HISTORY

Why Popular Banks Accepted Enslaved People as Collateral

When profits were prioritized over human rights

An 1861 illustration of A Slave Auction At The South via Harper’s Weekly Archives

Treating Black people as property enriched White enslavers in more ways than one. The most commonly discussed method was through a forced, unpaid labor arrangement. While enslaved people harvested crops like rice, sugar, cotton, and tobacco, they didn’t reap the financial benefits of their labor. However, a lesser-known method was using Black people as “loan collateral.” Take, for instance, the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, who “mortgaged 52 slaves to Henderson, McCaul & Company, and then gave as collateral 98 other slaves to several friends and the Dutch firm of Van Staphorst & Hubbard.” He sought out “friendly creditors who were unlikely to take his slaves,” which enabled him to access “credit that he sorely needed,” without risking anything at all. Such banking practices incentivized the enslavement of Black people.

Despite Jefferson claiming he wanted to “see an abolition not only of the trade but the conditions of slavery,” he owned 607 people throughout his life, more than any other president, and profited greatly from the practice. For example, Gill Gillette’s “status as human property allowed Jefferson to mortgage him and lease him out as a tenant farmer.” Of course, this was only…