Executive Admits J.P. Morgan Profited from Slavery

  • Originally published in the Boston Globe, 5/4/2004


A senior officer with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. acknowledged to aldermen yesterday that J.P. Morgan Jr.'s grandfather, Junius, had a business relationship in the 1800s that profited from the slave trade-- but said that should not preclude the financial giant from doing business withthe city in the 21st century.
A senior officer with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. acknowledged to aldermen yesterday that
    The partnership between Junius Morgan and businessman George Peabody was not a ''predecessor company" to what is now J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and should not be considered proof of a legacy of profiteering from slave labor on the part of the current company, said Frederick W. Hill, the firm's executive vice president and chief of marketing and communications.

''The institution of slavery and all that it stood for is completely antithetical to everything that we stand for," Hill, who is black, told aldermen at a meeting of the City Council's Finance Committee.

Hill's testimony was given during ongoing hearings into whether officials at the New York-based financial firm lied about ties to the slave trade on financial disclosure records to secure lucrative bond underwriting deals with the city. Such a finding could cost the company future underwriting fees.

Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman, a council activist who has long pressed the issue of slave labor and reparations, had introduced in hearings last week what she said was proof that Peabody's firm, in the 1830s, purchased items for slaves, had a client who placed newspaper ads for the sale of slaves, and helped transport slaves aboard at least one ship.

Tillman said the documents, including receipts, were found by her daughter, Ebony Tillman ,33, while doing research.

Hill did not dispute the documents and proposed an amendment to the company's original disclosure statement acknowledging that firms tied to Peabody and Junius Morgan ''may have profited from business relationships with persons or companies that owned or used slaves." The proposed amendment would add that J.P. Morgan Sr., Junius's son, ''was affiliated with the Peabody firm before he founded Drexel, Morgan, and Company, the New York partnership that in 1895 became J.P. Morgan and Co."

The proposed amendment would also state that Junius Morgan and his son used their own capital as seed money to launch Drexel, Morgan, and Company in 1871. What remained unclear, Hill said after the hearing, is whether that seed money amounts to profits or compensation they received from the Peabody firm and, therefore, profits from the slave trade.

Chicago's City Council has been outspoken in recent years about persuading companies to confront past ties to slavery, and in 2002, aldermen passed an ordinance--the first of its kind in the country--requiring that all firms seeking to do business with the city disclose whether the company, or any of its predecessors, profited from slave labor.

Hill said J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. researchers had traveled to Europe and to several US states, but found no evidence directly tying the company to forced labor.

''We searched our corporate records, including those of our predecessor entities, and located no documents on investments or profits from slavery, the slavery industry, or slaveholder insurance policies," Hill said.

Tillman questioned why Hill, and not a more senior company official, appeared before the committee. Tillman, who said other business entities linked to the Morgan empire also had ties to slavery, said chairman and chief executive William B. Harrison should have been called to testify. The Finance Committee could vote next month on whether to subpoena other J.P. Morgan Chase officials.

''They lied," Tillman said after the meeting.

The company said Tillman was wrong. ''Our disclosures were proper, and we strongly disagree with the alderman's assertions," said company spokesman Joseph Evangelisti.

"The [disclosure statement] was filled out accurately," Hill said later. "In a political environment like [Tillman] has created with this issue, anyone that disagrees with her, she casts aspersions on."

Tillman spearheaded a council resolution in 2000 calling on Congress to study slave reparations. At the time, Mayor Richard M. Daley said he believed reparations were due, and urged the nation to formally apologize for its slavery history