For my cousin Felicenne Houston, who introduced me to the inner spirit and allowed others to live beyond her death For my parents, Melvin and Felicenne Ramey, who taught me the infinite value of my soul Contents Author’s Note Preface List of Images INTRODUCTION The Value of Life and Death CHAPTER Preconception: Women and Future Increase CHAPTER Infancy and Childhood CHAPTER Adolescence, Young Adulthood, and Soul Values CHAPTER Midlife and Older Adulthood CHAPTER Elderly and Superannuated CHAPTER Postmortem: Death and Ghost Values EPILOGUE The Afterlives of Slavery Acknowledgments Appendix: A Timeline of Slavery, Medical History, and Black Bodies Note on Sources: A History of People and Corpses Notes Index About the Author Author’s Note In a very real sense, I’ve been living with this book since childhood I grew up in a small college town in California, in an area where most of my peers would say they didn’t see race However, much of my upbringing involved assessing the value of blackness We lived in a pleasant community with close friends nearby My father was the second African American scholar hired at the local university where my mother completed her law degree After law school, she became a professor at a public institution in a neighboring city Most of my friends’ parents were professors as well Although teaching came naturally to me, I initially pursued a career path outside the academy But as I aged, I decided to become a professor in the hope that I could help others make sense of both the valuation and devaluation of blackness that shaped my upbringing Historically, black bodies in the United States have represented two competing values: one ascribed to the internal self and the other to the external body White valuation of the black body under slavery is one of the most dramatic historical examples of the latter An enslaved person had individual qualities that enslavers evaluated, appraised, and ultimately commodified through sale Yet enslaved people had a different conception of their value, one that did not appear in historical scholarship until the late 1990s My parents were the first to expose me to the history of slavery They also taught me about internal values, which came from that legacy but were much different than the value of enslaved people But in other settings, such as school, I noticed a different set of external principles that ascribed a negative association to my heritage Through each stage of our lives, my parents validated my brother and me, encouraging pride in our lineage and giving us a strong sense of who we were in the world We celebrated and studied our genealogy by filling our house with art from the African diaspora At a young age, I learned to value blackness in the form of imagery, history, and ancestry, understanding that we stood on the shoulders of many who gave their lives for us However, as I grew and matured, I constantly experienced devaluation that contradicted the values presented at home When I was in preschool, other children treated me like a pet: some boldly patted me on the head to feel my hair texture In kindergarten, one classmate asked, “Why are your palms white and the rest or your body black?” A year later, when I was six, the neighborhood bully called me a “dirty n——r.” And, in first grade, a classmate asked me what it was like to be a slave In school, I was reminded that something about me was different and not valued I didn’t see anyone who looked like me in the books we read or on my school’s staff, or who represented me during career day On Halloween in second grade, children snickered at the Afro-pumpkin that I had so carefully crafted to submit to the pumpkin contest I loved my pumpkin and thought it would win a prize Not only was it black and beautiful, sporting an Angela Davis hairstyle, but my mother was one of the judges! Every time I valued aspects of my black girlhood, my African American ancestry was ridiculed and devalued In social studies, I could not understand why some of my classmates stared at me with pity and sorrow when teachers mentioned slavery and civil rights history I was raised to be proud of this history, not ashamed I come from a lineage of survivors My life has always been structured around the academic calendar because of my parents’ careers and the community in which we lived In each stage of schooling from elementary and middle to high school, we took summer tours around the United States These long road trips from the west to the east, north, and south, exposed my brother and me to the diverse group of people who shaped this country, from the Mayan and Powhatan, to the Italian, Irish, and Polish immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island We studied the Donner Party and the California Gold Rush as well as American slavery on Southern plantations We hiked the Appalachian Mountains, backpacked in the Grand Canyon, chased bison at Yellowstone National Park, and learned about water technology at the Hoover