The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved,

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation

Groundbreaking look at slaves as commodities through every phase of life, from birth to death and beyond, in early America

In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their livesâ€”including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and deathâ€”in the early American domestic slave trade. Covering the full â€œlife cycle,â€ historian Daina Ramey Berry shows the lengths to which enslavers would go to maximize profits and protect their investments. Illuminating â€œghost valuesâ€ or the prices placed on dead enslaved people, Berry explores the little-known domestic cadaver trade and traces the illicit sales of dead bodies to medical schools.

This book is the culmination of more than ten years of Berryâ€™s exhaustive research on enslaved values, drawing on data unearthed from sources such as slave-trading records, insurance policies, cemetery records, and life insurance policies. Writing with sensitivity and depth, she resurrects the voices of the enslaved and provides a rare window into enslaved peoplesâ€™ experiences and thoughts, revealing how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives. Reaching out from these pages, they compel the reader to bear witness to their stories, to see them as human beings, not merely commodities.

A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh will have a major impact how we think about slavery, reparations, capitalism, nineteenth-century medical education, and the value of life and death.
Country USA
Manufacturer Beacon Press
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2017-01-24
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Beacon Press
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2017-01-24
Format	Kindle eBook

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation

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