(Here are excerpts from a memo sent out by JP Morgan Chase on January 20, 2005 to all its employees.)

We recently completed extensive research examining our company's history for any links to slavery to meet a disclosure commitment to the City of Chicago and other municipalities. Today, we are reporting to Chicago that our research has discovered new information. Two (of our) predecessors -- Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana -- served as banks to plantations from the 1830s until the Civil War, accepted enslaved individuals as collateral on loans, and sometimes took ownership of them when the plantation owners defaulted on the loans...

We recognize this new information may raise emotional issues for you, your families, neighbors and customers. Slavery was a brutal and unjust institution. We apologize to the African-American community, particularly those who are descendants of slaves, and to the rest of the American public...

The information we are filing comes from a complex and far-reaching search by History Associates Inc., a respected firm of research historians that looked for records of slavery links to all our predecessor banks.... (The two banks accepted slaves as collateral on plantation loans, and sometimes took ownership of land, buildings, equipment and individuals upon default.

Our Chicago filing will list specific Louisiana landowners as well as the names of enslaved individuals, where the records reflect them. We estimate that between 1831 and 1865, Citizens Bank and Canal Bank accepted approximately 13,000 enslaved individuals as collateral and that the banks came to own approximately 1,250 enslaved individuals as a result. We are providing specific references about where we found the information to help people research their family history.

Also, the filing will report that other of our predecessor banks provided financing to banks -- including Canal Bank -- states, municipalities, companies and individuals in the South during the slavery era... We also have established an Internet Web site --http://www.bankone.com/ourapology -- for the public to learn about the historical facts...

(AFRICA UNLIMITED 1/21/05 Ramsees7@yahoo.com)

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