The GU272 refers to the people sold by the Jesuits of the Maryland Province in 1838 to resolve its debts, particularly those of Georgetown College, and to finance missions and schools in the northeastern United States. The descendants of the people who experienced the terrors of the sale — their seizure from the Jesuit plantations in Maryland, their captivity in holding pens and ships that made the voyage, and the hard labor of the sugar plantations of Louisiana — have adopted the name GU272 to memorialize their ancestors and to refer to their common associations and interests.
The name GU272 is derived from a document created by the Jesuits as they planned for the sale: a list of 272 people enslaved by the Jesuits at four plantations in Southern Maryland whom they offered for sale. This list, commonly referred to as the 1838 census, identified people by their first name and their age with notes on their availability for sale.1 Notes on the document indicate that several men and women were sold or transferred to enslavers in Maryland to keep married couples together and that others resisted the sale by trying to run away.
There is a widespread misconception that the Jesuits sold 272 people, the total number indicated on the 1838 census, to Governor Henry Johnson of Ascension Parish and Jesse Batey of Iberville Parish. Research by the Georgetown Memory Project and other descendant groups has established that 314 people were sold by the Jesuits in 1838.2 The sale included few people over the age of 45; the overwhelming majority were children. More than 12,000 people have been identified as their descendants. Nonetheless, the term GU272 has retained its resonance as it recognizes the suffering of the people sold by the Jesuits and their enduring presence among their descendants.
- 1Slavery, Census of People to Be Sold Related to 1838 Sale, 1838, Box: OS1, Folder: 14. Archives of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, GTM-000119. Georgetown University Manuscripts, Booth Family Center for Special Collections. https://findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/archival_objects/1449609
- 2"The Georgetown Memory Project." https://www.georgetownmemoryproject.org
