15 Major Corporations You Never Knew Profited from Slavery

[NewDeal_Dem]

- Lehman Brothers, whose business empire started in the slave trade, recently admitted their part in the business of slavery...

- Aetna, Inc., the United States’ largest health insurer, apologized for selling policies in the 1850s that reimbursed slave owners for financial losses when the enslaved Africans they owned died...

- JPMorgan Chase “Today, we are reporting that this research found that, between 1831 and 1865, two of our predecessor banks—Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana—accepted approximately 13,000 enslaved individuals as collateral on loans and took ownership of approximately 1,250 of them when the plantation owners defaulted on the loans,” the company wrote in a statement.

- New York Life Insurance Company is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States. They also took part in slavery by selling insurance policies on enslaved Africans..

- USA Today reported that Wachovia Corporation (now owned by Wells Fargo) has apologized for its ties to slavery after disclosing that two of its historical predecessors owned enslaved Africans and accepted them as payment...

etc.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery/3/


American wealth was built on slavery, and that means mainly the wealth of big corporations and the .01%.

[Trillo]

2. Three of those corporations are in the "Who runs the world" top 50

source
1 BARCLAYS PLC GB 6512 SCC 4.05
...
6 JP MORGAN CHASE & CO. US 6512 SCC 14.55
...
34 LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS, INC. US 6712 SCC 34.43

[kiva]

3. And

Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Nippon Steel, Nippon, Krupp, I G Farben, Audi.

[NewDeal_Dem]

9. yes.

[tclambert]

4. Okay, but are they going to stop making money off slavery?

Contrary to what many think from the 13th amendment and the history books, slavery still exists, even in the United States--human trafficking, sweat shops staffed by illegal immigrants, and foreign factories with slave labor, which sell goods to us and take our jobs.

[closeupready]

8. +100.

[NewDeal_Dem]

10. no. it's one of the best ways to make money, profiting on human misery. which is why we need

to speak clearly about what it is they actually did and do.

I don't give them a pass just because it happened a hundred years ago, since their power today (and ability to keep enslaving people) is a direct consequence of the past acts.

the past isn't dead, it isn't even past.

[Omaha Steve]

5. From the AP today: 'A living hell' for slaves on remote South Korean islands

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150102/as--skorea-slave_islands-f94cfe37fa.html

Jan 1, 10:17 PM (ET)

By FOSTER KLUG, JUNG-YOON CHOI and KIM TONG-HYUNG

SINUI ISLAND, South Korea (AP) — He ran the first chance he got.

The summer sun beat down on the shallow, sea-fed fields where Kim Seong-baek was forced to work without pay, day after 18-hour day mining the big salt crystals that blossomed in the mud around him. Half-blind and in rags, Kim grabbed another slave, and the two men — both disabled — headed for the coast.


In this Feb. 19, 2014, a salt farm owner walks around his salt farm on Sinui Island, South Korea. Slavery thrives on this chain of rural islands off South Korea{2019}s rugged southwest coast, nurtured by a long history of exploitation and the demands of trying to squeeze a living from the sea. Five times during the last decade, revelations of slavery involving the disabled have emerged, each time generating national shame and outrage.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)


Far from Seoul, the glittering steel-and-glass capital of one of Asia's richest countries, they were now hunted men on this tiny, remote island where the enslavement of disabled salt farm workers is an open secret.

"It was a living hell," Kim said. "I thought my life was over."

FULL story at link.

[NewDeal_Dem]

11. +100

[jwirr]

24. Thank you for pointing this out. Slavery has not ended. Our corporations are using it again.

[bluedigger]

6. Brooks Brothers is still clothing the slaves of the financial industry.

[JDPriestly]

7. Indentured servants, mostly European and white, also did their part. Many of the white

people whose families have been in the US for generations have ancestors worked off their time as indentured servants. Indentured servants were way better off than slaves in that they could after the period of their indenture enjoy freedom. But they were very badly treated in many cases during their servitude.

There are some very sad stories that have never been told.

