminary. So the very underpinnings of the church were built by priests who relied on slavery, for their sustenance and to build and expand the institution that is now the largest religious denomination in the country.

GROSS: This story is just totally intertwined with hypocrisy every step of the way. I mean, Maryland - the reason why this story takes place largely in Maryland, at least the first half of the story, is because Maryland was created to be a place that was safe for Catholics because Catholics were persecuted. It was hard to be Catholic in the colonies, and Maryland was, like, the safe place. So that's why it was the central place for the Jesuits and for the church. So how did this place, this colony, created for freedom of religion for Catholics get so involved with owning and selling human beings?

SWARNS: It really speaks to the transition that occurred in terms of labor at the time. So Maryland, as you point out, was set up to be welcoming to Catholics who were persecuted. And in the early decades, indentured servants served as the primary laborers. But that changed over time. And one of the ways that I tell that story is by focusing on the family, the Mahoney family, and the arc of this family parallels the emergence of the Catholic Church.

So you have this matriarch, a woman by the name of Anne Joice, who arrives in the 1600s, the mid-1600s, as an indentured servant. And her freedom is stolen. She's forced into slavery by Catholic gentry. And this is happening at a time when there's this shift where indentured servants are harder to come by. And planters are realizing that this new kind of labor, this enslaved labor, which has kind of been coexisting, would be a very profitable way to go. And her family - and for generations after that, she is enslaved, and her descendants fall into the hands of Catholic priests. And the earliest documentation of Catholic slaveholding, Jesuit slaveholding, we find in 1717, though it probably started earlier.

GROSS: So what was the relationship of the Jesuit priests to the plantations where the enslaved people worked?

SWARNS: It was their sustenance. It was the way that they survived, as - it was the economy, as did others.

GROSS: Did they live on their plantations?

SWARNS: Yes. They lived on the plantations, and the plantations provided sustenance for the priests who were serving the Catholic community. And you pointed out the contradictions, which are so fascinating, and particularly to me. And I happen to be Black and Catholic myself. And the priests, you know, were very interested, you know, as this economy shifts and it becomes a slave labor economy - they were interested in nurturing the souls of the people that they held captive, but they were also fine with, you know, enslaving them and selling their bodies when need be. And it was a contradiction that people pointed out. There were these voices - lonely voices along the way. This family that I write about, the Mahoney family - they resist. You know, enslaved people don't just, you know, say, OK, here we are. They resist and point out these contradictions. But it wasn't enough to persuade the priests or the church to take a different path.

GROSS: How did the church justify enslaving people?

SWARNS: You know, there's a long history, obviously, of enslavement, even before the British colonies are set up. And slavery is mentioned in the Bible. And so the Jesuits often point to Saint Paul and passages in the Bible that talk about the responsibility of the enslaved and of masters, too. And so there is this history that feels familiar. But in the British colony, in the Americas, it becomes racialized. It becomes hereditary in a way that it was not before. And I think, too, you pointed out that Maryland was set up as a place for Catholics, and many Catholics sought refuge there. That was part of the issue, as well. The Catholic priests who were persecuted - and Catholics were - wanted to be established. An establishment society established in Maryland meant slave ownership. That was part of it. So it was those kinds of things that contributed to the growth of slavery and its connections to the church.

GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Rachel Swarns. Her new book is called "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARVIN GAYE SONG, "INNER CITY BLUES (MAKE ME WANNA HOLLER)"

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Rachel Swarns. Her new book is called "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." It tells the story of how the church, for about a century, financed its growth with the profits of slave labor and the sale of the people the church bought. The consequences are illustrated in her book by the story of generations of one enslaved family that had members who were among the 272 sold by the Jesuits in 1838.

So the family that you write about, whose history you trace, it begins with Ann Joice, a free woman from the Caribbean who goes to England - you don't know exactly how or why - but signs up to be an indentured servant coming to America. So she comes to America with a contract as an indentured servant. What would the advantage be to her of coming to America as an indentured servant? Why would she sign up voluntarily for that?

SWARNS: She was looking for the kind of freedom that life in Maryland offered to Black people who finished their terms of indenture. Some Black people were able to buy property, livestock, even land. This was a place where she could establish herself, have a family and enjoy the kind of freedom that was possible, even though it seemed like new laws were going to make it slip away a bit.

GROSS: What did the contract say, her indentured servant contract?

SWARNS: We don't know exactly. But typically, what those contracts said is that you would be providing your labor to your employer for a period of years - five years, say - and that after that, you would be free to set off on your own.