Dam During the long car rides in between destinations, we played games and took pictures every time we crossed a state line My parents gave daily lessons on a range of topics, from creating a budget and managing money, to understanding anatomy and physiology Those educational road trips meant a great deal to me, and I was filled with mixed emotions during the last one, when my parents drove me to college During my undergraduate education, my organic curiosity about values persisted, and I decided to major in economics Things changed when I took a class on slavery from a female professor who looked like me It was my first experience outside of the home in which I learned about African American history and my peers did not stare at me This professor, Brenda E Stevenson, supported my curiosity and encouraged me to become a historian She was the second scholar to suggest that I study history, and later, she became my dissertation advisor The first person to recommend I study history was a visiting scholar I confronted a year earlier for his excessive use of the N-word in an African American survey course These experiences, one positive, the other negative, played an important part in my decision to pursue a graduate degree in history I knew I wanted to write books about slavery without alienating my audience Remnants of my upbringing resurfaced in graduate school in a pendulum-like manner I felt like a balance ball in Newton’s cradle being pounded with racism on one side and academic success on the other The ups and downs were difficult, but I found my way to a platform from which I could study and share the tremendously difficult balancing act enslaved people navigated as human property This book is evidence of that journey How is black life valued and devalued at different points in American history? This is the fundamental question at the center of my life and my work The seesaws and pendulums I experienced led me to look to history for answers I found them, but also found many more questions in the voices and experiences of those who were enslaved These questions inspired me to analyze value and personhood While I, and other scholars, contend that enslaved captives aboard slave ships in the Middle Passage had their personhood devalued, it is also true that their bodies, as commodities, increased in value over the course of their lives, reaching a peak in early adulthood The tension between person and property merged in human chattel, and their awareness of their market value evolved as they matured Dave Harper and many other formerly enslaved people taught me about the valuation and devaluation that comes with blackness “I was sold for $715,” he shared in a postslavery interview in the late 1930s “When freedom come,” he said, “give me $715 and I’ll go back.”1 Harper and others knew that they were more valued in slavery than in freedom Henry Banner noted, “I was sold for $2,300—more than I’m worth now.” Some scholars deliberately interpreted such reflections to mean that enslaved people preferred captivity to freedom This bothered me I couldn’t fathom why anyone would prefer captivity unless they did not value themselves The many voices I encountered in the archives, as I wrote articles, books, and encyclopedias about gender and slavery, spoke to me loudly and clearly Enslaved people, of course, preferred freedom This book, which encompasses a decade of research, addresses the value of enslaved peoples’ lives before birth, through the stages of growth, to death and beyond By questioning and analyzing life cycles, it becomes clear that human chattel could never escape commodification My study emerges on the 140th anniversary of the end of Reconstruction and in the early stages of contemporary social justice movements to value black lives I hope that readers will understand the historical antecedents to the racial seesaw I experienced as a child in a community that did not intentionally devalue me And I welcome each reader to take this journey through the stages of enslaved life as a person as well as a commodified good This is a coming-of-age story, a narrative of the valuation of black bodies It is a lengthy tribute to my parents for teaching me to appreciate my life and the lives of others, whether they look like me or not Finally, and most importantly, this book gives voice to enslaved people and their feelings about, and reactions to, being treated as property The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is a response to questions that have consumed me for most of my life Only now, after many years of research and reflection, have I found the language to answer them Preface This book is written in a historical moment that historians have not yet named—a moment when black persons are disproportionately being killed and their deaths recorded We witness the destruction of their lives via cell phones and dash and body cameras The current voyeuristic gaze contains a level of brutality grounded in slavery I