07/15/2023
AN IMAGE OF HISTORY. It is argued that slavery without Banks and Insurance companies propping up the southern plantation economy- with mortgage loans and property insurance including insuring the life of a slave, would have died a natural death at least 4 decades earlier. The "Life Department" of Aetna Insurance Company issued Lucinda's 12-month life insurance policy to a white slave owner named William H. Brand. The William H. Brand Papers, a special collection of the Kentucky Historical Society, reveal that Brand was a lawyer and businessman from Lexington, Kentucky and later Columbia, Missouri.
This life insurance document, no. 9, authorized the payout of $600 if Lucinda died sometime within the next year (until January 15, 1854). Lucinda was valued at $1,000 in 1853, or $33,000 in 2020 currency. (Evidently, Brand valued Lucinda very highly, as the average slave valuation two years later, in 1855, was about $600.) In comparison, the value of white life was 40% to nearly 1000% higher, with white life insurance payouts averaging between $1,000-$5,000. Brand's $15 annual premium for Lucinda's life insurance policy allowed him to collect 60% of Lucinda's valuation if she died.
