SEATTLE — Washington has launched its study into reparations for descendants of enslaved people to address the enduring repercussions of chattel slavery in America.

During this first phase of the multiyear project, researchers are collecting historical data, combing through archival documents and gathering testimony to better understand the state’s legacy with slavery and its influences on racial disparities and injustices that persist. Researchers will also review Washington’s role in perpetuating discriminatory practices through laws, policies and economic structures against direct descendants.

“We intended to leave no research stone unturned,” said Ashley Gardner, the study’s principal project director, during an info session last month.

In a survey released last week, researchers asked Washington residents whose ancestors may have been victims of U.S. chattel slavery to share their perspective on reparations. Those responses, along with other research findings and community feedback, will ultimately shape recommendations around what reparations might look like in Washington.

The goal of the study is for people to gain “a solid understanding of the harm, and what it would take to remedy the harm,” according Marvin Slaughter Jr., co-lead of the valuation and policy team.

“We’re tasked with looking at the national picture, and understanding, is Washington culpable, and if it is culpable, to what degree?” he said. “It’s a detailed analysis, atrocity by atrocity.”

State lawmakers allocated $300,000 to fund the landmark study last summer. California released a similar study with policy recommendations in 2023, and Illinois and New York are exploring the possibility of reparations.

Washington’s study, under the state’s Department of Commerce, is being led by Truclusion, a Dupont-based consulting firm focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Calls for reparations have existed since slavery in the U.S. was abolished in 1865, but the movement started gaining more traction in 2020 as the country was embroiled in a racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd.

Most Americans oppose reparations, according to a 2022 Pew Research study, though support varied significantly based on respondents’ race. In King County, about 59% of people believe descendants of people who were enslaved in the U.S. should be compensated in some way, a 2024 survey conducted by the Seattle/King County African American Reparations Committee found.

Critics against the study and reparations point out Washington did not become a state until 1889, after slavery was abolished in the U.S., and that slavery was illegal in Washington Territory. Enslaved people were allowed in the territory so long as they were not originally enslaved within its borders.

Establishing a full account of the state’s free people of color population and enslaved population, as well as their descendants, is an important part of Washington’s study, said Mica Anders, the project’s genealogy team lead.

Other statewide reparations research has surfaced lesser-known histories, such as the exploitation of enslaved people in California during the gold rush, despite California entering the union as a “free state.”

The complete record of chattel slavery in Washington has yet to be fully exhumed, Slaughter said. And its lingering impact here, too, has yet to be comprehensively detailed, he said.

Numerous historic injustices — some perpetrated or permitted under state and local laws — followed after the abolition of slavery: Job discrimination, racial restrictive covenants and redlining, educational and health disparities, disproportionate mass incarceration. “Things that we consider vestiges of chattel slavery because they were enforced upon the same harmed group,” Slaughter said.

Researchers said it’s too early to say what reparations would look like in Washington.

“Should it be cash payments? Should it be pensions? Should it be health care?” asked Thomas Craemer, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut and co-lead of the valuation and policy team.

“There’s a number of ideas,” he continued. “This is a research project. We’re not actually making any decisions, and we don’t want to. We want to let the community speak to us and to guide us.”

Researchers will identify possible frameworks for calculating and awarding reparations at the national and state levels, including cash payments and other forms of compensation, Craemer said.

In a 2015 paper, Craemer estimated reparations could cost up to $14.2 trillion nationwide, based on the present value of U.S. slave labor when calculating unremunerated work hours and historical free labor market wages. California’s study estimated billions in monetary losses for Black residents related to health disparities, mass incarceration and overpolicing, and housing discrimination.

Whether Washington’s study will translate into actual policy also remains to be seen. Few recommendations by California’s reparations task force have been rolled out, facing financial and political headwinds. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken sweeping aim at programs and policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

“This is a long game,” Craemer said. “Each state’s reparations task force, each local reparations initiative, in my view, is one step toward that goal.”

Researchers will deliver a preliminary report to the Legislature by the end of June, and an interim report will be due at the end of this year. A final report will be due to lawmakers June 30, 2027.

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(Material from The Seattle Times archives was used in this report.)

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