Who Restitution Is Sought From
The Black American International Union seeks restitution, restorative compensation, and institutional repair from corporations, banks, universities, religious bodies, insurance companies, shipping interests, and foreign governments that profited from or materially supported slavery, colonial extraction, racial exclusion, forced labor, land loss, and related systems of economic harm.
Primary Targets
1. Corporations and Financial Institutions
This includes institutions with documented ties to:
slave insurance policies
slave backed lending
plantation financing
shipping and maritime trade
railroad and industrial labor exploitation
segregation era exclusion from credit and banking
Banks, insurers, shipping firms, and industrial corporations should be examined case by case.
2. Universities and Religious Institutions
Some universities and religious institutions benefited from slavery through:
donations from slaveholding wealth
labor connected to enslaved people
investment in slave economies
institutional exclusion after emancipation
Research has documented slavery’s role in building early U.S. colleges, including Harvard and other institutions.
3. Former European Slave Trading and Colonial Powers
Countries that should be researched for restitution claims include:
United Kingdom
Spain
Portugal
France
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
Germany
Switzerland
CARICOM’s reparations framework has named many of these former European slave trading and colonial powers in connection with slavery, Indigenous genocide, and colonial extraction.
4. Maritime and Insurance Institutions
Shipping and maritime institutions should be investigated for their role in transporting enslaved people, insuring ships, certifying vessels, financing voyages, and profiting from Atlantic trade networks. Lloyd’s Register publicly apologized for its historical role in the transatlantic slave trade and committed funding to slavery archive work.
5. African and Other Foreign Entities
This area should be handled case by case. The goal is not to accuse entire modern African populations, but to investigate documented state, royal, commercial, or institutional involvement where records show participation in slave trading networks.
6. Mexico and Latin America
Mexico’s role should be framed differently from Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands. Mexico should be evaluated through:
colonial Spanish systems
borderland labor history
racial classification systems
Black and Indigenous community history
land and migration records
This should be a research category, not a blanket accusation.
Freedman’s Bank Demand
The BAIU should demand full access to surviving Freedman’s Bank records and a modern financial restoration mechanism.
The Freedman’s Savings Bank was created in 1865 for formerly enslaved African Americans, but collapsed in 1874. The OCC states that 61,144 depositors lost nearly $3 million, and the U.S. Treasury notes that many depositors lost every penny they had saved.
Demand
Full public access to Freedman’s Bank records
A national searchable descendant database
Restoration fund for documented depositor descendants
A modern Freedman’s Restoration Bank or Trust
Credit, land, housing, and business capital programs
Core Statement
The Black American International Union is not seeking symbolic apology alone. We seek documented restitution from corporations, institutions, and foreign powers that benefited from slavery, colonial systems, forced labor, financial exclusion, racial classification, and economic extraction.
Restitution must include money, land, institutional access, business capital, education, infrastructure, and environmental development programs that create lasting economic power.
Institutions with documented ties or strong research leads
Slave insurance policies
These are the clearest targets.
New York Life, through predecessor Nautilus Insurance Company, has archival ledgers for policies on enslaved people from 1845 to 1848.
Aetna acknowledged and apologized for selling policies in the 1850s that reimbursed enslavers when enslaved people died.
Other companies listed in slavery era insurance disclosures include ACE, Aetna, New York Life, Penn Mutual, and United States Life.
Slave backed lending and banking
JPMorgan Chase disclosed that predecessor banks accepted about 13,000 enslaved people as collateral and came to own about 1,250 after defaults.
Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo, apologized after disclosing that two predecessor institutions owned enslaved people and accepted enslaved people as payment.
Bank of America disclosed slavery related predecessor bank transactions under slavery disclosure laws, though the disclosure stated it did not find that those predecessor banks took enslaved people or profited directly in those cases.
Shipping and maritime trade
Lloyd’s Register apologized for its historic role connected to the transatlantic slave trade, including ship assessment systems that helped enable slave voyages.
Lloyd’s of London has been criticized after research found its members insured slave shipowners, facilitated slave trade activity, and opposed abolition.
Universities and religious institutions
Brown University publicly documented its historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade through its Slavery and Justice report.
Georgetown University and the Jesuits are tied to the 1838 sale of 272 enslaved people to help pay institutional debts; the Jesuit Conference later pledged a reparative fund for descendants.
Columbia University, formerly King’s College, released research showing it benefited from slavery through donors, leaders, slave owners, and slave trade connected networks.
University of Edinburgh published a review finding financial benefit from transatlantic slavery and colonial activity, including endowments linked to slavery and colonialism.
Railroads and industrial exploitation
Research and litigation have identified rail networks as owning lines built or operated with enslaved labor. CSX was named in a reparations lawsuit because predecessor rail lines were allegedly constructed or run in part by enslaved labor.
Research cited in reporting identified slave labor connected to many early railroads, with modern networks such as CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, and Canadian National requiring deeper predecessor line audits.
Segregation era exclusion from credit and banking
This needs a separate modern evidence file. Targets should include banks and mortgage institutions with documented histories involving:
redlining
racially restrictive lending
denial of credit
exclusion from mortgages
segregated banking access
This category should be handled through records from federal housing maps, court cases, bank disclosures, and lending data.
BAIU 