Let's Talk About Old Money
- Apr 22, 2025
- 3 min read
Written by Roger Persaud, Author, Speaker & Mentor
Roger writes and speaks on Overlooked History. His book America Should be Grateful to Haiti is a collection of stories on that topic. Overlooked History was a tool utilised to marginalize and dehumanize specific groups of people. The mission is to reduce the impact of racism.
People often compare old money to new money. I will do something similar but with a twist. William Ewart Gladstone was the most successful British politician of the nineteenth century. He was Prime Minister four times between 1868 and 1894. In addition, he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer four times. Those are the two most powerful positions in the British system of government.
The Honorable Mr. Gladstone was a brilliant orator and a highly skilled financial administrator; however, was that enough to catapult him to such a remarkable political career?
I say no, it was not. John Gladstone, his father, owned the most extensive plantations in Jamaica, Trinidad, and British Guiana.
He was also a member of Parliament and served as a director of the East India Company, which brought his family immense wealth, status, and power.
His influence and success propelled his son William to become the most powerful politician in Britain's history. The British Parliament passed into law the Slave Compensation Act of 1837 after slavery was abolished in 1833. The primary beneficiary of those funds was John Gladstone because he held mortgages on almost three thousand humans.
Now, let us cross the Atlantic and look at money around this time.
Yale University lecturer David Blight says, “By 1860, more millionaires lived in the lower Mississippi Valley than elsewhere in the United States. In the same year, the nearly four million slaves were worth some 3.5 billion dollars, making them the largest single financial asset in the United States economy, worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined” (The New Haven Register, January 2017). The U.S. consisted of less than ten percent of the Atlantic slave trade.
It is no coincidence that between 1725 and 1825, seven and a half million slaves were transported from Africa, and American cotton production soared from 156,000 bales in 1800 to more than four million bales in 1860, providing an astonishing increase in supply. This cotton boom was the main cause of increased demand for labor.
While cotton was king, the growth of other cash crops like rice, sugar cane, and tobacco enabled the southern states, which were powered by the free labor provided by captive Africans, to become the economic backbone that fueled the growth of the rapidly developing nation.
At the start of the American Civil War, if the southern states that made up the Confederacy had been a nation, it would have been the fourth most prosperous country, producing 75 percent of the world’s cotton.
Let us journey further back to some real old money. In 1311, a Catalan atlas featured Mansa Musa, the Emperor of Mali, who, up until recently, was considered the wealthiest man who ever lived.
His wealth was made from trading in gold and salt.
Read more from Roger Persaud
Roger Persaud, Author, Speaker & Mentor
Roger Persaud is a USAF veteran who enjoyed 35 years in various positions within the airline industry. He is the author of America Should Be Grateful to Haiti, which explores the effects of overlooked history.
As an internationally recognized speaker, author, and Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) specialist, he is passionate about sharing never-before-heard stories from history that give audiences world-changing perspectives.
He has been featured on national television five times, including a half-hour interview with Dr. Ben Chavis that aired on PBS.
His mission is to reduce the impact of racism by increasing awareness of the people, places, and events often omitted from the history taught in schools.
