Using old Census records and documents, Julie Zauzmer Weil, Adrian Blanco and Leo Dominguez for The Washington Post tallied the congressmen who enslaved people over time. There were more than 1,700 enslavers over Congress’s first 130 years.
The grid (or tile) map above shows the timeline for each state, showing the percentage of officials who were enslavers from 1789 to 1923. Periods before states gained statehood status are faded out.
