El fracaso de las compañías de seguros de esclavos: Cuba a partir de la experiencia norteamericana

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International Journal of Cuban Studies

Volume 10, Issue 1

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El fracaso de las compañías de seguros de esclavos: Cuba a partir de la experiencia norteamericana

research-article

Author(s): Claudia Varella

Publication date (Print): Spring 2018

Journal: International Journal of Cuban Studies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: riesgos, negocio, esclavos, compañías de seguros de vida, Cuba, mortalidad

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Abstract

Los seguros sobre la vida, en tanto empresamoderna, nacen en el mundo atlántico abarcando a toda la población, independientemente de la etnia. Sin embargo, los seguros de vida experimentaron un auge allá donde destacó la necesidad de asegurar la propiedad esclava de color: Estados Unidos y Cuba son dos grandes ejemplos. Los años clave de los seguros de vida sobre esclavos en Estados Unidos se sitúan entre mediados y finales de la década de 1840. Pero a partir de 1870 los problemas de fraude, insolvencia, y falta de nuevos contratantes hicieron menguar drásticamente el número de compañías dedicadas a esta actividad, ya exclusivamente para personas libres, abriendo una etapa nueva para la evolución del seguro laboral para las clases medias. En el caso de Cuba, hubo una relación entre la represión gradual de la trata esclavista en la década de 1850 y el crecimiento en ese período de las compañías de seguros de esclavos en esa colonia. Este artículo indaga en la experiencia cubana nutrida de la norteamericana. Ambas muestran similitudes y contrastes sorprendentes. Se pone el foco en las razones del fracaso de estas compañías en el centro económico del Caribe que la isla cubana representó en el siglo XIX.

Life Insurance, as a modern enterprise was born in the Atlantic world encompassing the entire population regardless of ethnic group. However, life insurance experienced a boom where it highlighted the need to insure private property in the form of slaves of colour: the US and Cuba are two great examples. The key years of life insurance on slaves in the US are between the mid-to-late and late 1840s. But after 1870, the problems of fraud, insolvency and lack of new contractors drastically reduced the number of companies dedicated to this activity, which had already become exclusively for free people, opening a new stage for the evolution of labour insurance for the middle classes. In the case of Cuba, there was a relationship between the gradual repression of the slave trade in the decade of the 1850s and the growth in that period of the slave insurance companies in the region. This article explores the Cuban experience nourished by the North American. Both show surprising similarities and contrasts. The focus is on the reasons for the failure of these companies in the economic centre of the Caribbean that the Cuban island represented in the nineteenth century.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Claudia Varella

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): intejcubastud

Title: International Journal of Cuban Studies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 17563461

ISSN (Electronic): 1756347X

Publication date (Print): Spring 2018

Volume: 10

Issue: 1

Pages: 93-113

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Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Valencia, Spain