call this moment the historic spectacle of black death: a chronicling of racial violence, a foreshadowing of medical exploitation, a rehearsing of ritualized lynching that took place in the postslavery era African Americans and their allies respond by rejecting the devaluation of their bodies with the phrase Black Lives Matter This book, however, argues that the historical record is clear: Black Bodies Matter They did 150 years ago, and they today This is not a “red record” like that catalogued by Ida B Wells-Barnett in 1895, but rather a historical reckoning, a financial recapitulation of black bodies and souls It traces the internal selfworth African Americans held on to when external forces literally and figuratively sought to strip them of humanity Here you will see that African Americans created a protective mechanism to restore the soul by valuing it intrinsically, instinctively, innately immortally They deployed Paul Laurence Dunbar’s mask, W E B Du Bois’s double consciousness, Maya Angelou’s caged bird, James Baldwin’s “Amen,” Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple I see the soul values, as many others Through the historical reckoning in the following pages, readers, too, will see the infinite value of African American souls AMEN No, I don’t feel death coming I feel death going: having thrown up his hands, for the moment I feel like I know him better than I did Those arms held me, for a while, and, when we meet again, there will be that secret knowledge between us —James Baldwin, Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems1 List of Images Chapter 2: Enslaved siblings separated from each other and their mother Source: Library Company of Philadelphia Chapter 2: Cane Brake Plantation records Source: Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin Chapter 3: Lucy Delaney Source: Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapter 3: Prime male on the auction block Source: Library Company of Philadelphia Chapter 3: Broadside announcing the sale of “Choice Slaves.” Source: Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin Chapter 4: Scaffold on which John Brown and his followers were hanged Source: Horatio N Rust Photograph Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California Chapter 4: Shields Green Source: Horatio N Rust Photograph Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California Chapter 4: Dangerfield Newby Source: Horatio N Rust Photograph Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California Chapter 6: Cadaver bag Source: ©Thomas Jefferson University Photography Services Chapter 6: University of North Carolina School of Medicine anatomy students staging a dissection Source: North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapter 6: Chris Baker Source: Special Collections and Archives, Tompkins-McCaw Library, Virginia Commonwealth University Chapter 6: Chris Baker posing with the students of the Medical College of Virginia Source: Special Collections and Archives, Tompkins-McCaw Library, Virginia Commonwealth University Chapter 6: Illustration of Solomon Marable being transported in a barrel From Richmond (VA) Planet, August 1, 1896 Source: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC INTRODUCTION The Value of Life and Death trading centers, 14, 17, 43; trafficking patterns for females, 17 Delaney, Lucy A., 58–59; 129 Diamond (enslaved woman), 117–18 Dick, Frederick, 190 Dickey, Gilbert, 25 Dickinson, Hill & Company, 42 Dickson, Samuel, 166 Dido (enslaved woman), 27 Dinah (enslaved woman), court case involving, 26–27, 219n65 disease/disability: curiosity about, and dissections, 167, 169; enslavers’ efforts to obtain compensation for, 113; impact on insurance valuation and premiums, 118; survival of, and appraisal value, 18, 24; types of, 24, 54, 72, 150 See also death/mortality dismemberment, mob desecration of bodies, 94, 100–102, 150 dissections See anatomical dissection/research; cadaver trade dog skins, 228n94 Douglass, Frederick: earliest memories of enslavement, 36–38; on forced breeding, 79; on impacts of owners’ death, 194; opposition to Brown’s raid, 120 Drake, Daniel, 153, 161–62 Drew, Benjamin, 66–67 Drewry, William Sidney, 108 Dunaway, Wilma, 209–10 Dunglison, Robley, 102–3, 163 Edmond (enslaved elder), 138 Edson, Tracy, 85 Egypt, Gliddon’s skull collection from, 105 eighteenth and early nineteenth century: breeders, breeding wenches, 15, 19–21; compensation to enslavers for dead or maimed chattel, 114; development of the cadaver trade, 158; development of domestic slave market, 32, 79; life expectancies, 131, 134 elderly/superannuated enslaved: appraisal and sale values, 129–31, 137–39; awareness of commodification, 131–32, 136; community role, 131–32; diseases and disability among, 138–39; inclusion in group sales without charge, 136; post-Civil War efforts to provide care for, 140–41; postmortem valuations, 141–42; and readiness to die, 141–42; variable treatment of, 132–33, 172 See also soul value