Legislative · Federal
The Freedman's Savings Bank collapses, wiping out the savings of 61,000 depositors
- Direction
- -2 — major harm to Freedmen
- Force
- 1.00 — enacted, vetoed, or final
- Status
- Decided
- Date
- 1874-06-29
Why this rating
The Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, chartered by Congress in 1865 to hold the savings of formerly enslaved people, collapsed on June 29, 1874 after mismanagement and fraud by its trustees, leaving 61,144 depositors with losses of nearly $3 million. Rated -2: a direct, large-scale, lineage-specific destruction of accumulated wealth that seeded lasting distrust of financial institutions.
Summary
The Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, chartered by Congress in 1865 to hold the savings of formerly enslaved people, collapsed on June 29, 1874 after mismanagement and fraud by its trustees, leaving 61,144 depositors with losses of nearly $3 million. Rated -2: a direct, large-scale, lineage-specific destruction of accumulated wealth that seeded lasting distrust of financial institutions.
Sources
- The Freedman's Savings Bank — U.S. Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — official record · primary · historical
Rated under the published impact rubric. Direction records what a measure would do if fully effective; force records how far it has actually travelled. Neither is inferred — both trace to the sources above. Think something here is wrong? Tell us and we will log the correction.