Brazil bank's past slavery ties to be investigated in unprecedented inquiry

[Judi Lynn]

Banco do Brasil, one of country’s biggest banks, under scrutiny as institutions called to account for role in trafficking of Africans

Constance Malleret in Rio de Janeiro
Fri 29 Sep 2023 05.30 EDT

Brazilian prosecutors have launched a civil investigation into one of the country’s largest banks’ historical links to slavery, in an unprecedented move to hold Brazilian institutions to account for their role in the enslavement of millions of Africans. Banco do Brasil was notified this week of the public inquiry seeking reparations for the bank’s connections with the transatlantic trafficking of Black people.

Prosecutors decided to act after a group of historians brought their attention to the bank’s dark history and stressed the importance of publicly acknowledging institutions’ past ties with slavery and discussing reparations.

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery and has struggled to come to terms with this legacy, long concealing institutionalised racism behind the myth that it was a racial democracy. While Brazilian society has taken steps towards acknowledging the role slavery played in the construction of the majority-Black nation, the country “had yet to start confronting institutions and individuals over their responsibility for slave trafficking”, said Martha Abreu, one of the academics involved in the inquiry.

“The time has come for this information to become public,” said the historian from the Federal Fluminense University in Rio de Janeiro.

Banco do Brasil – today Brazil’s second-largest public bank – was first established in 1808. Historians say the financial institution was founded with capital derived from slavery-based economic activities and funded public efforts to keep the slave trade alive and prevent abolition. Research has identified various individuals, known to own or trade enslaved people, who occupied important positions at the bank throughout the 19th century.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/brazil-bank-banco-do-brasil-slavery-ties-reparations

or:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230929105024/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/brazil-bank-banco-do-brasil-slavery-ties-reparations

[malaise]

1. We're way ahead of them

You can see why the fascists are trying to rise - justice is coming for the rest of us.