Today's enlightening thought...

[Lonestarblue]

4. WaPo published an article today that made me think of all the history we do not know.

I never knew that the Catholic church owned slaves. And in the 1800s, the lead priests chose to sell 272 slaves to settle the debts they had run up for what is today Georgetown University. They broke apart families, selling children, husbands, and wives. This is the history that DeSantis and other Republicans want to deny and make today’s children believe that white people never did anything bad. They did, and we all need to come to terms with our history, not hide it.

The article is an excerpt from a new book, “The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church,” by Rachel Swarns, a descendent of one of those families.

“After weeks of haggling over price, Mulledy, Johnson, and Batey had come to an agreement. They met in Washington, to put the deal into writing: 272 men, women, and children — many of whom belonged to families that had been enslaved by the Jesuits for generations — were to be sold for the sum of $115,000, roughly $422 per person. The handwritten agreement, signed by all three men, ran to eight pages.”