Enslavers had to prove Union loyalty to receive compensation.

Evidence

Congress requested detailed documentation from those seeking compensation. Initially, petitioners were asked to submit their claims to the commission clerk within ninety days of the act’s passage, before July 15, but the deadline was later extended to August 15. Each petition, which cost enslavers fifty cents to file, consisted of a four-page form with an accounting of each enslaved person, including “the names, ages, and personal description of such persons, the manner in which said petitioners acquired such claim, and any facts touching the value thereof.” Wills had to be consulted, deeds were pulled out of storage, and conversations were initiated with older relatives to ascertain the required details. In addition, the act required petitioners to declare their “allegiance to the Government of the United States, and [to swear] that he has not borne arms against the United States during the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid or comfort thereto.” Two people had to be willing to attest to the petitioner’s loyalty to the Union. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 77

Congress requested detailed documentation from those seeking compensation. Initially, petitioners were asked to submit their claims to the commission clerk within ninety days of the act’s passage, before July 15, but the deadline was later extended to August 15. Each petition, which cost enslavers fifty cents to file, consisted of a four-page form with an accounting of each enslaved person, including “the names, ages, and personal description of such persons, the manner in which said petitioners acquired such claim, and any facts touching the value thereof.” Wills had to be consulted, deeds were pulled out of storage, and conversations were initiated with older relatives to ascertain the required details. In addition, the act required petitioners to declare their “allegiance to the Government of the United States, and [to swear] that he has not borne arms against the United States during the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid or comfort thereto.” Two people had to be willing to attest to the petitioner’s loyalty to the Union. This process was not an easy one to navigate, but enslavers were incentivized to jump through all the hoops in order to wring every last penny they thought was due to them from the government. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 77

Categorization

• XREF: The loyalty oath and witness attestation resemble the reputation-and-registration institutions Milgrom describes — paperwork and third-party attestation as the machinery of trust-based claims, here weaponized for a compensation regime. — connects to: The state compensated masters for executed slaves to prevent concealment of slave crime — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 467
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 77