Lot 313

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Description:

Aetna Insurance Co. Slave Insurance Policy For 21-Year-Old Enslaved "House Servant" Named Lucinda. Only One Other Known in Private Hands. Significant African American History!



An antebellum Aetna Insurance Company document issuing a life insurance policy for a 21-year-old enslaved "House Servant" in Lexington, Kentucky named Lucinda. Dated January 15, 1853 at company headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut and signed by three company officials including company director Eliphalet A. Bulkeley (1803-1872) as "E.A. Bulkeley" on the first page. The 4pp partly printed and partly handwritten document is docketed on the last page, with a blank third page. Expected wear including paper folds and isolated ink bleed-through on the second and third pages. Scattered professional restoration to the edges and folds. Else near fine. 8.125" x 13.5."

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. Interestingly, Brand--a slave owner, as we know--was also a business partner of Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903), the spirited Congressman from Kentucky who vehemently opposed slavery.

Our slave 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; typically slave owners recouped up to 75% of a slave's value.



Aetna Insurance Company, named after the famous Sicilian volcano, was established in 1850 and incorporated in Hartford, Connecticut in 1853. Its first director was Eliphalet A. Bulkeley (one of our signees, here listed as vice president.) Aetna was thus a new company when it issued Lucinda's life insurance policy.


Slave life insurance policies were offered by many corporations still in operation today, including Aetna, New York Life, and AIG (formerly U.S. Life). Aetna acknowledged that it had issued slave life insurance policies as early as 1956. Since then, it has consistently expressed public regret about its historic role in the slave life insurance industry, most notably in 2000, when a descendant demanded an apology and reparations. Aetna has thus followed the same course as major American banks Wachovia and J.P. Morgan Chase in eschewing its involvement, but it also claims that it held very few slave life insurance policies.

Historians Michael Ralph and William Rankin examined antebellum slave insurance policy records in corporate archives, and identified five Aetna branches which were especially active in Missouri, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Kentucky. One of the hubs was Louisville, Kentucky, just 78 miles northwest of Lexington, where this policy to William H. Brand was authorized by a local Aetna branch agent named Thomas B. Baxter.

White slave owners insured slaves against risks inherent in dangerous work performed in coal mines, lumber mills, or steam boat operations. Slaves did not just perform manual labor or domestic work; some of them became highly trained artisans of specialized trades like brick-laying. White slave owners wanted to protect themselves against losing their initial investment (the cost to acquire the slave, if any) as well as the future earnings of that slave lost if they died. Slave life insurance policy premiums initially provided insurance companies with ready capital, but ultimately proved unprofitable as so many death claims had to be paid out.

A lesser quality example of an Aetna Insurance Company slave life insurance policy with serious condition issues--stains and one page torn in half--fetched nearly $4,000 at a Swann auction in March 2011. That was when the market for this type of item was much weaker than it is today.

One of two known!

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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August 19, 2020 10:30 AM EDT
Wilton, CT, US

University Archives

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $99 $10
$100 $299 $20
$300 $499 $25
$500 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $2,999 $200
$3,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 + $5,000