Article

Publisher ID: intejcubastud.10.1.0093

DOI: 10.13169/intejcubastud.10.1.0093

SO-VID: 998452c3-e995-46b0-9d1f-e810dbd085f4

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History

Bibliografía

Alemán y Fortún, J. (1946) Legislación de Seguros de Cuba (Recopilación de disposiciones sobre Seguros y fianzas), Editorial Lex, La Habana.
Brophy, A.L. (2006) Reparations: Pro&Con . New York: Oxford University Press.
Burrell, W.P.. (1904) ‘The Negro in Insurance’. Proceedings of the Hampton Negro Conference , vol. 8, Hampton Institute Press.
Causa seguida en La Habana al SR. D. Miguel de Embil, por denuncia del Gral. Exmo. Don Jose de la Concha. Parte II, (1859) Imprenta de S. Hallet, New York.
Castillo, S. (1996) ‘Las Sociedades de Socorros mutuos en la España Contemporánea’, en Castillo S. (ed.), Solidaridad desde abajo. Trabajadores y socorros mutuos en la España Contemporánea , UGT Centro de Estudios Históricos, Madrid.
Clark, G. (2010) ‘The slave appeal: insurance and the rise of commercial property’, en Clark G. et al. (ed.), The appeal of insurance , University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Clough, S.B. (1946) A Century of American Life Insurance: A History of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 1843–1943 . New York: Columbia University Press.
De la Concha, J. (1861) Memoria dirigida al Excmo. Sr. D. Francisco Serrano y Domínguez . Madrid: Capitán General de la Isla de Cuba, Imprenta de La América.
Dublin, L. I., Lotka, A. J. y Spiegelman M. (1949) Length of Life: A Study of the Life Table . New York: Ronald Press Co.
Ely, Roland T. (1958) ‘From Counting-House to Cane Field. Moses Taylor and the Cuban Sugar Planter in the Reign of Isabel II, 1833–1868’. Tesis Doctoral, Harvard University.
Embil, M. (1863) Espagne et Cuba . Paris: L. Blairet.
Embil, M. (n.d.) Finances. Nobody is a Prophet in his Own Country , s.n., New York.
Embil (1880) Estudios económicos sobre Cuba y España comparados con los de otros países. Abolición de aduanas y otras cargas públicas, M.P. Montoya y Cía, Madrid.
Erenchun, F. (1857, 1859) Anales de la Isla de Cuba. Diccionario administrativo, económico, estadístico y legislativo, Imprenta Habanera, La Habana, vols. 2 y 3.
Ferreira Payar, A.J. (2012) ‘A Escravidao entre os seguros: as seguradoras de escravos na provincial do Rio de Janeiro (1831–1888)’, Tesis doctoral, Universidad de Sao Paulo.
Forner, E. (2010) La Historia de la libertad en EE.UU ., Ed. Península, Barcelona.
Frantel, N. C. (2008) Chesterfield County Virginia Uncovered. The Records of Death and Slave Insurance Records for the Coal Mining Industry 1810–1895, Heritage Books, Maryland.
Genovese, E. (1960) ‘The Medical and Insurance Cost of Slaveholding in the Cotton Belt’. The Journal of Negro History XLV (3), pp. 141–155.
González Curquejo, A. (1914) Aspecto biográfico de José M. Morales como fundador y primer director general de la compañía de seguros contra incendios ‘El Iris’, Ruiz y Ca., La Habana.
Guillemaut, P. (1899) La mutualité en France au XIXe. siècle. Histoire et legislation des sociétés de Securs Mutuels, Arthur Rousseau Editeur, Paris.
Haeger, J.D. (1979) ‘Easter Financiers and Institutional Change: The Origins of the New York Insurance & Trust Company and the Ohio Life Insurance & Trust Company’. The Journal of Economic History 39 (1), pp. 259–273.
Hudnut, J.M. (1895), Semi-centennial history of the New York Life Insurance Co. , The Company, New York.
Hudnut, J.M. (1911) Studies in Practical Life Insurance . New York: New York Life Insurance Co.
Humphreys, N.A. (1885) Vital Statistics: Memorial Volume of Selections From the Reports and Writings of William Farr . London: Offices of the Sanitary Institute.
Hynson, J.M. (2004) Baltimore Life Insurance Co.: Genealogical Abstracts (Maryland) , Westminister: Willow Bend Books.
Jurisprudencia civil: Colección completa de las sentencias dictadas por el Tribunal Supremo en recursos de nulidad, casación civil e injusticia notoria y en material de competencias desde la organización de aquellos en 1838 hasta el día (1876) ‘185 Recurso de casación en asunto de Ultramar’, vol. 34, Reus S.A.
La Equitativa (1889) Las Sociedades de seguros de vida ante el impuesto , Imprenta Victoria de H. Izquierdo y Ca., Santiago de Chile.
Lewis, J.B. (1896) Stratagems and Conspiracies to Defraud life Insurance Companies. An authentic record of remarkable cases . James H. McClellan (ed.). Baltimore, MD: Office of the Baltimore Underwriter.
Life Insurance Association of America (1962) Life Insurance Companies as Financial Institutions . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Madurell Marimón, J.M. (1955) ‘Los seguros de vida de esclavos en Barcelona (1453–1523)’, En Anuario de historia del derecho español , vol. XXV, n^o 1, Ministerio de Justicia/CSIC, Madrid.
Martínez Escobar, M. (1945) Los seguros , Cultural S.A., La Habana.
Mintz, S. W. (1989) Caribbean Transformations . New York: Columbia University Press.
Murphy, S.A. (2010) Investing in Life. Insurance in Antebellum America . Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
O'Donnell, T. (1936) History of Life Insurance in Its Formative Years . Chicago, IL: American Conservation.
Pearson, R. (1990) ‘Thrift or Dissipation? The Business of Life Assurance in the Early Nineteenth Century’. Economic History Review , vol. 43, pp. 236–254.
Rhan-Hsin, C. y G. Simon (2004) ‘Actuarial Issues in Insurance on Slaves in the United States South’. Journal of African American History , vol. 89, n^o 4, pp. 348–357.
Rodríguez Ferrer, M. (1862) Los nuevos peligros de Cuba entre sus cinco crisis actuales . Madrid: Imprenta de Manuel Galiano.
Rotman Zelizer, V.A. (1979) Morals and Markets. The Development of Life Insurance in the United States . New York and London: Columbia University Press.
Savitt, T.L. (1977) ‘Slave Insurance in Virginia and North Carolina’. The Journal of Southern History XLIII (4): 584–85.
Savitt, T.L. (2007) Race and Medicine in Nineteenth-and Early-Twentieth-Century America . Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press.
Sherwood, M. (2007) After Abolition. Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807 . London and New York: I.B. Tauris.
Stalson, J.O. (1942) Marketing Life Insurance: Its History in America . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, Third Annual Report of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: Together With Its by-Laws and Act of Incorporation , Seaton Gales, Raleigh, 1852.
The Semi-Weekly Raleigh Register , Raleigh March 27, 1861.
Walford, C. (1874) The Insurance Encyclopedia , vol. III. New York: The Spectator Company, C. and E. Layton.
Weare, W.B. (1973) Black Business in the New South. A Social History of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company . Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Wells, J.D. (2004) The Origins of the Southern Middle Class 1800–1861 . Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Alemán y Fortún, J. (1946) Legislación de Seguros de Cuba (Recopilación de disposiciones sobre Seguros y fianzas), Editorial Lex, La Habana.

