‘It stops you cold’: the 272 enslaved people sold to fund Georgetown

At bottom left is a woman believed to be Louisa Mahoney Mason, descended from Ann Joice. Photograph: Georgetown University Library

In 1676, a Black teenager named Ann Joice arrived on the shores of Maryland with hopes of a new life.

She had traveled to the recently founded colony from England, destined for indentured servitude, and worked as a maid for the ruling Calvert family, who for three generations had presided over Maryland as a religious haven for Catholics fleeing persecution in England.