A co-worker of mine was ranting about slavery yesterday, and at one point he mentioned Wells-Fargo, claiming that they started as a slave trading company (his main piece of evidence seemed to be the fact that their logo used to be that of a stagecoach, which... implied slavery? I didn't quite get the connection).
Now, this sounded suspect to me- I pointed out that I was under the impression they started as a package delivery company, which was met with, "Yeah, what kind of packages do you think they were delivering?" I felt like this was likely total BS, but it occurred to me that my entire frame of reference was a song from the Music Man, so for all I knew, this guy was right, and I didn't want to go claiming my assumptions were true before fact-checking myself.
But I can't seem to find anything on the internet about Wells Fargo having any connection at all to slavery. Can anyone out there confirm my stance? There's two things I absolutely hate:
Thanks in advance!
Wells Fargo was founded in California in 1852. And for the first few decades of its existence it was focused in that area. So while it can be hard to prove a negative, it seems unlikely that it was greatly involved in slavery. In fact it's early general manager, Louis McLane, was a known abolitionist and black rights activist. In any case its early financial dealings were not based primarily on slavery. It was a bank. And it did the same kinds of banking transactions as other banks at the time did.
That said Wells Fargo is more than just the organization from California. They have acquired many other financial entities over the years. One of these, Wachovia, is a North Carolina institution. And several of its subsidiaries (most notably the Bank of Charleston) owned slaves and otherwise supported and participated in the slave trade. Wachovia even issued a formal public apology in 2005 over its role in slavery.
The Bank of Charleston owned slaves. Wells Fargo now owns all assets that descend from the Bank of Charleston. Wells Fargo is the legal continuation of the Bank of Charleston. Does that mean Wells Fargo morally inherits the "sins" of the slave trade? Maybe. I guess it kind of depends on how one defines such things.
The original Wells Fargo was founded only a few years before the Civil War, was based in California (a free state), and largely operated in free areas.
He's likely confusing it with Wachovia, which is now part of Wells Fargo and issued an apology a few years back for its connection with the slave trade.