For America's political elite, family links to slavery abound
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[June 27, 2023]
By Tom Lasseter, Lawrence Delevingne, Makini Brice, Donna
Bryson and Tom Bergin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As U.S. lawmakers commemorated the end of slavery
by celebrating Juneteenth this month, many of them could have looked no
further than their own family histories to find a more personal
connection to what’s often called America’s “original sin.”
In researching the genealogies of America’s political elite, a Reuters
examination found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living
presidents, Supreme Court justices and governors are direct descendants
of ancestors who enslaved Black people.
Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, for example, Reuters
determined at least 100 descend from slaveholders. Of that group, more
than a quarter of the Senate – 28 members – can trace their families to
at least one slaveholder.
Among those lawmakers from the 117th Congress are Democrats and
Republicans alike. They include some of the most influential politicians
in America: Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Tom
Cotton, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and Jeanne
Shaheen.
In addition, Reuters determined that President Joe Biden and every
living former U.S. president – except Donald Trump – are direct
descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton
and – through his white mother’s side – Barack Obama. Two of the nine
sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch
– also have direct ancestors who enslaved people.
In 2022, 11 of the 50 U.S. states also had governors who are descendants
of slaveholders, Reuters found. They include eight chief executives of
the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America, which
seceded and waged war to preserve slavery. Two are seeking the
Republican nomination for president: Asa Hutchinson, the former governor
of Arkansas, and Doug Burgum of North Dakota.
Reuters found that at least 8% of Democrats in the last Congress and 28%
of Republicans have such ancestors. The preponderance of Republicans
reflects the party’s strength in the South, where slavery was
concentrated. Although white people enslaved Black people in Northern
states in early America, by the eve of the Civil War, slavery was almost
entirely a Southern enterprise.
South Carolina, where the Civil War began, illustrates the familial ties
between lawmakers and the nation’s history of slavery. Every member of
the state’s nine-person delegation to the last Congress has an ancestral
link. The state’s two Black members of Congress – Senator and Republican
presidential candidate Tim Scott and Representative James Clyburn, a
powerful Democrat – have forebears who were enslaved. Each of the seven
white lawmakers who served in the 117th Congress is a direct descendant
of a slaveholder, Reuters found. So too is the state’s Republican
governor, Henry McMaster.
The new insights into the political elite’s ancestral links to slavery
come at a time of renewed and intense debate about the meaning of the
institution’s legacy and what, if anything, lawmakers should do about
it. Such topics include what to teach about slavery and racism in
America’s classrooms; the future of affirmative action in college
admissions; and how to address the persistent inequality in income and
wealth for Black households, including monetary reparations.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll for this report showed that white respondents who
said they’re aware of having a slaveholding ancestor were more likely
than other white people to support paying reparations: 42% backed the
idea, compared to 24% who said their ancestors did not enslave people.
The Reuters examination reveals how intimately tied America remains to
the institution of slavery, including through the “people who make the
laws that govern our country,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr, a professor at
Harvard University who focuses on African and African American research
and hosts the popular television genealogy show Finding Your Roots on
PBS.
Gates said identifying those familial connections to slaveholders is
“not another chapter in the blame game. We do not inherit guilt for our
ancestors’ actions.”
“It’s just to say: Look at how closely linked we are to the institution
of slavery, and how it informed the lives of the ancestors of people who
represent us in the United States Congress today,” Gates said. “This is
a learning opportunity for each individual. It is also a learning
opportunity for their constituency … and for the American people as a
whole.”
In addition to the political elite Reuters identified -- which include
lawmakers representing northern states such as New Hampshire, Maine and
Massachusetts -- “there are millions of Americans who are descendants of
enslavers as well,” said Tony Burroughs, a genealogist who specializes
in helping Black Americans trace their ancestries.
Census figures from 1860 indicate that 1 in 4 households in states where
slavery was legal enslaved people, according to data from IPUMS’
National Historical Geographic Information System. What’s unclear is how
the proportion of lawmakers who descend from slaveholders compares to
that of all Americans. Among scholars, there is no agreement on
precisely how many Americans today have a forebear who enslaved people.
