| My brand of Black History Month is generally not the feel good, corporate, air-brushed variety. Not that I am against "Profiles in Great/Brave/First/Only Black History"; I just think that these snapshots do not do a whole lot to force us to have the conversations we need to have around race in this country. Plus, I grew up on those tales (they were not taught to me in school, however) and for my own personal growth I need to keep challenging myself to cradle the difficult stuff in my hands and look closely.
It is in that spirit that I spend a lot of my private research time during February and all year long trying to learn more about slavery in the Americas. There has been some really exciting scholarship in this area lately--lots of it expanding my view of the so very peculiar institution and shattering some of the myths I held for many years. For example, there is the recent book Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery (Hear an interview with Anne Farrow, co-author of the book here.) There is also this exhibit at the New York Historical Society, Slavery in New York. And while we're at it, what about the notion of slavery right here in Minnesota? (Also see here.) Last year I wrote about this program of historical research into one company's links to slavery. This may not give you a warm fuzzy feeling, but hopefully you will find it as interesting as I did. (Originally posted June 9, 2005) |
Wachovia Bank's website encourages people to "dare to dream" and offers its own full menu of financial services to "help find the best way to finance it."
At one point in the bank's history, that help apparently included accepting slaves as collateral for loans. Thus, just as the bank "owns" the house you call yours until the mortgage is paid off, two of this bank's predecessor institutions "owned" humans.
Now available online is a statement by the bank and reports from the History Factory (a very interesting outfit the company hired to conduct the research):
...Due to incomplete records, we cannot determine precisely how many slaves either the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company or the Bank of Charleston owned. Through specific transactional records, researchers determined that the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company owned at least 162 slaves, and the Bank of Charleston accepted at least 529 slaves as collateral on mortgaged properties or loans, and acquired an undetermined number of these individuals when customers defaulted on their loans...
(Via Afro-Netizen. See here for complete statement and links to reports. For a related story, see the California Slavery Era Insurance Registry.)
Posted by perry032 at February 7, 2006 02:45 PM | TrackBack