An Enduring Legacy: The Role of Financial Institutions in the Horrors of Slavery and the Need for Atonement - Beacon [Press] Broadside
On April 5, 2022, Daina Ramey Berry testified before the US House Financial Services Committee on the role of banks and insurers in US slavery. Her testimony cites her research and her book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh. It is now part of the Congressional record.
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Good afternoon, Chairman Green, Chairwoman Waters, Vice Chair Williams and members of the Committee. It is an honor to come before this body to share my testimony on the legacies of slavery and connections to financial institutions. I have been studying this history for thirty years and I appreciate the invitation.
Enslaved people were valuable financial investments. So valuable that financial institutions, municipalities, universities and private citizens bought, sold, gifted, deeded, traded, mortgaged, leased and transferred enslaved people as a form legal tender. Human chattel were foundational to western economies from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. They were one of the most unique commodities and assets because they were human beings. Defined as chattel, a movable form of property, we have records confirming their value at every stage of their lives from preconception to postmortem.[1] We also have documents that clearly outline the connections between enslaved people and specific financial institutions, such as insurance companies and banks. Those records can be traced from slavery to the present.[2] Such legacies reverberate throughout our society today and are reflected in all kinds of disparities. The wealth gap is so wide that most of us will not see it narrow in any appreciable way in our lifetimes.
Turning to insurance agencies, the Southern Mutual Life Insurance Company, founded in 1848 under the name Georgia/Southern Mutual, shows evidence of profits generated from insuring the bodies and lives of enslaved people. During its second year offering policies to enslavers, the company saw growth from twenty-eight to 239 policies. It reported that most of those who purchased policies were modest enslavers who had “a small number of slaves, on who they are dependent” thus they secured their income “by taking policies on the lives” of human property.[3] Looking at policies from 1856 to 1863, we learn that the company insured enslaved people from age one to sixty. Some policies were for a month or two, others for as long as five years. Regardless of the length, each enslaved person underwent a medical examination to determine their value, and the company set premiums and rates based on their value. Although this company originated in Georgia, Southern Mutual Life Insurance Company had agents throughout the South.
In addition to individual policies, some states, including Maryland, passed legislation that encouraged people to purchase policies on the enslaved. Here, the state supported policies that helped enslavers search for self-liberated individuals (runaways) in order to recover the cost of those who absconded and had been away for “a reasonable time.” That enslavers could make money off of those who escaped is remarkable. They also made money off of “elderly” enslaved people like forty-two-year-old Ellick, who was valued at $2,000 for a one-year premium at $80, with a four percent rate on the policy. What do these numbers reflect in contemporary times? Fifty-one-year-old Charlotte, valued at $800 in 1860, was equivalent to nearly $23,500 in 2014.[4] Insurance policies alone help explain why some enslavers keep elderly enslaved people—many would not command the insured value in the market. However, they could be replaced with someone younger at death.
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