Further, while the shame and injury that resulted from the abuse of black people by white people during the slavery era should never be forgotten, it is important to remember that it was primarily white people who fought in the Civil War and freed the slaves.

Q. How many soldiers fought in the Civil War?

At the beginning of the war the Northern states had a combined population of 22 million people. The Southern states had a combined population of about 9 million. This disparity was reflected in the size of the armies in the field. The Union forces outnumbered the Confederates roughly two to one.

The Opposing Armies

Q. How many soldiers died in the Civil War?

Approximately 620,000 soldiers died from combat, accident, starvation, and disease during the Civil War. This number comes from an 1889 study of the war performed by William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore. Both men fought for the Union. Their estimate is derived from an exhaustive study of the combat and casualty records generated by the armies over five years of fighting. A recent study puts the number of dead as high as 850,000.

. . . .

Q. What role did African-Americans play in the war effort?

With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, African-Americans - both free and runaway slaves - came forward to volunteer for the Union cause in substantial numbers. Beginning in October, approximately 180,000 African-Americans, comprising 163 units, served in the U.S. Army, and 18,000 in the Navy. That month, the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers repulsed a Confederate attack at Island Mound, Missouri. Men of the U.S.C.T. (United States Colored Troops) units went on to distinguish themselves on battlefields east and west - at Port Hudson, Louisiana; Honey Springs, Oklahoma; Fort Wagner, South Carolina; New Market Heights, Virginia. African Americans constituted 10% of the entire Union Army by the end of the war, and nearly 40,000 died over the course of the war.

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/faq/

That means that 90% of the union soldiers who fought to abolish slavery or at least to allow escaped slaves to remain free were white.

Some of the white soldiers who fought in the union army were my ancestors and relatives. It is true that African-Americans have suffered a great deal because of slavery. It is also true that not all white Americans approved of or supported slavery. And many white Americans fought to end slavery.

Many white Americans did not profit from slavery.

[ncjustice80]

14. And almost 100% of slave owners were white. Whats your point.

[JDPriestly]

15. My point is that it is not just about whites and black.

Slavery was as many of my white ancestors pointed out and fought to make clear -- an abomination.

It is not right to stigmatize all black people as thus and so.

It is also not right to stigmatize all white people as thus and so.

A certain percentage, a small number, of Americans were slave holders. Even in the South, the plantations were large. Only a certain segment of white Southerners were slave-holders. Some very large companies, and no doubt, some people who today are rich have received some of their wealth from the institution of slavery, but please when you talk about slavery, do not think that all white Americans supported it or willingly profited from it. That is a stereotype about white Americans. And it is just as wrong as the stereotypes about black Americans that so many, many Americans hold.

Acknowledge when you speak of slavery that the great movement that fought slavery and endded it was begun and conducted by both African-American and white reformers.

Black people are not alone in their struggle. Please acknowledge that.

[gollygee]

16. #notallwhitepeople

Can't go a thread about race without it.

[JDPriestly]

17. Thanks.

It is offensive to white people who do understand the concept of white privilege and who try to deal with that privilege so as to lift everyone when there is constant talk of whites as the enemy. Some whites are no doubt the "enemy" of equal rights and dignity for all. But be careful that you do not make it harder for more and more whites to understand the issue of white privilege.

You don't benefit when you put others on the defensive. A discussion that blames a large group of people that includes a cross-section of behaviors, attitudes and understanding can actually be counter-productive.

It is probably true that the wealth of the wealthy families of early American was acquired at least in part thanks to slavery or, in the case of the railroad magnates on the West Coast, abuse of the Chinese laborers and others who built the railroads. But the Midwestern farmer who cut the trees and cleared the swamps and did his own labor benefited very, very little from slavery. The cotton might have been less accessible without slavery. But the Midwestern farmers provided products that benefited slaves. Slaves were the most tragically exploited group of Americans in the history of our country because they had no means to improve their economic or social status, no ladder to climb up. But a lot of Americans worked very hard to make this country what it became. Don't forget that slaves were not the only people who suffered. Many white settlers traveled West and were never heard from again. They left their families. The difference is that the slaves did not leave their families or suffer by their own choice.