GROSS: So during the period she was serving her time, the man she was working for returned to England for a while. And so he gave her to his powerful cousin, Colonel Henry Darnall, who was Maryland's deputy governor. And when she completed her service, she presented her indentured contract to him, expecting to get her freedom. But what did he do with the contract?

SWARNS: Right. So that was the time where she figured, you know, we'll part ways, and I am going to live the life that I came here to live. Instead, her contract was burnt, and she was forced into servitude. Again, we don't know the details, but it seems that she protested. And the reason why we think that is that her grandson would later say that she was forced into a cellar where she was held for a period of time. And it was when she emerged from that cellar that, you know, she knew that this was going to be her fate, that she was enslaved and that she wouldn't be free. But she never forgot what she lost. She never forgot.

GROSS: So generations of this family were enslaved because of this man who did not honor her contract and burned it instead.

SWARNS: That's exactly right. And she was enslaved, powerless in many respects - I mean, in almost all respects, right? - but she was determined to do what she could. And what she could do is tell her story, and she did do that. She told her children, she told her grandchildren and they passed on that story across the generations, saying we should have been free. Our liberty was stolen.

GROSS: After she was enslaved and her contract was burned, she gave birth to several mixed-race children and, you write, children from men whose advances she was powerless to reject. Can I interpret that as meaning you assume she was raped?

SWARNS: I do assume that that's the case, yes.

GROSS: So meanwhile, Maryland had passed a law declaring that Black people or other enslaved people already within the colony and others who would come to Maryland after would be considered slaves for as long as they lived, as would their children. So at that point, it's basically impossible to be Black in Maryland and not be enslaved, right? So were the indentured servant contracts like Ann's ever honored? Because she came, I think, after this law was passed.

SWARNS: Right. And so there's this period of time where this law has passed, but there are still Black indentured servants working. And we don't know kind of how this played out. We certainly know that there were Black people who had contracts, who went to court to try to protect those contracts even after the law was passed. And Ann Joice came to the colony under the protection of Lord Baltimore. And so she may have had some confidence that her contract would be honored. But she was coming at a time that was precarious for sure because this law had passed, and it was uncertain for a lot of Black people who had contracts still what was going to happen.

GROSS: So her descendants end up being owned by the Jesuits, who had several plantations in Maryland, and her descendants end up on a plantation called St. Inigoes. What do you know about life on that plantation?

SWARNS: Well, it's really a fascinating history because you have this matriarch, Ann Joice, whose freedom is stolen. She passes on this story to her children, to her grandchildren. And these descendants, who will ultimately end up at St. Inigoes, you know, protest. They resist. She has descendants who resist with violence, who kill an overseer. She has descendants who go to court to fight the Jesuits, you know, with lawsuits. Some of them are successful. One of them, a descendant by the name of Harry Mahoney, hopes that this kind of lawsuit, if it frees his kinsmen, will free him, too. It doesn't. And he ends up enslaved for life at St. Inigoes.

GROSS: So one of her descendants, Harry, was the plantation's foreman at St. Inigoes. And during the War of 1812, when the British tried to take back some of their colonies, including Maryland, the priests fled and hid their belongings and their valuables, and Harry helped protect their possessions. And so he and his family lived in what sounds like, horrible huts during this period but stayed loyal in the sense that they stayed and protected this property. And then after the war, they were promised that they would never be sold, and the family would never be broken up. That promise was later betrayed, too. So let's talk about how they ended up being sold.

SWARNS: Right. And so Harry Mahoney was a fascinating figure. As I mentioned, you know, the Mahoneys knew that their freedom had been stolen and that they should have been free people. They knew the story of the matriarch Ann Joice. Some of them resisted, but there had to be other ways because resistance wasn't always possible. And Harry found a way. His way was accommodation. He - during the War of 1812, the British troops came up onto the plantation, up to the church, and Harry Mahoney saved the church's money. And as a reward, the Jesuits promised that he would never be sold and that his family would never be sold. And he and his family clung to that promise that perhaps the way to survive, the way to stay together - because they knew and witnessed that the Jesuits sold people - was by being loyal. But unfortunately, that promise would be broken in 1838.

GROSS: So let's take another break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Rachel Swarns, author of the new book "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with journalist Rachel Swarns about her new book, "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." It's about how the Catholic Church in America relied on the profits of people it enslaved and later sold to finance the expansion of the church and its institutions, including what is now Georgetown University. The number 272 refers to the number of men, women and children the church sold in 1838 to save Georgetown University from bankruptcy. Swarns' book tells the larger story of the church's reliance on slavery, while also focusing on the history of one family that was part of that 1838 sale.

