RaveThe Washington PostPowerful and moving ... The basic facts of this story are not new ... Swarns relays the hard facts of these atrocities and weaves together extensive research, data, letters and oral histories to bring forth an intimate family story ... Swarns centers the experiences of enslaved people owned by the Jesuits for nearly two centuries who remained largely unnamed and unknown until now. This is no ordinary accomplishment ... Swarns is a gifted writer and storyteller. But The 272 succeeds not only in its telling of a tragic story. By drawing on existing studies as well as her own archival research exploring letters, deeds, ship manifests and reports, she also shows how the Jesuits increasingly managed their plantations as capitalist ventures ... Swarns does not limit her research to written documents. Through painstaking investigative work, she found, met and interviewed the descendants of the Mahoneys who still remember their family’s harrowing past.