The crime of slavery is two-fold as I see it at this time. First, slaves had no free will to better themselves and were not given the opportunity to make decisions for themselves about their own lives. They had no choices or almost no choices. The white settlers, white Americans always had the challenge but also the opportunity (once they were no longer indentured) to make decisions about where to go, what to do, what work to learn, etc. Not only did that mean better economic opportunities for the white settlers, but it also meant that they could teach their children by example as well as by word, the attitude of self-determination, the skill of making decisions and picking strategies. That attitude and that skill were not encouraged in the African-American slave population. It was considered to be impertinent and dangerous and could literally be whipped out of a person.

Second, slaves were not educated or given the opportunities to own property or start businesses at a time when it was relatively easy to build a capital, financial base and learn how to say farm, plan to plant crops, take care of yourself. That was a big problem. In a sense, the slaves were freed, but many were still chained by their lack of experience and their lack of ownership of property.

I realize that what I am writing is just a very superficial explanation of white privilege. I understand what white privilege has meant. But you have to be careful in discussing it that you do not alienate the very people who do understand what you are talking about.

I think the point about the Bush family will be very important if Jeb Bush is the Republican candidate all said and done. But you need to educate white people to understand what white privilege is and how it affects the black community today, how the legacy of slavery manifests itself in limiting black society today and you need to do that education wisely and gently. Because most Americans today did not benefit from slavery. The immigration surges into America took place after the Civil War.

You need to understand how the institution of slavery is still limiting black people. A person whose family came here from say Russia or Lithuania after 1900 is not going to feel very responsible for slavery, and they aren't. Nor is a person whose family way back strongly supported abolition. It is unfair to blame all white people for slavery or to think that all of us profited from it.

[gollygee]

18. I was being sarcastic

White people are not so delicate that we need to explicitly hear that we are exempted every time we read about something a number of other white people did.

[JDPriestly]

20. Surely your intent is not too alienate white people.

[gollygee]

23. Surely white people are not that delicate. n/t

[JDPriestly]

25. Yes. A lot of white people are that delicate.

I know it is hard to believe. But a lot of white people look at anti-discrimination legislation and think about how hard it is for them as white people to get jobs or buy a house or whatever everyone regardless of race wants and needs and look around and feeling very delicate, very hurt, strike out at somebody they think has this "special" legislation that benefits them.

Of course, you and I know that is a perverse view of the reality, that the civil rights legislation has not given members of minorities anything they don't work for and deserve. But a lot of white people who have a tough time as well as many who wear their privilege like a God-given right, are very delicate about race issues.

African-Americans should focus on the success that they have and take as much advantage of the opportunities they have as possible. There are lots of outstanding African-American professors, doctors, scientists, engineers, members of the military, musicians (far more talent in many maybe most cases than among whites in the current generation), artists,, sports heros, actors, and the government (and that list is not exhaustive.). The tremendous contributions of black people to our society should be more the topic of discussion than the victimization of black people.

I dare you to name a better singer than Ella Fitzgerald (and a close second Nina Simone) in the past 100 years not just in America but in the world. And that just happens to be the name that comes to my mind because I love singing.

Forget about slavery. Today, black people are leading in many areas. Focus on the positive. The Bush family is history. The more you focus on the positive story about black people in our society, the more respect black people will have and the lower the crime statistics that are hurting the black community whether police killing black kids or any other crime statistic.

Look at the black community. Is any other community in the US as cohesive, as aware spiritually, as loving, as full of energy and untapped talent?

Yes. A lot of white people really are that delicate. So black people should be bragging about their accomplishments, not focusing on their relationships with those white people.

Most white people just don't care one way or the other. When black people talk about their success and the importance of their contributions to the US and the world, then the delicate white people shut up.

[gollygee]

31. Holy crap

You should re-read this. Such entitlement. African American should be happy with what they have and shut up already - it's all about making white people comfortable!?!?

