Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program Identified 913 Enslaved People, 403 Living Descendants Before Layoffs

The Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative identified at least 913 individuals enslaved by Harvard faculty, staff, and leadership and at least 403 of their living descendants, according to an internal report from December.

The report, obtained by The Crimson, was a monthly update from genealogical society American Ancestors to the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, the Legacy of Slavery initiative’s descendant research wing. American Ancestors, which was previously one of HSRP’s external partners, took over the work in full last week after Harvard laid off HSRP’s internal staff.

The Crimson previously reported in September that HSRP had identified more than 300 people who were enslaved by Harvard affiliates and more than 100 living descendants.

Wayne W. Tucker, a former HSRP researcher, said the HSRP’s internal team had identified the Harvard-affiliated enslavers using archival materials and confirmed a “a generation or two” of descendants before handing the research off to their collaborators at American Ancestors.

American Ancestors “would do the real legwork from, say, 1800 or so, whereas I kind of did a preview, a cursory look,” Tucker said. “They would go in and fill in the gaps with very high accuracy and precision.”

As part of their work, HSRP cross-referenced dates to avoid counting enslaved individuals more than once if they had been referred to by more than one name in different records or counting those enslaved by non-Harvard affiliates with the same names as Harvard affiliates.

According to Tucker, the more than 400 living descendants so far can all be traced back to one of just three sets of ancestors. He added: “Even just one ancestor might increase that direct descendant total by 100 or so, potentially, if not, thousands.”

But Tucker said the work of finding people enslaved by Harvard affiliates is still far from completed. Tucker said HSRP’s internal team had not yet begun researching those enslaved after 1800 before they were terminated — work that will now fall entirely to American Ancestors.

Harvard spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly wrote in a statement that the University hopes to “leverage American Ancestors’ unparalleled genealogical knowledge and experience” to continue identifying direct descendants. Harvard’s work with American Ancestors began in 2022.

Former HSRP Program Director Richard J. Cellini wrote in a statement to The Crimson that HSRP was “proud” of its research.

“In just over 18 months, we increased the number of known Harvard-affiliated enslaved people from 70 to almost 1,000,” Cellini added.

“The former HSRP staff and leadership believes that every family is precious,” Cellini said, alluding to his prior allegations that the University had tried to limit the number of descendants his team attempted to find. “You can never find ‘too many descendants.’”

Despite identifying more than 400 living descendants, the University has yet to formalize a plan for how it intends to notify or engage with those descendants.

“What does engagement mean? What does it look like? It’s a very obfuscating word, which is fine at the beginning of a project but, this deep into it, we’re coming up on three years since the original report,” Tucker said. “There was no articulation and no vision from leadership.”

Kennedy O’Reilly wrote that Harvard “has always held the position that it would begin individual engagement with living direct descendants at the point at which the research has prepared us to do so.”

“When this engagement with direct descendants begins, we will do it with humility and an understanding that these first conversations are just the beginning of what we hope will become a long-term relationship with Harvard,” she added.

—Staff writer Sophie Gao can be reached at sophie.gao@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sophiegao22.

—Staff writer Alexandra M. Kluzak can be reached at alexandra.kluzak@thecrimson.com.