-Caveat Lector- http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-financiers.htm ----- Thanks, Linda. Om k -----
02/21/2002 - Updated 12:14 AM ET FleetBoston: Traced to slave-trading merchant What companies say today Various documents link modern companies to antebellum slavery. Reporter James Cox takes a look at the evidence and the companies' responses. * Activists challenge corporations that they say are tied to slavery FleetBoston Financial Group traces its beginnings to Providence Bank, chartered by a group led by Rhode Island merchant John Brown in 1791. Brown's bank is described as Fleet's "earliest predecessor" in a Fleet timeline. Brown was a slave trader. A partial census of slave ships in the book The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade lists him as owner of several vessels that sailed to Africa and returned with human cargo. A typical entry names him as part owner of the Hope, a 208-ton ship that brought 229 slaves from Africa to Cuba in 1796. Another for the same year names him as part owner of the schooner Delight, which delivered 81 slaves to Savannah, Ga. It is unclear whether any of Brown's slaving enterprises had a business relationship with the bank he founded. Fleet spokesman James Mahoney says Brown's Providence Bank was "one of hundreds" that created Fleet. The link between Fleet and Brown is "extremely remote," he says. In the pre-Civil War cotton trade, the key financiers included Britain's Barings Bros., the Anglo-French Rothschild firm and Baltimore-based Alex. Brown & Sons. They took consignments of cotton from so-called commission merchants, insured them, shipped them to Europe and sold them. They also gave credit to cotton brokers and other middlemen. Holland's ING Group bought Barings in 1995 and renamed its investment banking arm ING Barings. It says the original Barings Bros. went bust in 1891 and that it acquired a successor firm with no liabilities from the defunct Barings. Deutsche Banc bought Alex. Brown in 1999 and changed its name to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown. It declines comment. Rothschild archivist Victor Gray says his firm bought and sold "bills of exchange" used as payment in various industries but was not active in the cotton trade itself. Front Page News Money Sports Life Tech Weather Shop Terms of service Privacy Policy How to advertise About us � Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
