Prosecutors want Brazil's oldest bank to pay reparations for slavery - The Washington Post - 0 views
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In the mid-1800s, the most prolific slaver in Brazil was a man named José Bernardino de Sá. The transatlantic slave trade was banned in Brazil and abroad, but Bernardino nonetheless financed the trafficking of nearly 20,000 Africans to Brazil — and became one of the country’s wealthiest people.
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He used that wealth to buy farms, build roads — and, historians say, fund the Banco do Brasil. It’s just one of several links that ties this country’s oldest and most prominent bank to the slave trade. Not only was its initial capital drawn from slavery, historians say; its original vice president and director were also notorious slavers.
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That history, and what should be done about it, is now at the center of a remarkable legal filing by government attorneys in Rio de Janeiro — an action that’s asking some of the most fundamental questions about Brazil, its history and the long shadow the transatlantic slave trade casts over it.
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