To be sure, many white Americans whose ancestors came to America before
the Civil War have family ties to the institution of slavery, and
Northerners and Southerners alike reaped enormous economic benefits from
enslaved labor.
Ancestral ties to slaveholders have been documented previously for a
handful of leaders, including Biden, Obama and McConnell. Scholars and
journalists have also extensively examined slavery and its legacy,
including how the North profited from the institution, and the role
slavery played in decisions of past political leaders during the
formation of America and after emancipation.
The Reuters examination is different. It focuses on the most powerful
U.S. officeholders of today, many of whom have staked key positions on
policies related to race. It reveals for the first time, in breadth and
in detail, the extent of those leaders’ ancestral connections to what’s
commonly called America’s “original sin.” And it explores what it may
mean for them to learn – in personal, specific and sometimes graphic
ways – the facts behind their own kin’s part in slavery.
To trace the lineages of the political elite, Reuters assembled tens of
thousands of pieces of information contained in thousands of pages of
documents. Reporters only considered evidence of slaveholding that
occurred after the founding of the United States. Journalists also
limited their research to direct lineal descendants of the present-day
elite rather than building sprawling family trees that included distant
cousins.
In its reporting, Reuters analyzed U.S. census records, including
antebellum tallies of enslaved people known as “slave schedules,” as
well as tax documents, estate records, family Bibles, newspaper
accounts, and birth and death certificates. The records – in some cases,
family wills that show enslaved human beings bequeathed along with
feather beds and farm animals – provide a visceral link between today’s
decision makers and slavery.
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A combination illustration image shows
U.S. lawmakers. In an examination of the genealogies of America's
political elite, Reuters found that at least 100 of 536 members of
the last sitting Congress are direct descendants of ancestors who
enslaved Black people. In addition, President Joe Biden and every
living former U.S. president except Donald Trump are direct
descendants of slaveholders. Two of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme
Court justices also have direct ancestors who enslaved people. And
in 2022, the governors of 11 of the 50 U.S. states were descendants
of slaveholders, Reuters found. REUTERS/Illustration/Staff
The Reuters research was then vetted by board-certified
genealogists, who reviewed each case linking a contemporary leader
to a slaveholding ancestor. In instances in which journalists
identified politicians with multiple slaveholding ancestors, Reuters
focused on the lineage tracing to the ancestor who enslaved the most
people.
In many cases, journalists identified politicians for whom there was
strong evidence of an ancestral slaveholder, but insufficient
underlying documentation to be certain. Those notables were not
included in the Reuters analysis. And because other records that
could demonstrate slaveholding have been lost or destroyed over
time, “it’s a great possibility that you have an undercount,”
Burroughs said.
Among the examples of lawmakers and their ancestral ties to slavery:
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: The great-great-great-grandfather of Senator
Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. After the death of
Graham’s direct ancestor, Joseph Maddox, a receipt from the sale of
his property was prepared. Dated February 1, 1845, it shows the
purchase of eight people Maddox had enslaved. Among them were five
children: Sela, Rubin, James, Sal and Green. The “Negro man Sam” was
sold for $155.25. Their names are listed alongside items including a
sorrel horse ($10.50) and a folding table ($9.87).
“Senator Graham has called slavery ‘the original sin of the
country,’” an aide said in a short written statement in response to
a detailed briefing on the Reuters findings about Maddox. Graham
didn’t respond to an interview request. In past public remarks, he
has spoken about the need to focus on building “a more perfect union
rather than looking backward.”
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY MACE: The great-great-great-grandmother of
Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina. The
ancestor, Drucilla Mace, had a son, John Mace, who was also a
slaveholder. Decades after emancipation, a formerly enslaved man was
interviewed and recalled being made to work for John Mace, who in
1860 enslaved seven people. John Mace is the great-great-grandfather
of Nancy Mace.