[2] Brophy, A.L. (2006) Reparations: Pro&Con . New York: Oxford University Press.

[3] Burrell, W.P.. (1904) ‘The Negro in Insurance’. Proceedings of the Hampton Negro Conference , vol. 8, Hampton Institute Press.

[4] Causa seguida en La Habana al SR. D. Miguel de Embil, por denuncia del Gral. Exmo. Don Jose de la Concha. Parte II, (1859) Imprenta de S. Hallet, New York.

[5] Castillo, S. (1996) ‘Las Sociedades de Socorros mutuos en la España Contemporánea’, en Castillo S. (ed.), Solidaridad desde abajo. Trabajadores y socorros mutuos en la España Contemporánea , UGT Centro de Estudios Históricos, Madrid.

[6] Clark, G. (2010) ‘The slave appeal: insurance and the rise of commercial property’, en Clark G. et al. (ed.), The appeal of insurance , University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

[7] Clough, S.B. (1946) A Century of American Life Insurance: A History of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 1843–1943 . New York: Columbia University Press.

[8] De la Concha, J. (1861) Memoria dirigida al Excmo. Sr. D. Francisco Serrano y Domínguez . Madrid: Capitán General de la Isla de Cuba, Imprenta de La América.

[9] Dublin, L. I., Lotka, A. J. y Spiegelman M. (1949) Length of Life: A Study of the Life Table . New York: Ronald Press Co.

[10] Ely, Roland T. (1958) ‘From Counting-House to Cane Field. Moses Taylor and the Cuban Sugar Planter in the Reign of Isabel II, 1833–1868’. Tesis Doctoral, Harvard University.

[11] Embil, M. (1863) Espagne et Cuba . Paris: L. Blairet.

[12] Embil, M. (n.d.) Finances. Nobody is a Prophet in his Own Country , s.n., New York.

[13] Embil (1880) Estudios económicos sobre Cuba y España comparados con los de otros países. Abolición de aduanas y otras cargas públicas, M.P. Montoya y Cía, Madrid.

[14] Erenchun, F. (1857, 1859) Anales de la Isla de Cuba. Diccionario administrativo, económico, estadístico y legislativo, Imprenta Habanera, La Habana, vols. 2 y 3.

[15] Ferreira Payar, A.J. (2012) ‘A Escravidao entre os seguros: as seguradoras de escravos na provincial do Rio de Janeiro (1831–1888)’, Tesis doctoral, Universidad de Sao Paulo.

[16] Forner, E. (2010) La Historia de la libertad en EE.UU ., Ed. Península, Barcelona.

[17] Frantel, N. C. (2008) Chesterfield County Virginia Uncovered. The Records of Death and Slave Insurance Records for the Coal Mining Industry 1810–1895, Heritage Books, Maryland.

[18] Genovese, E. (1960) ‘The Medical and Insurance Cost of Slaveholding in the Cotton Belt’. The Journal of Negro History XLV (3), pp. 141–155.

