In April, The Times opened a window onto human trafficking at Georgetown. Last month, Rachel Swarns and Sona Patel followed up with interviews with some of the descendants. The family histories some recounted showed that slavery is nearer to the present, in both time and impact, than many Americans suspect.



Charles Hill, 74, recalled growing up in a family that remained pious despite the fate that the Jesuits had visited upon his ancestors: “My father always told me that we came out of Maryland, and that the name of the slave ship was Jackson. But that’s all he would tell us.” After Mr. Hill heard of the Georgetown story, he said: “That was why my father wouldn’t tell us. He didn’t want to disturb our Catholic faith.”



The news had a grim resonance for Sandra Green Thomas, 54, who had once lived near the Georgetown campus and visited it regularly without knowing of the slavery connection. She learned that her great-great-grandmother had given birth five months before she was forced onto a ship bound from Washington to New Orleans. “That means she was pregnant or just giving birth when she was sold,” she said. “When I realized that, my heart just broke for her.”



She added: “There’s a lot of hand-wringing, a lot of, ‘Oh my goodness, that was terrible. What can we possibly do?’ But there’s a lot Georgetown can do. The most obvious beginning is some sort of formal acknowledgment and apology from Georgetown officials to the descendants.”