No Confederate states took the offer, and on January 1 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared, "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part ...

He issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22 ... 93,000 from the Confederate states, 40,000 from the border slave states, and 53,000 from the free states.

Historians agree that  the earliest record of the West African chattel, commonly called slaves, arrived in America in 1619.

The DOJ announced Sunday that it is assessing how a recent proclamation from President Donald Trump affects the case around Oklahoma's House Bill 4156.

"By finding these names, we are releasing them to give back these enslaved people some of their dignity," said Sarah Bader-King, executive director of the John Wornall House Museum.