After the War of 1812, some of the priests thought that the Jesuits were losing money by owning slaves, and there was a plan to sell the enslaved people and then to sell them to people who could use their labor for a finite amount of time, several years, and then would be obligated to free them. So that was a plan that was proposed, but it was rescinded. It never went into effect. What do you know about the dialogue or controversy within the Jesuits about that plan and about whether they should sell the people who were enslaved or free them or some combination of the two?

SWARNS: One of the things that's interesting about this history is that I think as Americans, we often - when we look back, we think about, OK, you know, slavery was the practice of the times. You know, we shouldn't put our own judgments about it. You know, it doesn't make sense. Everyone understood that this was just the way things were. But it's quite clear within the church that there were disagreements about how to proceed, questions about the morality. This plan - we still don't know exactly why the Jesuits thought that they should sell the enslaved people for a term and they would be freed. At the time, the archbishop was being criticized for the Jesuits' slave-holding that may have had something to do about - do with it. They were dealing and had been dealing with, you know, this flurry of lawsuits. And, you know, that may have had something to do with it. We really don't know whether it was something - a sincere plan or some lip service. What we know is that it never came to fruition.

GROSS: So Harry Mahoney's family ends up being part of that 1838 sale, part of the 272. Why did the Jesuits have this big sell-off in 1838?

SWARNS: What happened is that we have a new generation of Jesuit priests who come into leadership. And an important figure to know is a man by the name of Thomas Mulledy. He becomes an early president of Georgetown, a very influential president of Georgetown, and would become a leader of the Jesuit province itself. And he has a vision that is radically different from the vision of the earliest Jesuits who came. He says, listen; you know, this idea of Catholicism based in a rural, plantation-based kind of system is outdated. The future is in the cities. The future is with the thousands of immigrants coming from Ireland and Germany. And we need to be positioned to capitalize on that. And to do that, to be able to establish schools in these major cities in the Northeast, we need money. And to get that money, we need to sell our assets, these enslaved people. And he was determined to do that. He faced opposition, though.

GROSS: But he won.

SWARNS: Yes. It wasn't easy, though. There were priests who thought that this was wrong. This was immoral. A good example of that is a man by the name of Father Carberry, Joseph Carbery, whose life was very much intertwined with the Mahoney family I write about. And when this sale idea came up, he protested. Others protested. But you are absolutely right. They were overruled. And Rome agreed to allow the sale to proceed.

GROSS: So during this sale, Father Carbery tried to protect Harry Mahoney and his family. What did he do to try to protect them? Because he had promised them that they would never be sold, that the family would never be broken up.

SWARNS: So that promise predates Carbery, but he was committed to it. And he had gone to the senior leadership and said that he did not think this should happen. He was overruled. And so when he heard that the slave traders were coming, he told the family members to run. And I have to say, as a writer, this was one of the most challenging sections of the book to write, because you try to place yourself, you know, for your reader in the moment. And I knew what was coming. He's warning these folks that the slave traders are coming. Run, run - I wanted to cry out with him the same, but I knew that only one of the two sisters that I focus on would manage to escape. And it's heartbreaking knowing that.

GROSS: So the sister Louisa manages to escape with her mother. Anna is sold. She's forced onto the ship and then sold to an enslaver on a Louisiana plantation. And, you know, the enslaved people in Maryland were terrified of being sold to plantations in the Deep South. And the reasons might be obvious for that, but explain anyways.

SWARNS: That's right. And the priests knew this, as well. You know, slavery is slavery, of course, but within it there were important variations that both the priests and the enslaved were aware of. The sugar cane and cotton plantations of the Deep South were notorious for their brutality. And this was something that everyone - everyone, enslavers and enslaved - were well aware of. And so there are fascinating discussions, letters back and forth from the priest talking about, oh, let's make sure that they can hold on to their faith, that there will be a church nearby, that they'll be allowed to go to Mass. But they are aware at the same time that they are selling them into the most brutal system of slavery that exists in the United States at the time.

GROSS: So Louisa and her mother, who managed to run and escape - they end up going back to the plantation, St. Inigoes. Why do they go back?

SWARNS: So this is one of the most surprising things when I was doing the research in this story. I mentioned Father Joseph Carbery, who really emerges as a figure who opposes the sale and the hardships imposed on people. So he encourages Louisa and her mother, to run. They do. And then they come back because they're in the woods, hungry, thirsty for days. They come back, and they are welcomed back into slavery, which is, you know, an interesting thing to happen. It stunned me in a way. You know what's interesting is that the priests who opposed the sale were opposed to the idea of selling people, not necessarily owning people.

