WaPo on history of members of Congress who were slaveholders

[Grasswire2]

I'm sorry if there's a paywall. Incidentally, I only pay $4 a month for Internet access to WaPo. Pretty cheap.

]https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/?tid=ss_tw



From the founding of the United States until long after the Civil War, hundreds of the elected leaders writing the nation’s laws were current or former slaveowners.

More than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives, according to a Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records.

Jump to our interactive database
The country is still grappling with the legacy of their embrace of slavery. The link between race and political power in early America echoes in complicated ways, from the racial inequities that persist to this day to the polarizing fights over voting rights and the way history is taught in schools.

The Washington Post created a database that shows enslavers in Congress represented 37 states, including not just the South but every state in New England, much of the Midwest, and many Western states.


Some were owners of enormous plantations, like Sen. Edward Lloyd V of Maryland, who enslaved 468 people in 1832 on the same estate where abolitionist Frederick Douglass was enslaved as a child. Many exerted great influence on the issue of slavery, like Sen. Elias Kent Kane, who enslaved five people in Illinois in 1820, and tried to formally legalize slavery in the state.

much more at link

[TreasonousBastard]

1. There is a "slave cemetary" in Orient on Long Island and another...

one on tbe main road of Shelter Island. Both were on the estates of local 16th or 17th century Quakers who realized their error.

There was another slave graveyard discovered in NJ during the expansion of NJ transit works in Newark. NY/NJ was a major urban slave holding area at the time.

[Grasswire2]

3. really!

I have deep ancestral roots in that part of Long Island and environs. My family members were keepers of the Plum Island NY light for 43 years ending in 1903, but the roots go way deeper. One early member even is recorded to have "acquired" 6 acres of land at Jamaica for twenty bottles of liquor. He was elected the township's drummer. I love that last part.

I don't know that I had Quaker ancestors in that line. I think they were Calvinists -- Dutch.

And I know that some indigenous people were held as slaves.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Dutch surnames are common out here. Quakers are all over...

out here, but the Dutch had a hundred year head start on them. Now, they are all pretty much absorbed into the mass of "protestants". I doubt you find much arguing over predestination any more.

Often ignored is old man Kennedy's knowledge of the creeks and coves out here that helped that Presidential father collect a buck on every bottle of Scotch sold in the Northeast. Maybe the whole US. Also spawned a network of shipyards, some of which still exist, to hustle booze out here. This was for a long time the home of America's cup ports.

In the same vein is the newish Twin Stiils moonshine house in Aquebogue, that makes the smoothest bourbon I've ever tasted.

[Grasswire2]

5. Are you located near there?

Because my mother's family came west in 1924, I have not spent as much time in NE as I would have liked to once I started learning family history. I have only seen Long Island from the shore near Saybrook, I think it was. Many fascinating places to see.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Yup. I've ben living out on and off between Riverhead and Souhold...

for years now. Didn't hava a family history out here, but first had a family summer place on Goose Bay in the 60s.

It has changed a lot since then.

[iemanja]

2. I play $10 a month

Is yours and introductory price?

Slavery was foundational to not only our economy but our political system. It's good to see journalists pay attention to that.

[Grasswire2]

6. I don't know how I got $4 price.

But I have been a subscriber at that for a number of years -- maybe ten.

[Hekate]

8. Thank you

Downloaded to read at leisure; though interactive photos get lost, I’m used to that.

[scarletlib]

9. A very informative article.

The influence of the “slave holders caucus” on the course of this nation is barely understood and most probably definitely underrated.

Research like this needs to continue to bring the full truth to light.

Maybe then we can do what is needed to repair this great wrong.