Jesuit missions relied on enslaved laborers to help build Saint Louis University. On Thursday, the descendants of these workers demanded that the university be held accountable for its commitments made in the 2016 Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project, St. Louis Public Radio reported.

The report emphasized that descendants should take the lead in discussions concerning reparations and suggested they have a central role alongside SLU in deciding how to make amends.

“The Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project is committed to a transformative process of truth-telling, reconciliation, and healing that, in conversation with the descendants of people held in bondage, acknowledges historical harms, seeks to repair relationships, and works within our communities to address the legacies of slavery that persist in the form of racial inequities today,” the project’s website states.

Henrietta Mills Chauvin was one of many enslaved Black people brought to Saint Louis to help build the school. The amount of time she and other workers spent with the church to help construct the institution does not equate to the pain and suffering they endured during that time, Areva Martin, the descendants’ attorney, said.

“We do know that providing this valuation gives us a starting point to start talking about reconciliation,” Martin said during a press conference, per St. Louis Public Radio. “It starts with recognizing your obligation to discord even a fraction of the value of their ancestors’ labor that was used to build this storied institution.”

In 2019, university officials and descendants collaborated on reparations efforts, but the pandemic halted progress. When discussions resumed in 2021, descendants said they were not included in these, and SLU’s communications office had no response to the value of stolen labor presented, per St. Louis Public Radio.

The university aims to further collaborate with descendant families to honor the memory of the workers who were exploited through stolen labor.

Between 1823 and 1865, Jesuits in Missouri borrowed, rented, or owned over 150 enslaved people. Initially, three enslaved families were brought from Maryland to Florissant in 1823 to help build the St. Stanislaus seminary and plantation. In 1829, more enslaved people arrived from Maryland as the Jesuits took over Saint Louis College, later known as Saint Louis University, where some were forced to work, according to St. Louis Public Radio.

“It just makes me feel sad that they had to go through this and knowing that it was the church involved as well, and we helped to build the church, you wouldn’t think that a church would do this,” Lynette Jackson, the great, great, great-grandaughter of Mills Chauvin, said, per St. Louis Public Radio.

When discussing how much is owed to the descendants of the enslaved people, labor economist Julianne Malveaux used historical wage data to calculate those figures.

“The amounts that we’re talking about start at $361 million and go up to $70 billion depending on the interest rate — 3% on the low end and 6% on the high end,” Malveaux said according to St. Louis Public Radio.