GROSS: Later on, I mean, she - so she continues to work, like, for the Jesuits. She - it sounds like she became pretty, like, religious, but - and that her descendants stayed in the church and remained very active in it.

SWARNS: It's one of the really interesting and surprising things about this story. You might think to yourself, my goodness, these folks were betrayed by the Catholic Church - enslaved, sold, betrayed by the church. Surely they would leave the church. And I - you know, when I think about this story, I think, OK, it is certainly a story of heartbreak, yes. But it's also a story of family and faith. And it turns out that the church itself meant a lot to these families. The church was not, in their minds, controlled by these sinful men - right? - who did these things. The church was more than that. They could not control, you know, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Those - all of that belonged to those people, and they - not only did they hold on to their faith, but after the war, they became religious leaders, many, lay leaders, within the institution and tried to reshape it.

GROSS: So the two sisters, Anna and Louisa, never see each other again after the sale. Louisa stays in Maryland and returns to the plantation. Anna is sold to the plantation in Louisiana. They never reunite. What happened with Anna after slaves were freed?

SWARNS: She and her family migrate to New Orleans. They leave the plantation where they had been enslaved and go to the city, where they establish themselves as free people in a community, a very tight-knit Catholic community, which includes many of the people who were sold with them by the Jesuits back in 1838. They stay together, and they stay with the church. Her grandson founds one of the early Black parishes in New Orleans, and her granddaughter becomes the leader of one of the early Black convents, the Sisters of the Holy Family, and establishes a number of schools for Black children in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. So they remain very, very close to the church, even after the war.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Rachel Swarns, author of the new book "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with journalist Rachel Swarns. Her new book is called "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." It tells the story of how the church, for about a century, financed its growth with the profits of slave labor and the sale of the people the church bought. The consequences are illustrated by the story of generations of one enslaved family that had members who were among the 272 sold by the Jesuits in 1838.

As a result of the article you wrote in 2016 about the 272 that were sold by the church, a woman named Melissa Kemp wonders, like, am I one of the descendants? And she does some research and finds out, yes, she is. She is a descendant of Louisa, the woman who stayed on the plantation. And she contacts somebody who she thinks is a descendant of Anna's, the sister who was sold to a Louisiana plantation - contacts him and says, you know, I think we might have common descendants. And it turns out that they do. But the descendant that she contacts actually worked at Georgetown University when she called him. I don't know if he's still there, but he was when she...

SWARNS: Yes.

GROSS: So he still is. And it sounds like he was just, like, in shock - like, his employer enslaved his ancestors.

SWARNS: It is a crazy, crazy thing. Melissa, Louisa's descendant, had known for years. That story of the matriarch and the stolen freedom had persisted in her family, and her family had continued to work for the Jesuits after slavery well into the 20th century. She knew about Louisa. What she didn't know was about this connection to Georgetown. And she found out through the story, did this DNA test, called this guy who was sitting in his office at Georgetown and said, hey; by the way, I think we're connected. And this is the connection. And he thought, oh, my God.

GROSS: Georgetown University has been trying to figure out a way to make amends to the descendants of the people that the Jesuits had enslaved. Where are they in the process? And what is the latest plan?

SWARNS: That's right. So Georgetown has taken a number of steps to address its history. In 2016, they decided that descendants would have, in effect, legacy status in admissions to Georgetown. They have more recently put into place a plan that they had announced a couple of years ago, which involves them raising $400,000 a year for programs designed to benefit the descendant community.

GROSS: Georgetown is not the only university that profited from slavery. What are some of the others?

SWARNS: Well, I think there is now a consortium of universities that have this history. And I think it's really important for listeners to understand that it's certainly not just Catholic institutions. You know, Harvard is wrestling with this history, so many - University of Virginia. There are a number of colleges and universities around the country that are grappling with this. And in terms of the story and this family's story, it's important to know, too, that the church itself, the Jesuits, have come up with a plan to try and address this history as well.

GROSS: You're Catholic and you're Black. When you first found out about the church's role in slavery, they certainly - you certainly didn't learn that in school (laughter). What was your reaction?

SWARNS: I was astounded. It knocked me off my feet, I have to be honest. I - you know, I had written a book about Michelle Obama's enslaved ancestors. I have a better than average familiarity with the 19th century and slavery. I consider myself a reasonably educated person. This history was certainly familiar to historians, but it is not well-known at all. I did not know. I am Black and Catholic. I had no idea. And the reason why is that, you know, enslaved people have been largely left out of the origin story that is traditionally told about the Catholic Church. You don't hear about enslaved people at Mass or in Sunday school or most anywhere. And so for me it was like, Catholic priests participated in the slave trade? How didn't I know?

