Bank of America insists it can't find slave profits in its past

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | April 30,2005 | FRAN SPIELMAN

[Founding Father]

Gee whiz, fancy smancy politically correct IVY League Brown University was founded by a slave trader. Who'd a thunk it!

[martin_fierro]

Loopy stories lke this typically appear in late August, during summer vacations.

[muawiyah]

Must be where all that money is hidden, eh?

[PJammers]

Last time I checked over 250,000 "white boys" gave their lives during the civil war to insure the slaves were free. IMHO I would say they have been paid in full.

v/r

[Sgt_Schultze]

Tillman said research conducted by her daughter at some of the same places Bank of America looked -- the Rhode Island Historical Society and Brown University Library -- has already produced evidence that Providence Bank made loans used to purchase ships that transported slaves.

It is almost a certainty that the folding money in Ald. Tillman's purse is tainted by cocaine residue. Perhaps she should be arrested for her ties to the organized drug trade.

[muawiyah]

Better check your Civil War statistics. The Union Army had beaucoup African-American troops. It's beyond belief that none of them died in the war.

[canalabamian]

Yankee bankers denying that they profited from slave trade.

[samtheman]

Better check your Civil War statistics. The Union Army had beaucoup African-American troops. It's beyond belief that none of them died in the war.

This post wins the I'm Not A Genius But I Play One On The Internet Award.

First, you demand that we check our "statistics" and then you cite "beaucoup" as your own statistical example.

Second, the sentence "It's beyond belief that none of them died" leaves the reader wondering:

a) Are you amazed that none of them died?
b) Are you being sarcastic and are certain that many of them died (using the "beaucoup statistical standard" as your measurement test)?

Either way. Your post gets my nomination for an award.

[Redgirl]

Now, now, you know racism doesn't exist once you cross the Mason-Dixon line.... /sarcasm

[muawiyah]

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/other/stats/warcost.htm is a fairly decent source of numbers. http://www.va.gov/pressrel/amwars01.htm is also pretty good.

But whatever you use there are several hundred thousand references to Civil War statistics.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Second, there is no indication of the source of the funds used by Brown to purchase his 23 shares in the bank.

Well, if he had a profit making slave operation... funds ARE fungible.

[Silver Sumo]

So did the South.

[muawiyah]

I have what some Southern sympathizers and Unreconstructed Confederate terrorists might consider a peculiar attitude toward our Civil War dead ~ namely that all honor and glory goes to the Union Army, and to all of our dead. Anything less than that is anti-American!

[Semper Paratus]

It's beyond belief that none of them died in the war.

I saw Ferris Buellar lead many Union black soldiers to their deaths in battle.

[TexasCajun]

BofA should never have played their game!

We'll see if they answer the call from Jesse?

[DTogo]

Reparations... gimme a break.

[fhayek]

In ten thousand years of human civilization, the only recorded instance of slavery was during the period of 1500- 1865 in the American south, by White Christian European men.

[samtheman]

I don't think all honor goes to the Union Army. The Confederate Soldiers were also fighting for their country. They weren't all fighting to keep slaves. Most of them were poor boys who would never be slave owners. They were patriots, according to the standards of their community.

But the point here is that when some African Americans today demand "reparations", it's helpful to point out all the Union Soldiers who died to end slavery. In terms of the "reparations" argument, it doesn't add much to talk about the honor of the Confederate Soldiers who died, and who were honorable, but who don't add to the equation of "reparations".

The bottom line is, slavery was ended by the Brits and the Americans much earlier than it was ended in other countries. Slavery continues in Africa today. Leftists the world over ignore that continuing slavery, including Leftist One himself, Koffi (Show Me The Money) Annan.

One more point about "reparations": Many different immigrants came to the New World in a variety of different ways. However they got here, their decendents are better off today than had they never arrived on these shores. That includes African Americans.

Sad as it sounds (and it is sad), the only possible way for Africans to join the New World in the early centuries of the building of the Americas, was as slaves. Sad but true. Sad for the slaves. Not sad for the decendants, none of whom are yearning to return to the "homeland", which in many cases includes countries where slavery is actively practised today.

[muawiyah]

I was merely pointing to an apparant inaccuracy in the number of wardead on the Union side, and who they might have been.

You guys seem to want to discuss raparations.

I think we'd be ahead of things discussing how the Mob has infiltrated every nook and cranny of government and business in the State of Rhode Island, and why that would be a good reason to disestablish them as a state once and for all.

Why does this sort of thing always have to be about the South anyway?

[cyborg]

Well Bank of America has lots of slaves today paying for their credit cards! :-)