For 246 years we were somebody’s assets. We were transported across the Atlantic like cargo and sold at markets with other goods. Wills,  sophisticated trusts and marital agreements were often used to keep us along with other assets within families and away from creditors. This is how family wealth was and still is built today.

Now, 402 years later since the first ship with 20 captives landed at Virginia, we now have assets. P A U S E and let this sink in. “We used to be the assets. Now we have assets.” We have homes, land, businesses, financial portfolios and the like. We have amassed more wealth than our ancestors, and currently have the ability to pass on tangible wealth, yet educated or not, we typically don’t plan.

Historically, our ability to build family wealth has been riddled with challenges at every turn from burning homes, businesses and communities, lynching, robberies, fraud, fear of theft by attorneys who don’t look like us and systemic barriers, including redlining, subprime loans, court ordered sales of tenancy in common properties and the like. As a result, we have never developed a history of utilizing estate planning tools to keep wealth within our families and away from our creditors. 

Somewhere along our journey from being assets to becoming owners, we have been taught that our assets don’t matter or that we don’t have much so why plan. This negative opinion of our assets has left our loved ones vulnerable to creditors, spectators and vultures looking to profit from our lack of understanding of the law and the benefits of planning. So whatever we do own is taken away from us.

As we continue to reflect on America’s history which is our history, remember whatever assets you have managed to amass during your lifetime, it wasn’t an easy feat to arrive at this point in time. And whether big or small, of great monetary value or sentimental value, your assets do matter. And you have the right to plan for what happens next.