Elkins, Jane, 114–15 Ellen (enslaved older adult), insurance appraisal value, 117 Ellick (enslaved elder), insurance appraisal value, 142 Elliott, Mr (Moravian missionary), data on “Negresses’ ” menarche, 73 Engerman, Stanley, 205–6, 208 enslaver children, education of, 38 escape, running away: Freeman’s experience, 116–17; Jacobs’s experience, 114; as manifestation of soul value, 61–62, 66; Ramsey’s experience, 130; truancy vs flight, 17 See also Canada, escape to; death/mortality; resistance to enslavement; rebellion; soul value estate inventories/valuations, 26–27, 41 See also plantation records ethnic origin, impact on sale prices, 15, 32 Eve, Paul, 168 Everett, Sam and Louisa, 80 executions: aftermath, postmortem values, 90, 93–94, 100–111, 119–27, 156, 174; compensation provided to enslavers following, 41, 98, 107–8, 111–13, 115; following Harpers Ferry raid, 93, 100–101, 119–20, 123; following Isaac’s rebellion, 146; following Southampton rebellion, 91, 93, 99–101; as source of cadavers for dissection, 98, 105, 115–16, 156, 164 See also cadaver trade; postmortem values family, separation from: as constant threat, 11, 48–49; death as preferable to, 28–31; as defining personal event, 61, 63; experience of, witness accounts, 16–17, 25–26, 35, 37, 39–40, 43–46; following death of enslavers, 56; and hiding to protect children, 16–17, 27–28; and legislation related to enslaved children, 47–48; and marriage, 17, 123–24, 229n3; pain/grief associated with, 16, 22–26, 28; as punishment for resistance, 91; “The Slave Mother,” 22–24 See also auctions, sales; motherhood, mothers “fancies,” defined, 17–18, 217n28 Featherstonhaugh, Thomas, 126 females, enslaved See breeders/breeding wenches; motherhood, mothers; women, enslaved; and specific age groups field hands: and disruptions in productivity caused by childbirth, 20; market values, 14, 18, 95; skilled laborers, 60 Firestone, Leander, 107 “first rate,” varying meanings of, 70 Fishwick, Jane, 26 Flora (enslaved elder), 137 Floyd, John, 104 Fogel, Robert, 205–6, 208 Forbes, William Smith, 183, 187–88 forced breeding See breeders, breeding wenches Foster, Thomas, 78 Frame, Robert, 103–4 Frank (enslaved man), 173 Franklin, Isaac, 105 free blacks: and the cadaver trade, 7, 93; 170, 176, 181, 190, 192–93; concerns about, among Unionists, 162; reprisals against following Southampton rebellion, 108 Freeman, Colman, 116 funerals for the enslaved, 8, 87, 176, 190–91 See also burials; death/mortality gambling debts, sale of enslaved to settle, 135–36 Garner, Margaret, 77 Garnet, Henry Highland, 128 Garrison, William Lloyd, 107 gender, role in valuations, 15–16, 46–47, 96, 136 See also appraisal value; breeders, breeding wenches; laborers, enslaved; sale price; women, enslaved Genovese, Eugene, 41, 131 geographic region, role in valuations, 17, 117, 153 George, Octavia, 87 Georgia: Anatomical Act, 186–87; enslaved Caribbean captives in, 13–14 Georgia Relief Hospital for the Confederate Army, 118 Gholson, James, 11 ghost value See postmortem value Gills, John Walters, 24–25 Girardey slave sale, broadside for, 69, 76 Gladney, Henry, 36–37 Glascow (enslaved man), 112 Glentworth, James, 21 Gliddon, George Robbins, 105–6 Gonzales, Texas, autopsy of enslaved child, 149–50 “Good God! and must I leave them now—” (Mingo), 196–97 Gordon, George A., 168 Grandy, Moses: on beating death of brother, 53; on mother’s hiding to avoid auction, 27–28, 219n66; on poor treatment of elderly, 133 Grant, Charlie, 53, 153, 183 Grant, Rebecca, 37 grave robbers, resurrectionists, 99, 105, 153, 170–71, 173–88 See also burial rights; burials; cadaver trade; medical education “Great Auction,” Georgia, catalogue for, 46 Green, Shields, 120–23, 176, 235n99 Griffin, Isaac, 25 Gross, Ariela, 71, 87–88 Gross, Samuel D., 189–190, 245n116 The Half Has Never Been Told (Baptist), 207 Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, database of, 216n13, 217n26 Hall, K G., 13 Hammond (enslaved elder), 137 Hampden-Sydney College, Richmond, Virginia, 102, 160, 176 Hannibal (enslaved elder), 134–35 Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins, 22–24 Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, raid: executions following, 93, 119–20; executions of enslaved and free blacks following, 93; and growth in the cadaver trade following, 175; participants and handling of bodies following, 119–26 See also Brown, John; Copeland, John; Green, Shields Harris, George, 171 Harris, Grandison, 170–72, 186 Harris, Rachel, 171 Harrison, Joseph, 158–59 Harry (enslaved elder), 137 Hartman, Saidiya, 194 Hatcher, Richard, 197, 232n57 Harvard Medical School, 159, 160 Hayden, Robert (“The Ballad of Nat Turner”), 110 health, role in valuations, 15, 24–25, 41 See also disease/disability; insurance valuations; inspections; medical evaluations Henry, Henry A., 121 Hern, David, 103 Hern, Fanny Gillette, 103 Herndon, Tempe, 11 Heth, Joice: burial, 193; commodification and financial exploitation, 151, 206; earnings for Barnum, 