Story at a glance
- The Washington Post recently released a new database listing every member of Congress who owned a person.
- So far, The Post’s researchers have determined that more than 1,700 congressmembers at one point in their life owned people.
- The database is still not complete, and the publication has asked readers for help in figuring out if additional congressmembers enslaved people.
Over 1,700 United States congressmembers once enslaved Black people, according to a new database from The Washington Post.
The Post published Monday the first-ever comprehensive list of “every member of the U.S. Congress who enslaved Black people.” The outlet compiled their findings in a searchable database, concluding that 1,715 members were enslavers.
In order to create the list, The Post researched more than 5,500 Congress members by sifting through 18th and 19th century census records, wills, journal articles and plantation records, among other documents.
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“This database helps provide a clearer understanding of the ways in which slaveholding influenced early America, as congressmen’s own interests as enslavers shaped their decisions on the laws that they crafted,” The Post wrote.
Lawmakers who owned human beings spanned political parties and states. While most slaveholding congressmembers were men, the first woman ever to serve in the Senate — Rebecca Latimer Felton — was a former slaveholder, suffragist and white supremacist, according to The Post.
“The Post’s database includes lawmakers who were members of more than 60 political parties. Federalists, Whigs, Unionists, Populists, Progressives, Prohibitionists and dozens more,” The Post wrote.
“The most common political affiliation among enslavers was the Democratic Party — 606 Democrats in Congress were slaveholders,” The Post continues. “While the early Republican Party is associated with abolition, The Post found 481 slaveowners who identified as Republicans at some point in their elected careers.”
Although the publication was able to confirm the slaveholding status of hundreds of former congressmembers, work on the database is ongoing.
The Post admitted their researchers were unable to determine whether or not 677 additional members of Congress had once owned a person and called on readers to help complete the database.
“You may already have records to share. Maybe you’ve done genealogical research on your family’s connection to one of the congressmen or to one of the people they enslaved,” The Post wrote. “Maybe you wrote a thesis on one of these congressmen. Maybe you’re involved in your local historical society, which are often treasure troves of information about these bygone elected officials.”
The publication requested that readers submit their findings through an online form adding that if the research helps the reporting, the database will be updated and appropriate credit given.
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