A 2003 Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance that requires companies doing business with the city of Chicago to disclose whether they had profited from slavery forced JPMorgan Chase & Co. to acknowledge that its roots are linked to the 19th century slave trade and it profited from the free labor of more than 13,000 Africans.
“Recently, JPMorgan Chase completed extensive research examining our company’s history for any links to slavery to meet a commitment to the city of Chicago,” the company wrote in statement.
“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.”
Public records in Louisiana indicate that Citizens Bank and Canal Bank (which eventually became Bank One) merged with JPMorgan Chase in 2004. It provided credit to plantation owners and accepted mortgages from them. Records also indicate that both banks often initiated foreclosure on mortgages and took over the property, which usually included enslaved blacks.
Detroit City Councilmember Dorothy Tillman proposed the ordinance.
“It’s much more than businesses acknowledging they received profits from slavery. This is about black labor and white wealth. Wealth was passed down to whites and poverty was passed down to blacks,” said Tillman.
“JP Morgan was ordered to disclose any information regarding their ties to the slave trade and at first they lied about it. When we found out they lied, we demanded they do a thorough search of their records and apologize.”
The ordinance, which was passed by the Chicago City Council Finance and Human Relations committees, requires record searches of banks, agriculture industries, railroads, textile manufactures and others. According to Tillman, the ordinance wasn’t designed to bar companies that have links to slavery from doing business with the city, but was designed to get information for possible reparations lawsuits in the future.
“We want our community to mobilize and organize so we can hold the government and businesses accountable. Financial institutions wouldn’t be anything without the backs of black people,” she explains.
JPMorgan Chase apologized to the American public and especially to African Americans in a letter to its employees. They have also agreed to establish a $5 million college scholarship program called Smart Start Louisiana.
According to lawsuits filed on behalf of all slave descendents, other companies, such as financial institution FleetBoston, insurance companies Aetna and New York Life, railroads Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and CSX, tobacco companies R.J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson, and textile manufacturer WestPoint Stevens all have ties to slavery.
The ordinance in Chicago is credited with being the first law making companies admit their history in slavery and because of the law’s success, other states, including New York, are considering similar regulations.