In the 11th paragraph of the article, we find out that Washington didn’t become a state until a generation after Emancipation, and didn’t have slavery before that as a territory.
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.
The 1860 Census recorded approximately 30 blacks in Washington territory.
Establishing a full account of the state’s free people of color population and enslaved population,
if any