Additional information
by Adam Rothman (Editor), Elsa Barraza Mendoza (Editor), Lauret Savoy (Foreword by)
A microcosm of the history of American slavery in a collection of the most important primary and secondary readings on slavery at Georgetown University and among the Maryland Jesuits
Back Jacket
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Georgetown University's relationship with slavery and its reverberations through history is a microcosm of the American story--the contradictions of liberty and enslavement at the country's founding, the rise of the domestic slave trade to the Deep South, and the political conflict over slavery and its overthrow amid civil war. Georgetown's past is also emblematic of the complex entanglement of higher education and religious institutions with slavery, just as the university's initiative to face this past is part of a growing effort by these same institutions to confront systemic racism today.
Facing Georgetown's History includes crucial primary sources, drawn from the university's and Maryland Jesuits' archives, that document this tangled history. These records are accompanied by recent scholarship and journalism, including work by Craig Steven Wilder, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alondra Nelson, and Rachel L. Swarns, the New York Times journalist who reported on the Jesuits' sale of 272 enslaved individuals and its implications for Georgetown.
The book outlines the university's recent mission to confront its troubling past through its Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation initiative, showing that recovery, repair, and reconciliation are part of a broader contemporary moment of reckoning with slavery and its legacies. Georgetown's path suggests the pivotal role of universities in modeling thoughtful and informed discussion about the histories of slavery and racism in America.
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Adam Rothman is a professor in Georgetown University's Department of History. He is the author of Beyond Freedom's Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery and the principal cura-tor of the Georgetown Slavery Archive. He served on Georgetown's Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation from 2015-16.
Elsa Barraza Mendoza is a PhD candidate in history at Georgetown University and the assistant curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive.
Lauret Savoy is the David B. Truman Professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College, where she explores the marks of history on the land. The author of Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape, she also descends from people enslaved by Jesuits.
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"In recent years many institutions of higher learning have tried to confront their historical relationship with slavery, but few have done so with Georgetown's depth of research, and its awareness of how the past lives on in the present. This book is both an eye-opening account of how deeply slavery is embedded in American history, and a model for those who continue to explore this chapter of our past."--Eric Foner, professor of history, Columbia University
"Combining primary documents and essays by historians, journalists, and descendants of the 272 enslaved men, women, and children sold by Georgetown University in 1838, this edited collection provides a rich snapshot of the history and lega-cies of slave ownership by the Society of Jesus in the United States."--Ana Lucia Araujo, author of Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past
"The legacy of slavery links the past with the present at Georgetown University. Facing Georgetown's History asks us to consider the meaning of reconciliation and reparation after centuries of racism and white supremacy. This is mandatory reading for those who are serious about facing the sins of a university, a church, and a nation."--Michael Pasquier, associate professor of religious studies and history, Louisiana State University
Author Biography
Adam Rothman is a professor in Georgetown University's Department of History. He is the author of Beyond Freedom's Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery, which was named the Humanities Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and received the American Civil War Museum's book award. He is also the author of Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South and the coauthor of Major Problems in Atlantic History. He served on Georgetown's Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation from 2015-16, and is currently the principal curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive. He was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in 2018, where he created the podcast "African-American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century".
Elsa Barraza Mendoza is a PhD candidate in history at Georgetown University and the assistant curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive. She is a former Fulbright-Garcia Robles fellow. Her research has been supported by the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. She is currently writing her dissertation on the history of slavery on Georgetown's campus.
Lauret Savoy is the David B. Truman Professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College, where she explores the marks of history on the land. The author of Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape, she also descends from people enslaved by Jesuits.
