A campaign to highlight the connections between the founders of Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), the oldest private investment bank on Wall Street, and slavery has been launched by the Liverpool Black History Research Group (LBHRG). BBH has long been recognised as a key player in the sphere of US political and economic influence. Past partners have included Prescott Bush, the patriarch of the Bush dynasty. The bank traced its origins to the early 19th century, when Alexander Brown, an Irish merchant with cotton trade connections and ambitions to enter banking, moved to Baltimore. His children spread the family’s business interests to Boston, Liverpool, New York and Philadelphia, culminating in a merger with Brown Brothers & Co. in 1931.
BBH’s website claimed that the family’s business connections with slavery were unclear and described them as being firmly against it in the period leading up to the American Civil War. However, after investigating the bank’s history, the LBHRG found that the bank used profits to establish itself in banking and to lend money to others involved in cotton production. When these people took out mortgages on plantations, the loans were secured against both land and enslaved people, giving the bank a stake in their ownership. Laurence Westgaph, a member of the LBHRG, claims that the Browns’ bank foreclosed not only on the land, but also on the individual enslaved people. “So, in the 19th century, the Brown family ended up owning plantations and enslaved people. They saw themselves as opposed to slavery while perpetuating the systems that maintained it.”
The company’s denial of the family’s involvement with slavery has been challenged by books quoted in its original history, such as Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton and Zachary Karabell’s Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power. The LBHRG wrote to BBH’s management, the bank then amended the text on its website to indicate that plantation ownership was accompanied by “associated slave labour.” Westgaph is now calling for BBH to take full responsibility, admitting its complicity in the slavery trade and to sponsoring a program of reparatory justice for African descendants.
BBH has been influential in transatlantic trade and banking for nearly two centuries. William Brown was also the Liberal MP for South Lancashire from 1846 until 1859 and contributed to public services in Liverpool by funding the construction of Central Library and Museum. The family made further donations to the city, including the Crosby Brown Collection of instruments that are now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A statement by BBH declares that “Slavery is a shameful and abhorrent chapter in history. We have provided information on our website regarding our predecessor firm’s involvement in the cotton trade, which relied on enslaved labor, to be open and transparent and to explain the context we believe to be true of that time.” It claims the firm is committed to fostering an “equitable and inclusive environment.
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