[19] González Curquejo, A. (1914) Aspecto biográfico de José M. Morales como fundador y primer director general de la compañía de seguros contra incendios ‘El Iris’, Ruiz y Ca., La Habana.

[20] Guillemaut, P. (1899) La mutualité en France au XIXe. siècle. Histoire et legislation des sociétés de Securs Mutuels, Arthur Rousseau Editeur, Paris.

[21] Haeger, J.D. (1979) ‘Easter Financiers and Institutional Change: The Origins of the New York Insurance & Trust Company and the Ohio Life Insurance & Trust Company’. The Journal of Economic History 39 (1), pp. 259–273.

[22] Hudnut, J.M. (1895), Semi-centennial history of the New York Life Insurance Co. , The Company, New York.

[23] Hudnut, J.M. (1911) Studies in Practical Life Insurance . New York: New York Life Insurance Co.

[24] Humphreys, N.A. (1885) Vital Statistics: Memorial Volume of Selections From the Reports and Writings of William Farr . London: Offices of the Sanitary Institute.

[25] Hynson, J.M. (2004) Baltimore Life Insurance Co.: Genealogical Abstracts (Maryland) , Westminister: Willow Bend Books.

[26] Jurisprudencia civil: Colección completa de las sentencias dictadas por el Tribunal Supremo en recursos de nulidad, casación civil e injusticia notoria y en material de competencias desde la organización de aquellos en 1838 hasta el día (1876) ‘185 Recurso de casación en asunto de Ultramar’, vol. 34, Reus S.A.

[27] La Equitativa (1889) Las Sociedades de seguros de vida ante el impuesto , Imprenta Victoria de H. Izquierdo y Ca., Santiago de Chile.

[28] Lewis, J.B. (1896) Stratagems and Conspiracies to Defraud life Insurance Companies. An authentic record of remarkable cases . James H. McClellan (ed.). Baltimore, MD: Office of the Baltimore Underwriter.

[29] Life Insurance Association of America (1962) Life Insurance Companies as Financial Institutions . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

[30] Madurell Marimón, J.M. (1955) ‘Los seguros de vida de esclavos en Barcelona (1453–1523)’, En Anuario de historia del derecho español , vol. XXV, n^o 1, Ministerio de Justicia/CSIC, Madrid.

[31] Martínez Escobar, M. (1945) Los seguros , Cultural S.A., La Habana.

[32] Mintz, S. W. (1989) Caribbean Transformations . New York: Columbia University Press.

[33] Murphy, S.A. (2010) Investing in Life. Insurance in Antebellum America . Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

[34] O'Donnell, T. (1936) History of Life Insurance in Its Formative Years . Chicago, IL: American Conservation.

[35] Pearson, R. (1990) ‘Thrift or Dissipation? The Business of Life Assurance in the Early Nineteenth Century’. Economic History Review , vol. 43, pp. 236–254.

[36] Rhan-Hsin, C. y G. Simon (2004) ‘Actuarial Issues in Insurance on Slaves in the United States South’. Journal of African American History , vol. 89, n^o 4, pp. 348–357.

[37] Rodríguez Ferrer, M. (1862) Los nuevos peligros de Cuba entre sus cinco crisis actuales . Madrid: Imprenta de Manuel Galiano.

[38] Rotman Zelizer, V.A. (1979) Morals and Markets. The Development of Life Insurance in the United States . New York and London: Columbia University Press.

[39] Savitt, T.L. (1977) ‘Slave Insurance in Virginia and North Carolina’. The Journal of Southern History XLIII (4): 584–85.

[40] Savitt, T.L. (2007) Race and Medicine in Nineteenth-and Early-Twentieth-Century America . Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press.

[41] Sherwood, M. (2007) After Abolition. Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807 . London and New York: I.B. Tauris.

[42] Stalson, J.O. (1942) Marketing Life Insurance: Its History in America . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[43] The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, Third Annual Report of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: Together With Its by-Laws and Act of Incorporation , Seaton Gales, Raleigh, 1852.

[44] The Semi-Weekly Raleigh Register , Raleigh March 27, 1861.

[45] Walford, C. (1874) The Insurance Encyclopedia , vol. III. New York: The Spectator Company, C. and E. Layton.

[46] Weare, W.B. (1973) Black Business in the New South. A Social History of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company . Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

[47] Wells, J.D. (2004) The Origins of the Southern Middle Class 1800–1861 . Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

International Journal of Cuban Studies

El fracaso de las compañías de seguros de esclavos: Cuba a partir de la experiencia norteamericana

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