GROSS: Has it changed your relationship to the Catholic Church?

SWARNS: You know, people ask me that a lot, and it has, but perhaps not in the way that you might expect. I am - you know, I'm a practicing Catholic. I go to Mass on Sundays. And I was doing this research, you know, looking at these records, reading about these families torn apart, you know, as a practicing Catholic going to Mass, going to church. And in a lot of ways, it has actually deepened my connection to the church. You know, as a Black Catholic, I didn't always see myself in the church. I think I saw the church as it's often portrayed, as kind of a northern church, an immigrant church. But now I see myself in the church. And these families who were so determined to hold onto their faith and to make the church true to what it said it was - a universal church, a church that welcomed and accepted everyone - that has been really inspiring to me, to see how they did that and how they worked to reshape the church.

GROSS: So I think we need to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Rachel Swarns. Her new book is called "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to journalist and professor Rachel Swarns, author of the new book "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church."

When you were writing the book about Michelle Obama's enslaved ancestors, you learned about the family that had enslaved some of her ancestors. And you found at least one contemporary descendant. And I think you actually broke the news to this person or to this family, their connection to Michelle Obama, that their family at one time owned some of Michelle Obama's ancestors. What was it like to break the news?

SWARNS: Well, you know, you can imagine what it might be like to have a reporter from The New York Times call you up...

GROSS: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SWARNS: ...And say, hey; by the way, your ancestors enslaved members of the first lady's family and, worse still, may have brutalized or raped a member of the first lady's family. And, you know, many of us might like a connection to the White House, but I can tell you that's not one that most people are looking for. So you know, I reached out to a constellation of her contemporary white living, you know, cousins. Some of them didn't want to hear from me, but some of them were willing to grapple with this history.

And, you know, for me as a journalist and a professor, that's what's of interest to me in both of these books, is connecting the past and the present and figuring out, how do we live with this history of slavery as Americans? And I think bringing the stories of, you know, the two sisters, Louisa and Anna, the Mahoney family, or Michelle Obama's ancestors - Melvinia, Adolphus Shields - it helps people see things more clearly. I think we look at slavery sometimes as something that happened so long ago - this mass, faceless group of people, nothing to do with us. And knowing their names, hearing their stories, knowing that they are connected to families around us, the institutions around us, make it real in a way that is so important.

GROSS: I'm glad you brought that up because I have found that as I get older, slavery seems less distant and more within sight.

SWARNS: I'm glad to hear that.

GROSS: Yeah, and I think it's because I'm learning more and more about the history of slavery. But also, I think, the older I get, the shorter the amount of time of 50 years or a hundred years seems. I mean, my grandparents were born - my grandparents came to America more than a hundred years ago. So like, a hundred years isn't that long.

SWARNS: Right. And you probably knew your grandparents, right?

GROSS: Oh, yeah.

SWARNS: Yeah. Yeah.

GROSS: Well, three - I knew three of my grandparents. One of them had already died before I was born, but yes. And so, you know, the elementary school I went to was built in the late 1800s. You know, that's so close to the end of slavery in the U.S. and therefore so close to slavery in the U.S. So it just doesn't seem that distant. And it seems - and it's so clear we're still living with the impact of slavery. It's just - it still pervades our country.

SWARNS: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And it's - you know, the contemporary institutions that are around us are so deeply connected to this. Whether it's universities or religious institutions or banks or insurance companies, it's really connected. And again, you know, for me as a writer, as a journalist, bringing those connections to life, telling the story of a family like the Mahoneys, whose arc of their multigenerational story parallels the emergence of the Catholic Church, I think helps people to see that, you know, this isn't this faceless, amorphous thing. These are people. These are people. They have names. And we are connected to that. We are connected to that history today. That's so important to me.

GROSS: Rachel Swarns, thank you for your book. And thank you for this interview. It's really been so interesting to talk with you.

SWARNS: Thank you so much for having me.

GROSS: Rachel Swarns is the author of the new book "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved And Sold To Build The American Catholic Church." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about Tupac Shakur's extended family and its role in Black liberation movements, including the Black Panthers. Our guest will be Santi Elijah Holley, author of "An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs And The Nation They Created." I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.

(SOUNDBITE OF BENITO GONZALEZ, GERRY GIBBS AND ESSIET OKON ESSIET'S "BLUES ON THE CORNER")

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Therese Madden directed today's show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF BENITO GONZALEZ, GERRY GIBBS AND ESSIET OKON ESSIET'S "BLUES ON THE CORNER")

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