Banking on Slavery: Financing Southern Expansion in the Antebellum United States

FAIN: FT-254502-17

Sharon Ann Murphy
Providence College (Providence, RI 02918-7000)

A book-length study of the financial links between southern banks and the institution of slavery in the United States during the nineteenth century.

Despite the rich literature on the history of slavery, the scholarship on bank financing of slavery is quite slim. My research demonstrates that commercial banks were willing to accept slaves as collateral for loans and as a part of loans assigned over to them from a third party. Many helped underwrite the sale of slaves, using them as collateral. They were willing to sell slaves as part of foreclosure proceedings on anyone who failed to fulfill a debt contract. Commercial bank involvement with slave property occurred throughout the antebellum period and across the South. Some of the most prominent southern banks, as well as the Second Bank of the United States, directly issued loans using slaves as collateral. This places southern banking institutions at the heart of the buying and selling of slave property, one of the most reviled aspects of the slave system. This project will result in the first major monograph on the relationship between banking and slavery in the antebellum South.

Associated Products

Collateral Damage: The Impact of Foreclosure on Enslaved People during the Panic (Article)
Title: Collateral Damage: The Impact of Foreclosure on Enslaved People during the Panic
Author: Sharon Ann Murphy
Abstract: The Panic of 1819 was the first major downturn that touched all aspects of the economy and affected – either directly or indirectly – almost the entire American population. When debtors failed to repay their loans, creditors claimed the collateral and any other valuable property which would fulfill the contract. As the unwitting pawns used to resolve these debtor-creditor disputes, enslaved people found themselves at the center of lawsuits in which courts decided on the ability of creditors to seize bondspeople and sell them away from their family, friends, and homes to satisfy financial claims. While the transformation of slaves into abstract financial assets had been slowly ongoing for decades, the severe dislocation of the Panic of 1819 accelerated this process.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://jer.pennpress.org/home/
Primary URL Description: homepage for the Journal of the Early Republic
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of the Early Republic
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

The Financialization of Slavery by the First and Second Banks of the United States (Article)
Title: The Financialization of Slavery by the First and Second Banks of the United States
Author: Sharon Ann Murphy
Abstract: During the beginning of the nineteenth century, the First and Second Banks dominated the banking system of the nation. This study focuses on the conscious choices made by these two federally chartered, quasi-public banks to directly, knowingly, and explicitly interact with the system of slavery. Southerners adapted increasingly sophisticated financial tools and institutions to fit the needs of slaveholders in order to facilitate investment, market exchange, and profit maximization, and they were aided and abetted by that same financial system. A full assessment of the willingness, and sometimes eagerness, of these two banks to push the boundaries of accepted banking practices in order to financialize enslaved lives provides a more accurate picture of the true depth to which slavery had penetrated the country’s economic institutions. More importantly, such an examination sheds light on how these financial relationships worked across the South from the perspective of the national banks.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.thesha.org/the-journal
Primary URL Description: homepage for the Journal of Southern History
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Southern History
Publisher: Southern Historical Association

Banking on Slavery: Financing Southern Expansion in the Antebellum United States (Book)
Title: Banking on Slavery: Financing Southern Expansion in the Antebellum United States
Author: Sharon Ann Murphy
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=9780226825137
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry (9780226825137)
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780226825137

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