At least fifty plantations that worked with the enslaved received a loan from Hope & Co, with the enslaved as collateral. “These lists contain estimates of how much each person is worth, with name and surname,” says researcher Pepijn Brandon of the IISH. “A male enslaved with specific training entered the accounts for a very high amount. But some people were portrayed as ‘of no value’: old or wounded people.”
According to the researchers, Hope & Co was emphatically involved in the plantations itself. “They were not remote investors, but they were extensively informed,” says Brandon. “Sometimes the company wanted to move the enslaved plantation owner to another plantation to increase profits. Families were torn apart as a result.”
The movements met with great resistance from the enslaved. In one case, a plantation owner told Hope & Co that it was difficult to make the moves. Still, he had to go through with it by the financier.
Henry Hope, one of the founders of Hope & Co, had the Welgelegen Pavilion built at the end of the eighteenth century, which now houses the Provincial House. That was during the period when he made a lot of money from slavery.
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