The article discusses the origin of mutual insurance in America, tracing back to its establishment by Benjamin Franklin in 1752. It highlights the duality of this model, which, while protecting policyholders, also found application in the heinous context of enslavement. Companies specialized in insuring enslaved individuals, particularly women for breeding purposes during a time when the slave trade was technically illegal. This historical account reveals a disturbing intersection between insurance practices and human exploitation in America, particularly through advertisements of slave auctions that sought to insure the risk associated with enslaved lives.
The mutual insurance model, while beneficial for policyholders, also intersected with the dark history of enslavement, demonstrating the complex roots of American insurance practices.
The advertisement for a slave auction illustrates the harrowing practice of insuring enslaved individuals, particularly women of childbearing age, which commodified human lives.
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