In an interview in 1937, the man, Hector Godbolt, recounted watching
an overseer summoned by John Mace’s wife put an enslaved person over
a fence plank and whip him 75 times with a “cat o’nine tails,” named
for the nine knotted strands that ensure each lash inflicted searing
pain. After 75 lashes, Godbolt recalled, “Blood run down off him
just like you see a stream run.”
Nancy Mace initially agreed to an interview, then canceled. She
later provided this statement in response to the family tree Reuters
provided: “I don’t recognize these people named and can’t confirm
they are relatives, but slavery was a stain on this country and we
as Americans should be grateful for the progress we’ve made since
the 1860s.”
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: The
great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Senator Tammy
Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois. Duckworth described the facts
Reuters unearthed as “gut-wrenching.” In an 1829 appraisal of the
estate of her ancestor, Henry Coe, the names of the enslaved – and
their assessed dollar values – are bookended by farm animals: seven
sheep and a lamb, and a bull calf.
Coe left to various family members “my negro woman Margaret until
she shall arrive at the age of forty years, and my negro boy Isaac
until he is thirty-six years old, also my negro boy Warner until he
is thirty-six years old …” and “my negro boy George … till he is
thirty-six years old.” The will said that each would be freed when
reaching the stated age. Reuters could not determine what became of
three of the enslaved. But a Freedom Suit in Virginia in 1858 shows
that Isaac Franklin – the child named Isaac mentioned in the Coe
will – sought emancipation at age 36. By the 1860 census, he was
listed in Frederick County, Virginia, living as a free man and
working as a blacksmith.
Duckworth is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a
service organization of women descended from veterans of the
Revolutionary War. She said she hadn’t known about her familial ties
to slavery. “There’s definitely political implications of the
subject,” Duckworth said in an interview, when asked if she was
reluctant to discuss it. “But I think it’s a disservice to our
nation and our history to walk away from this. If I am going to
claim – and be proud that – I am a Daughter of the American
Revolution, then I have to acknowledge that I am also a daughter of
people who enslaved other people.”
None of the 118 leaders identified by Reuters disputed the findings
that at least one of their ancestors had enslaved people. In a
letter describing the project to them, Reuters made clear that it
was not suggesting they were “personally responsible for the actions
of ancestors who lived 160 or more years ago.” Even so, few leaders
were willing to discuss their family ties to slavery.
Reporters contacted each of the 100 current or former members of
Congress and the 18 presidents, governors or justices, providing the
letter along with a family tree and documents showing their
ancestral link to a slaveholding forebear. Of the 100 congressional
lawmakers, 24 responded to the materials Reuters delivered. Another
nine said they had no comment. The remaining 67 offered no reply.
To explore more about the connections to slavery of each of the 118
leaders, to see how they responded to the Reuters findings, and to
explore documents that list the names of the enslaved people held by
some of their ancestors, click here.
In researching America’s political elite, Reuters found names –
almost always just a first name – of 712 people enslaved by the
ancestors of the political elite. Even with a first name, tracing
those individuals forward to a census where they are recorded in
full is often exceedingly difficult.
Genealogists say white people who excavate their ancestry could help
Black Americans by finding information that enables them to trace
their own ancestries. Black genealogy faces a special hurdle: Before
1870, census takers almost never recorded the names of the enslaved
in the United States, instead listing ages and genders. But white
families may have other documents – such as wills, plantation
records or family Bibles that list the names of the enslaved – or
know where to find them.
In conjunction with the Reuters series, Legacy Family Tree Webinars
is making about 15 webinars from its library available each month
through 2023, for free. The webinars will range from guidance for
novice genealogists to challenges faced by Black Americans and can
be found here.
(This series was reported by Tom Bergin, Makini Brice, Nicholas P.
Brown, Donna Bryson, Lawrence Delevingne, Brad Heath, Andrea Januta,
Gui Qing Koh and Tom Lasseter. Contributed: Grant Smith and Maurice
Tamman. Edited by Blake Morrison.)
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