 The Society of Jesus owned a large number of enslaved individuals who worked on the community's farms.Realizing that their properties were more profitable if rented out to tenant farmers rather that worked by enslaved people, the Jesuits began selling off their bondsmen in 1837.In one of the more famous examples of this, the Jesuit leadership of Georgetown College, in Washington, D.C., sold off 272 enslaved persons in 1838 (often known as the Georgetown 272 or GU272) in order to raise money for the struggling school.