148–49; public autopsy, 148–49, 150–51 Hicks, Margaret Hall, 133–34 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 111 Hill, Harriett, 35 Hill, John, 67–68 Howell, Josephine, 11–12 Hughes, Daniel E., 184 human trafficking See commodification data; cadaver trade Hunter, Lina, 31 incarceration, prison: Banks’s experience, 3–4; and the cadaver trade, 156, 184, 188; and enslaver compensation, 48; and prison-born children, 48, 57; prison-labor system, 48; and soul value, 196 See also compensation of enslavers indentured servants, comparison with slaves, 26 infants, enslaved: commodification process, 34; mortality, 51; postmortem values, 53, 153; separation from family, 25 See also children, enslaved; mothers, motherhood; family, separation from the injured, disabled: and enslaver compensation, 112; value of, for dissection, 167 inquests, coroners, 8, 71, 90 See also autopsies; cadaver trade inspections, physical, 42, 70–72, 78–80, 84–85, 150 See also auctions/public and private sales; insurance valuations; medical examinations insurance valuations, premiums: for application requirements, 55; for children and adolescents, 54– 56, 88–89; factors affecting valuations, 115–19; for grave robbers, 105; probate and estate valuations vs., 117; for older adults and elders, 54–56, 117, 142; sources of information about, 210–11; for young women, 89 See also Southern Mutual Life Insurance Company Isaac (enslaved elder), 129, 138, 143–47 Isam (enslaved elder), 137 Jack (enslaved child), 149–150 Jacobs, Harriet: escapes, 114, 234nn74–75; hiding, 217n25, 234n75; on impact of Southampton rebellion, 108; on risks faced by adolescent girls, 78 Jacoby, Karl, 206 jail See executions; incarceration of the enslaved Jake (enslaved elder), 136–37 Jane (enslaved elder), 138 Janie (enslaved woman), 86–87 Jefferson, Thomas, 1, 103 Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia: anatomy instruction, 103–4, 162–65; arrest of faculty for grave robbing, 183; Jim Burrell’s role, 148; inscriptions on dissected cadavers, 109–10; “Negro” skeleton purchased by, 105 Jenette (enslaved child), 54 Jennings, Jesse, 124 Jessup & Hatch, Augusta, Georgia, 88 Jim (enslaved older adult), 117 Jimmie (enslaved child), 49 Johns Hopkins Medical School, 187 Johnson, George, 67 Johnson, Walter, 66, 92, 207 John the fiddler (enslaved man), 37 Jones, Alexander, 166 Jones, A T., 69–70 Jones, Hannah, 22 Jones-Rogers, Stephanie, 78–79 Joseph (enslaved youth), 58–59, 223n4 Junell, Oscar Felix, 78–79 Jupiter (enslaved elder), 137 Keckley, Elizabeth: on death and afterlife, 194; earliest memories of life as a slave, 36; and first understanding of enslavement, 37; separation from family, 40; on the sale of Little Joe, 39–40, 84–85 Kemble, Frances Anne, 74 Kentuck, Anna and Armstead, 44–45 King, Martha, 45–47 King, Wilma, 2, 41, 66 laborers, skilled: appraisals, sale prices, 18, 41, 95–96, 137; defined, 217n28; female workers, 18; insurance policies on, 54–56; mortality among, 46; rating scales for, 68; resurrectionists as, 170– 71, 178–80; sale prices, 15; types of skills, 84, 229n8; and valuations of parts of bodies, 70–71 Lacks, Henrietta, 151, 193 Laura (enslaved young woman), 89 Laurel Grove cemetery, Savannah, Georgia, burials of the enslaved at: adolescents and young adults, 89–90; children, 54; the elderly, 140 Lavinia (enslaved young woman), 89 legislation, enslavement-related: “An Act to Incorporate the Southern Slaveholders Insurance Company of Maryland,” 118; and enslavers’ rights to sell cadavers of enslaved, 167; “Laws of the Muscogee Nation” (Creek), 112; “Master and Slave” statute (Alabama), 47; Partus Sequitur Ventrem (Virginia), 11; restrictive, following the Southampton rebellion, 109; on sale of enslaved children (Louisiana), 47–48 See also anatomy legislation; compensation to enslavers Legrand, Raimond, 83 LeMoyne, Julius, 189 leucorrhea, 76 Libby, O G., 126 Liberator newspaper, reports on the Southampton rebellion, 107 life expectancy, 131, 134 Likers, Thomas, 66 Lincoln, Abraham, 68 Little Joe (enslaved child), 39 livestock, viewing enslaved as, 6, 12, 40, 44, 130 loans, debts: the enslaved as collateral for, 12, 135; mortgages, 16–17, 137 Locke, Alain LeRoy, Louisa (enslaved child), 54 Louisiana: legislation governing sale of enslaved children, 47–48; Louisiana State Penitentiary, 48; as slave-trading center, 14–15, 58–59; use of enslaved Caribbean captives, 13–14 Louisville Medical Institute, Kentucky, 162 Lucy (enslaved young woman), 85 Lyman, Levi, 148–49, 151 lynchings and corpse desecration, 102, 107–9, 150 Madeline (enslaved woman), 83 Mallory, William “Buck,” 101 maiming, self-inflicted, 71–72, 225n33 Mandela, Nelson, 73 Manson, John, 19 Marable, Solomon, 179–80, 185 Margo, Robert, 208 marital bonds, 17 market value See commodification; sale prices Mary (enslaved woman), 74–76 Mary Ann (enslaved adolescent), 90 Massachusetts, anatomy legislation, 184 Massenburg, James, 107 “Master and Slave” statute (Alabama), 47 McClellan, Katharine E., 