The search for the lost slaves began with a simple question.
Every month for two years, Richard Cellini, founder of an organization looking for descendants of the slaves sold to save Georgetown University, had updated a spreadsheet. It showed consistent progress: More and more descendants were learning the truth — that the Jesuit priests running Georgetown had sold their ancestors in 1838 to two Louisiana plantation owners to pay university debts.
But Cellini couldn't get past a problem. Roughly a full third of the sold slaves — 91 in all — were nowhere to be found in any historical record in Louisiana. Where were they? The question led to a startling answer: The “lost Jesuit slaves,” as Cellini had taken to calling them, weren't lost at all. In fact, they'd never left Maryland. For some reason, they had been left behind.
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