[JDPriestly]

34. No. It isn't about being happy with what you have. It's about being proud of who you are.

And it is about making white people feel comfortable about being on your side.

Do you think that the anti-discrimination laws and integration (to the limited extent that we have it) have accomplished anything?

What would you like white people to do for black people (if anything)?

Do you wish to get white people on your side?

Or do you like the constant victimization of black people by white people?

Seems to me that a campaign that would put the positive accomplishments and social reality of black people in the forefront would encourage more and more white people to view black people very favorably and be outraged when injustice rears its ugly head. That is my point with that post.

I understand the anger of black people, but I think that a good strategy is to accompany that outrage with a very positive campaign that encourages white people to themselves feel and think positively about black people.

And yes lots of white people are having a tough time. Lots of them lost their homes and have to send their children to second-rate schools. Blacks and whites have a lot in common. We need to work together. But it is difficult for the "delicate," the hurting white people to work together with blacks when blacks try to alienate white people and focus on the guilt and the past. A lot of white people were responsible for slavery. But many were not. Certainly those who came to the US after 1865 and those who fought to free slaves in the Civil War cannot be blamed for slavery. That's just fact. Those people did not profit from slavery.

Look at the terrible numbers of white people who died in the Civil War fighting for the Union and to free the slaves. They lost their lives to abolish slavery. They did not profit from slavery. They lost their lives to end it.

Sorry. But it's time to make some progress and not repeat over and over the same arguments that have not improved the lot of poor people whether white or black.

[gollygee]

36. Racial justice is not and should not be about making white people feel squat

Yes, this is entitlement. It isn't about you and it can't be and it absolutely shouldn't be.

[JonLP24]

38. I'm white and don't feel alienated

I apply a "does the shoe fit"? to this.

[ncjustice80]

22. All white people benefited from slavery, as all black people have suffered.

Saying "but but but white people fought to end it to!" Is a distraction.

[JDPriestly]

26. White people who settled the wilderness of the Midwest and Northeast did not benefit

from slavery. They pretty much made it on their own. That is to say, they benefited no more from slavery than do black Americans of today.

No slaves cut down the virgin forests to create farms in states like Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Indiana. That goes for the large part of the country.

And the white Americans who immigrated to this country after the Civil War and settled in the North most certainly never benefited from slavery.

After the Civil War there was no slavery for anyone to benefit from. And as I pointed out earlier, the vast majority of Union soldiers who died were white. One of my ancestors came here from Germany around 1849, enlisted in the Union Army, took his 12-year-old son with him, fought in the Civil War for the Union and against slavery. He never benefited from slavery, I assure you. His son, my great-grandfather (I knew him as a child because he lived a long life) did reconnaissance for the Union Army and was shot in the leg. He bore that wound and suffered the pain of it the rest of his life -- to a very ripe old age. He certainly did not benefit from slavery. In fact, he paid a great price to free slaves.

I don't know why I am arguing about this, but it is insulting to be berated based on a falsehood.

[gollygee]

32. Yes, white people as a whole benefited

Slavery made the economy boom, and white people from all parts of the US were more prosperous due to that.

[JDPriestly]

33. Sorry, but my family settled the Midwest and did not benefit in any way shape or form from

slavery. They were strong abolitionists. See my post # 27.

If slavery had been so profitable for the Yankees, why did they fight the Civil War?

Because while it benefited a few wealthy Northerners, it hurt most of them both morally and economically.

And a lot of white people came to the US as indentured servants. Their stories are not always as tragic as those of the slaves, but there are many tragic stories about indentured servants too.

As with slaves, some of the indentured servants were young children. I am not detracting from the tragedy and crimes of slavery, but just pointing out that there was a lot of what we consider to be injustice in the early years of our country.

And it is just false to say that all white people benefited from slavery. Northern farmers did not benefit and many of them did not like it.

[gollygee]

37. They still benefitted

The whole country's economy benefitted, no matter where they lived, and when the whole country's economy is lifted, everyone (except those kept out of the loop - like people of color) benefits. More jobs became available. More money was available for infrastructure around the country. There was a larger tax base. And those are the big ways. Your family's clothing and sugar, for instance, were cheaper because slave labor were behind their creation. That's a small way your family would have benefitted.