126 McCullough, Willie, 82 McCurry, Stephanie, 209 McCusker, John, 208 McKee (enslaver), 35 McKinley (enslaver), 65–66 McLane, G S., 112 McNamee, Frank, 187 Mears, Ewing, 190 measles, 24 meat grades, USDA, 68 Medical College of Georgia, Atlanta: African American cadavers discovered at, 195; grave robbing by students at, 170; and the modern cadaver trade, 8–9; purchase of Harris to serve as resurrectionist for, 170; purchase of Harris’s family, 170–71; sources of cadavers for, 169, 172 Medical College of South Carolina, Charleston, 121–22 Medical College of Virginia, Richmond: anatomy students, 180; Baker’s services to as resurrectionist, 178–79; request for Brown’s body for dissection, 119 medical education, schools: development of, and the cadaver trade, 8–9, 94–95, 98, 101–3, 109–10, 115, 152–53, 157–61, 163, 176, 185–87, 192, 202–4; medical museums, 162–63; price for lectures/demonstration tickets, 168; public and private autopsies, 149; as source of commodification records, 212 See also anatomical dissection, research; cadaver trade; and specific medical schools medical examinations: and appraisal value, 58, 70–72, 79–80, 84–85, 150 See also auctions/public and private sales; insurance valuations Medical Institute of Georgia, 168 medical jurisprudence, role of autopsies, 151 medical museums, 162–63 medical professionals, and growing role in legal cases, 149 Medical Record, reports about grave robbing, 183–84 medical records, as source of commodification data, 211 Megargee, Louis N., 187 Melissa (enslaved child), 92 men, enslaved: castration as punishment for, 100, 114, 116, 202; older adults, valuations, 95–97; forced copulation, sexual abuse, 78, 80; price wages, 233n58; sexualizing for auction, 79 See also sale prices and specific age groups menstruation, menarche, 72–77 The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), midlife/older enslaved adults: appraisal and sale values, 91, 95–97; insurance appraisals and premiums, 54–56, 117, 142; postmortem values, 93 Miller, Benjamin, 70 Miller, Hardy, 45–46 Miller, T Doughty, 185–86 Mingo (enslaved man), 196–97 Minor family plantations, 223n4 Minor, Lewis, 175–76 Missouri, anatomy legislation, 103 Monroe, Albert Wilson, 190–91 Monroe, James, 121–22 Moore, Fannie, 19 Moore, John A., 117–18 Moore, Putnam, 111 Moravian missionaries, Caribbean, data from on menarche, 73 Morgan, Jennifer, 32 Morgan, Kenneth, 15–16 Morris, Ned, 139 mortality See cadaver trade; death, mortality mortgages on enslaved, 137 See also loans, debts Morton, Samuel, 105 motherhood, mothers: efforts to hide/protect children from auctions, 16–17, 27–28; grief experienced by, 22, 29, 45–46, 91–92; sales of, 11, 127 See also breeders, breeding wenches; families, separation of Mott, Lucretia, 182 Murray, John, 88 Nacogdoches, Texas, care provided for former slaves, 140–41 narratives by enslaved people, as sources of commodification data, 207–8 National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, slavery relics at, 128 Ned (enslaved man), 112 “Negro” skulls, descriptions, 106 Nelson (enslaved man), 103 Nelson, Laura and J B., 102 Newby, Dangerfield, 123–27 Newby, Harriet, 126 Newby, J M., 117–18 New Orleans, Louisiana, slave auctions, 14–15, 58–59 New Orleans Picayune, solicitations for “negro” bodies in, 167 Newsome, Robert, 80–81 Newton (physician), 169 New York City: first dissection of an African American in the colonies, 158; ordinance prohibiting grave robbing, 183 New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, 149 New-York Gazette, slave sale advertisement, 21 New York State, anatomy legislation, 164, 184 Nicholson (Moravian missionary), 73–74 nineteenth century, mid to late: anatomy legislation, 183–84; breeders as sources of profit, 21; economic development, importance of slave women’s bodies, 32; forced breeding during, 79; public response/backlash against grave robbing, 183–86 North Carolina, compensation for enslaver, 113 North Elba, New York, interment of remains from Harpers Ferry raid participants, 126–27 Northern medical schools, and the cadaver trade, 158–65 Oberlin, Ohio, memorial service for Copeland and Green, 123 obituaries, for the enslaved, “To Old Chris” poem (Brodnax), 181 older adults See midlife/older enslaved adults Old Maria (enslaved elder), 135–37 organ donations, and modern cadaver trade, 158, 192–93, 195 Partus Sequitur Ventrem (Virginia), 11 Pattison, Granville Sharp, 162–63, 174 Pennsylvania: cremation in, 189; legalization of dissection, 188 See also Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia Pennsylvania Chronicle, Shippen’s defense against grave robbing charges, 158–59 Peter (enslaver), 82 Pethy, Marlida, 42–45 Peticolas, Arthur Edward, 119–20 Philadelphia Press, story about grave robbing, 184 Phillips, M W., 130 Phillips, U B., 14–15, 95 phrenology, and the skull trade, 106–7 physicians: care for enslaved elders, 138–40; as enslavers, 51, 153; as having a “higher calling,” 166, 168, 182; “sound” vs ”unsound” ratings, 