Slavery Era Insurance Registry

This page was created in response to an August 2000 finding by the California legislature that"[I]nsurance policies from the slavery era have been discovered in the archives of several insurance companies, documenting insurance coverage for slaveholders for damage to or death of their slaves, issued by a predecessor insurance firm. These documents provide the first evidence of ill-gotten profits from slavery, which profits in part capitalized insurers whose successors remain in existence today." SB2199 Sec. 1(a).

The page provides links to the California Department of Insurance's report to the California Legislature describing the information received from insurers in response to the insurance records disclosure statute signed into law by California's Governor Davis in September 2000, including the database of slave and slaveholder names and identifying information.