Reparations: Where slavery's descendants stand

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To read Part 1 of the Reuters series, Slavery’s Descendants: America’s Family Secret, click here

By Tom Lasseter, Donna Bryson and Lawrence Delevingne

June 27 (Reuters) - Bills introduced in the House and Senate would create a commission to address “the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865” -- and the racial and economic discrimination against Black Americans that followed. Such a commission, the bills say, would consider a national apology and proposals for reparations.

Some of the leading voices on the matter, both for and against, have a personal connection to the issue: They have one or more ancestors who were slaveholders.

Among them are three prominent Democrats who have co-sponsored reparations bills: senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen, and Representative Lloyd Doggett. Opponents include Republican senators Tommy Tuberville and John N. Kennedy, and former Representative Louie Gohmert.

The issue is divisive. A Reuters/Ipsos survey found that slightly more than half of respondents identifying as Democrats – 58% – support reparations. Just 18% of Republicans do. The divide is even greater between Black and white America. The poll found that 74% of Black Americans favor reparations compared to just 26% of white Americans.

A House resolution introduced in May in favor of the idea cites estimates from "respected economists" that reparations to eliminate the racial wealth gap would cost at least $14 trillion.

Proponents say such payments are meant to help compensate for more than slavery itself. They cite systemic racism and other forms of discrimination that followed emancipation.

Opponents say reparations would further divide the country. They question who would get the money: Would all Black Americans, or only descendants of people who could show that their ancestors were enslaved? They also say it’s wrong to have taxpayers finance reparations, given that no one alive today is responsible for slavery.

In examining the genealogies of members of the 117th Congress, Reuters found that at least 100 lawmakers have direct ancestors who enslaved Black people in the years before 1865, the end of the U.S. Civil War. Some have espoused strong positions on reparations.

Among them:

OPPONENTS

Louie Gohmert

Former U.S. Representative from Texas

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Robert Lindsay

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 11

As a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, Gohmert was one of the most vocal critics of long-standing House Resolution 40, which calls for Congress to form a commission to study reparations. In April 2021, Gohmert went on the attack by proposing an amendment calling for the Democratic Party to pay for reparations. In the slavery era, the Democratic Party supported slavery; the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, called for slavery’s restriction and eventually abolished it. At the time, Gohmert suggested his own family had no connection to slavery, citing an ancestor who immigrated after the Civil War. “I have seen the documents where my great-grandfather signed when he came from Europe in 1870,” he said.

Reuters found that Gohmert has another direct ancestor, on his mother’s side, who enslaved 11 Black people in Bowie County, Texas, in 1860. Those enslaved by Gohmert’s ancestor, Robert Lindsay, ranged in age from a 3-month-old boy to a 70-year-old man.

Lindsay was a lawyer who, shortly before his death in 1860, chaired a meeting that organized a “Vigilance Committee” in the community of Boston in Bowie County. It issued a statement resolving that any white man caught “tampering with our slaves to bring about an insurrection” would be caught and killed by the committee.

Gohmert, who joined Congress in 2005 but did not seek re-election last year, told Reuters he wasn’t aware of having a slaveholding ancestor. “That surprises me,” he said. He declined to comment further.

Tommy Tuberville

U.S. Senator from Alabama

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Valentine Brazil

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 5

At a Republican rally in Nevada last October, Tuberville, an Alabama senator, took aim at Democrats for being soft on crime. In his critique, he veered into the issue of reparations and implied that those who commit crime in America are Black.

“They want crime because they want to take over what you got,” Tuberville said of Democrats. “They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! They are not owed that.” In a statement to local media about his controversial remarks, Tuberville said in part: “The issue is crime, not race, but the liberal media is intent on helping Democrats remain in power.” The statement did not address his claims about reparations.

An ancestor of Tuberville, Valentine Brazil, in 1840 enslaved at least five Black people in Saline County, Arkansas, including two boys under the age of 10. Brazil moved to another county in the state, Ouachita, and by the next census count in 1850 enslaved three people between the ages of 17 and 22 years old.

Tuberville did not respond to five requests for comment.

John N. Kennedy

U.S. Senator from Louisiana

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Nathan Calhoun

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 65

In 2019, a reporter asked Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, about his thoughts on reparations. Slavery was “reprehensible,” Kennedy said. He added: “I believe in personal responsibility, and I just don’t think someone today is responsible for what someone else did 150 years ago.”

Kennedy is a direct descendant of a man named Nathan Calhoun who in 1860 enslaved 65 people; they lived in 14 slave houses on his farm in Abbeville, South Carolina. Nathan Calhoun’s son, Dabney P. Calhoun, enslaved 22 people that same year in Louisiana.

Kennedy did not respond to five requests for comment.

PROPONENTS

Elizabeth Warren

U.S. Senator from Massachusetts

DIRECT ANCESTOR: John Crawford

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 14

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is a co-sponsor of S. 40, the Senate reparations bill. In an 1848 will, a Warren ancestor named John Crawford bequeathed the 14 men, women and children enslaved in Dorchester County, Maryland. For 12 of them – ranging in age from a 4-month-old infant girl to a 28-year-old woman – Crawford specified that each female would be freed at age 31, and each male at 36. For two other men named in the document, Crawford wrote that they would be “slaves for life.”

“The legacy of slavery still casts a long shadow over every facet of American life, including Congress,” Warren said in a statement to Reuters. “While we cannot change the past, I am fighting in the Senate to address systemic injustices – through word, deed, law and policy.”

Chris Van Hollen

U.S. Senator from Maryland

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Isaac Hollingsworth

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 16

Another co-sponsor of the Senate reparations measure is Van Hollen, a Democrat representing Maryland. In 1840, his ancestor enslaved 16 people in Virginia.

“The knowledge that I have ancestors that participated in the evil institution of slavery causes me to reflect even more personally about what I have always believed and acted on – that we have a moral imperative to confront the legacy and impact of our nation’s original sin with honesty and purposeful action,” Van Hollen said in a statement to Reuters.

Lloyd Doggett

U.S. Representative from Texas

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Miller Doggett

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 3

Among the co-sponsors of H.R. 40 is Doggett, a Texas Democrat. His ancestor, Miller Doggett, enslaved three children in Tennessee in 1840 – two boys and a girl, all under the age of 10. “Learning of my ancestors’ involvement over 180 years ago in the pernicious evil of slavery stains my family’s history as it does the history of our nation,” Doggett said in a statement to Reuters.

“Though your discovery is troubling, it only invigorates my support for the cause of truth, justice, and equity today,” he added. “I reject the efforts of those who would sugar-coat our history, denying our youth an honest accounting of how the legacy of slavery, defeat of Reconstruction, and advance of Jim Crow continue to inhibit progress against discrimination and racism.”

(Edited by Blake Morrison)