70–72; treatment of enslaved in prisons, 3–4 See also cadaver trade; Copeland, John A.; grave robbers, resurrectionists; medical education Pikens, John, 56 plantation records: annual estate inventories, 41; burial rituals, 31; data on menarche, 73; data on valuations, 49–50, 85, 96–97, 209 See also Cane Break Plantation Polly (enslaved elder), 132 Ponto (enslaved elder), 129–30 Poole, Elizabeth (“The Slave Boy’s Death”), 53–54 poor whites, and the cadaver trade, 7, 190, 193 Porter-Francis family, rationale for putting Turner’s Bible on display, 128 Post, Wright, flight from New York, 183 postmortem values, ghost values: determinants, 3, 7, 87–88, 93–94, 97–98, 100–101, 105–6, 153, 202–4, 230n22; as form of human trafficking, 152–54; See also anatomical dissection, research; cadaver trade; death/mortality; executions; soul value Potter, H C., 126 “pound of flesh” quote (The Merchant of Venice), pregnancy: data about, in plantation records, 96–97; deliberate terminations, 77–78; as liability, 20– 21; and mortality among pubescent girls, 62 See also breeders, breeding wenches; children, enslaved; motherhood, mothers; women, enslaved “Prime hands,” “A1 Prime” classifications, 68, 92, 95 Priscilla (enslaved elder), 142 probate settlements, records, 6–7, 41, 205, 208, 210 Raboteau, Albert, 62 race, nineteenth century studies of, 105–7 Rachel (enslaved infant), 33–34 Rachel (enslaved woman), 76–77 Rachel (enslaved young woman), 84 Rachel L (enslaved young woman), 85 Railey, James, 52 Ramsey, George, 130 rape, 79 See also breeders, breeding wenches; sexual exploitation rating scales, 68 reading and writing, as form of resistance, 67 Reagan, John H., 115 rebellion: constant fear of, 109; executions following and defiling of bodies, 100 See also Harpers Ferry, Virginia, raid; resistance to enslavement; Southampton rebellion Redpath, James, 10, 30, 71 Reid, Whitelaw, 126 relics/souvenirs, from executed rebels, 94, 100–102 religious beliefs, variety of among the enslaved, 62 reparations, modern debates about, 128 resistance to enslavement: and defiance during auctions, 129–30; efforts to purchase enslaved children, 63–65; and freedom as a soul value, 61–62; Isaac’s failed rebellion, 143–44; Mingo’s manifestation of, 196–97; and organized rebellion, 95; punishment for, 44, 90; and self-maiming, 71–72, 225n33; and self-esteem, 63, 66–67; Turner and the Southampton rebellion, 105–10 See also escape, running away; soul value resurrection slaves, 170 See also cadaver trade; grave robbers, resurrectionists Richardson, Ruth, 8, 195 Richmond, Virginia: acknowledgement of stolen African American bodies, 195; Dickinson, Hill & Company, 42 Riley, Patrick, 21 Roane, Caesar, 184 Robbins, Charles, 178 Robert (enslaved man), 11 Roberton, John, 73 Rogers, David L., 148–49, 151 Roper, Moses, 116 Rosa (enslaved young woman), 85 Ross, George, 70 runaways See escape, running away; resistance Russell, Timothy, 102 sale prices: adolescents and youth, 58, 79; appraisal values vs., 41–42; changing valuations over individual’s lifetime, 1–2; children, infants, 33–34, 39, 45–47, 49, 127; data sources, 18, 46; and decisions not to sell, 43; the elderly and superannuated, 129, 131, 134, 136–37, 139; factors affecting, 14–15, 20–21, 26–27, 83–85; and individual buyer preferences, 18; and medical examinations, 70–72; older adults, 91; for portions of enslaved people, 83; and sale method, 16; and shared ownership, 170; and travel across state lines, 17; types of financial tractions, example of Tamar, 17; variance from appraisal values, 46 See also appraisal value; auctions; and specific individuals Sam (enslaved elder), 97 Sam (enslaved youth), 88 Sappol, Michael: on autopsies vs dissections, 151; on early regulation of the cadaver trade, 164; on modern cadaver trade, 8; research by, 211–12; on riots occasioned by anatomical dissections, 183 Sarah (enslaved older woman), 97 Savannah Medical College, Georgia, 168 Savitt, Todd, 99 SB 2199 (California), and insurance data, 210–11 scarring, impact on valuation, 96 Schermerhorn, Calvin, 207 self-purchase, 63, 66–67, 70 separation from family See family, separation from sexual coercion and abuse: during adolescence, 62, 78; categories of, 80; and forced copulation/breeding, 80–83; women’s efforts to protect against, 80–83 See also breeders, breeding wenches; motherhood, mothers; pregnancy Shepherd, Heyward, 236n112 sheriff’s sales, 84 Sherman, Texas, home for elderly formerly enslaved, 141 Shippen, William, Jr., 158–59, 182–83 Simms, Bill, 25 Simms, James Marion, 72 skeletons, anatomical, preparing, 104, 160, 179 skilled laborers See laborers, enslaved skull trade, 105–6 “The Slave Boy’s Death” (Poole), 53–54 “The Slave Mother” (Collins), 24 “The Slave Mother” (Harper), 22–23 “The Slave-Mother’s Reply” (poem), 29 slavery, educating young enslavers about, 38 slavery relics, modern markets for, 128 slave-sale advertising See advertisements slave trade, African: abolition of, and increases in domestic trade/forced breeding, 