The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Author:Edward P. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

No policy from Atlas would have paid Caldonia for the week and a half Stamford was off from work. Policies for slaves injured during work would not be issued for a few more weeks. (As it happened in the field, she might have been able to get away with calling it a work-related injury, as long as the agent did not come and see Stamford for himself.) Those work-injury policies would come about because an agent in South Carolina would write to Hartford to tell them that many of his clients were asking about insuring slaves hurt while doing their jobs. Men and women were losing limbs, getting sick from any number of ailments directly related to their jobs, the agent said in his letter to Hartford, and his clients wanted some relief for that. At the time of Stamford’s beating, there was a policy, for a premium of 25 cents a month, that would have paid Caldonia if he had died. It would not have paid the price Henry paid for Stamford, $450, because Stamford was now much older. But the money would have gone a long way toward purchasing someone else, someone stronger and no doubt more able to stand up for himself.

The Atlas man had come the day of the beating because Maude had sent word to him that her newly widowed daughter needed all the help she could get. Maude had policies on all her slaves. Riding away that day, the Atlas man noted in his mind that next time he would have to insist on seeing the mistress of the house and not settle on an answer from a male relative who did not know the benefits of Atlas products. A negative response, the people in Hartford had taught, was only the groundwork for a positive one.

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