Harriet Tubman was bought and sold as currency. Putting her face on a banknote is an affront to her memory

Harriet Tubman, a former slave in the American Civil War era, freed more than 800 slaves from captivity during her lifetime. She was nicknamed “Moses” for her efforts, and it seems almost natural that we should honour her heroics – acts which symbolize the universal desire for freedom – by putting her face on our banknotes.


Although African-Americans are celebrating this new recognition of our 500-year long struggle against white settler colonial violence, the nature of that violence should give us some pause. There is, after all, a troubling relationship between African slaves and money through the history of chattel slavery.

Chattel slavery in the European colonial era was unique two ways from other earlier (and many contemporary) forms of slavery. First, chattel slaves were legally considered property of the ‘owner’. Second, the status of “slave” was passed down from mother to child.

For the US economy before the Civil War, slaves were very important commodities and forms of capital for both individuals and institutions. Enslaved Africans – men and women like Harriet Tubman – were considered equivalent to, and used as, a kind of currency or investment in the early American economy.


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