[napkinz]

12. ...

[malaise]

13. the Chamber of Commerce

earned its stripes from slavery - never forget we were 'commerce'. They bought and sold our ancestors. Our ancestors were their trade.

[WillowTree]

19. As much as I detest Chase Bank, the charge against them is amazingly circuitous.

It goes like this:

These two banks in Louisiana, as unthinkable as it would seem to us today, made loans to plantation owners who put their slaves up as collateral, an entirely legal practice at that time and place. Between the two of them, over time they had come to own a total of about 1,250 slaves at various times due to defaulted upon loans. It isn't known for sure, but it is presumed that those slaves were, in turn, sold to recoup some of the banks' losses on the defaults. Tragic? Yes. But that was then, right?

Anyway, the two banks merged back in 1924 and the resulting bank ultimately failed in 1933.......the Depression and all. The National Bank of Commerce in New Orleans, a federally chartered bank at that time, purchased some of the failed bank's assets which, of course, did not include any slaves by then, being almost 70 years after the end of the Civil War and no one knows anymore if the assets which were part of that purchase can be traced back to the accounts that had at one time been secured by slaves as property.

Now it turns out that the National Bank of Commerce was one of hundreds of small and not-so-small banks that merged and were bought out over the years, the largest of which was the First National Bank of Chicago, which had bought out many of the smaller, local banks in the few preceding years, and back in 1998 that amalgamation ultimately became known as Bank One. And then, along about 2005, Bank One merged with Chase.

So it's more than a bit of a stretch to claim that Chase "profited from slavery", at least when it comes to this scenario.

[JDPriestly]

21. And a lot of white Americans who didn't have slaves probably lost money because they could

not compete with slave-holders in that they could not produce say cotton or rice for the low prices that plantation owners could charge.

Slavery was an abomination, and I agree that white people in general but not necessarily in every case specifically have an advantage in our society. But neither white nor black people should be painted with one brush.

We are not necessarily responsible for the wrongs and crimes of others simply because we have the same skin color that they do.

[1StrongBlackMan]

27. Please stop with the "But white people , too ..." stuff.

Yes, there are white folks that had it bad ... that is a completely separate, and irrelevant, subject when discussing slavery in America ... just like male rape, is an unwelcome topic, when discussing rape culture in America.

ETA: If you wish to get your "But white people, too ..." on, start your own thread.

[JDPriestly]

29. See my post #26.

If all white people benefited from slavery, why did so many white people risk their lives and limbs to fight against slavery and for the union in the Civil War?

Not all white people at the time of slavery or any time thereafter benefited from slavery. A relatively small number of white people benefited from slavery. It was an abomination not only for the slaves themselves but for all Americans except the slave-owners.

External slave-trade into the US ended in 1808.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

Northern abolitionists were numerous enough and enthusiastic enough to win the Civil War.

Slavery continued to flourish after 1808 therefore there can be no denying that some white people profited from it through to the end of the Civil War. The claims have been that all white people profited or benefited from slavery. As I explain in post #26, that is certainly not true of my great-grandfather. It wasn't true of many, many other white Americans. It is simply not true that all white people benefited from slavery.

Some white people benefited from slavery. Please. Let's get our facts straight. Don't paint all white people with one brush. Some white people were ardently opposed to slavery.

[1StrongBlackMan]

30. Please stop. Or, start your own thread.

[ncjustice80]

35. Just because they were opposed didnt mean they didnt benefit.

You need to shut your mouth, open your ears and listen to 1strongblackman, and check your priviledge.

[benld74]

28. What company is selling the insurance policies for Walmart employees with payouts to Walmart?

[1step]

39. Only Fifteen?

Yeah, right!

[moondust]

40. As long as they're not the ones cracking the whips

or fitting the chains, I'm afraid a lot of people have quite a high tolerance for evil if it makes them wealthier. That's one of the "beauties" of the corporate shareholder model.