13–14, 31–32, 79; seasonality, coordination of cadaver trade with, 154 small- and medium-sized farms, human commodification on, 209 smallpox, 24 Smallwood, Thomas, 58, 81–82 Smith, Nathan Ryano, 173 Smithland, Kentuck, 3–4 soul value: and the afterlife, 62, 86, 110–11, 120–21, 194; defined, 6; interference with commodification, 65–66; recognition, expressions of, 1–2, 5, 61–65, 90, 92, 130–32, 144–46; self-purchase efforts, 69–70; and sense of self-worth, 6–7 See also escape, running away; resistance to enslavement “sound” vs “unsound” ratings, 70–72 Southampton, Virginia, rebellion: and the cadaver trade, 175; reign of terror, reprisals following, 107–9, 111, 114–16; restrictive legislation following, 109 See also compensation for enslavers; Turner, Nat South Carolina, regulation of medical education in, 166 Southern medical schools: and the cadaver trade, 166–83; regional pride and, 165–66 Southern Mutual Life Insurance Company (SMLIC), insurance for the enslaved: appraisals/premiums adolescents/young adults, 88–89; appraisals/premiums for children, 55–56; appraisals/premiums for the elderly, 142; appraisals/premiums for older adults, 117–18; commodification data from, 211; founding, history, 54–56; requirements for coverage, 55 Spell, Chaney, 35 spiritual beliefs, variety of among the enslaved, 62 See also afterlife; soul value Stevenson, Brenda E., xiii, 81 Still, William, 66–68 Stillman, T., 167 Stone, Barney, 150 Storer, David Humphreys, 176 strength, assessments of, 12, 41, 42, 46–47, 78, 84, 117, 143 Tamar (enslaved woman), 16–17, 27–28 Texas Medical Association, 115 third-party rape, 79 Thomas (enslaved elder), 138 Thomas, H L., 175 Thomas Jefferson Medical College See Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia Thornton, Laura, 78 three-fifths clause, US Constitution, 84 Till, Emmett, 102 Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Fogel and Engerman), 205–6 Tom (enslaved elder), 139 Tongue, William, 21 Turner, Fannie, 91–92, 229n3 Turner, Gilbert, 91–92, 127 Turner, Lucy, 194 Turner, Nat: alleged statement at eve of execution, 109; appraisal values during lifetime, 233n59; belief in armed resistance, 110; Bible of, as relic on display, 128; disrespectful handling of body, 101–3, 120; final words (attr.), 91; honoring of after death, 127; imagined epitaph for, 109; postmortem value, 111; price wage, 233n58; rebellion and execution, 93; rewards offered for capture, 111; skull, traffic in, 105–7, 197, 232–33n57; soul value, 10; visions, belief in an afterlife, 110–11, 235n91 See also Southampton, VA, rebellion “Twiggs” (enslaved child), 88–89 unborn enslaved offspring, valuations of, 27 University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore, 173 University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, 177 University of Pennsylvania, medical education at, 106, 158 University of Virginia (UVA), Charlottesville, Medical Department: anatomy education at, 102–3; Commodore’s role, 103; purchase of cadavers, 53, 121, 161, 174–75 “unsoundness,” challenges of defining, 71–72 US Constitution, three-fifths clause, 84 US Department of Agriculture (USDA), meat grades, 68 Utsey, Shawn, 195 Vaughan, John C., 143–44 Veney, Bethany, 78 Virginia anatomy legislation, 186; compensation of enslaved for human property losses, 98; legislation following Southampton rebellion, 109; Partus Sequitur Ventrem, 11 Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Richmond, 8–9, 102, 195 wages, price wages/labor values, 67, 145, 170–71, 228n84, 233n58, 239n36 Walker, Edward, 61–62 Waller, Benjamin S., 51–52, 140 Walmart insurance practices, 211 Warren, John Collins, 159–60, 162, 245n114 Washington, George, 148–49 Washington, Harriet A., Washington, Jesse, 102 Watkins, Sylvia, 80 Watson, William, 163 Weld, Theodore Dwight, 112 “While the infant and the mother, loud shriek for each other .” (song), 30–31 White, Mingo, 37 White, Thomas, 175 Whitehead, Richard H., 177 Williams, Malissa, 102 Williams, Mollie, 12 Winchester Medical School, Virginia, 102, 121, 126 Wisdom, Andrew C., 114–15 women, enslaved: African-born vs domestic, 31–32; and buyer preferences, 18; categories of, 217n28; death during childbirth, 90; gynecological health, 72; as healers, 51; insurance appraisals for, 142–43; labor specialization among, 18, 217n28; mortality, 31; in prison, compensation of owners, 48; pricing, price fluctuations, 14–15, 17–18; resistance shown by/reprisals against, 17, 114, 116; reproductive health issues, 74; terminations of pregnancy, 77–78; use of in exchanges, 20; valuations, factors affecting, 24–25, 76–77, 95–96; wages, 228n84 See also breeders/breeding wenches; family, separation from; motherhood, mothers; sexual coercion and abuse Wooldridge, Alexander Penn, 140–41 Wyman, Jeffries, 160, 165, 176 Young, Joshua, 126 Zorn, Mr (Moravian missionary), 73–74 About the Author Daina Ramey Berry is an associate professor of history and of African and African diaspora studies, as well as the Oliver H Radkey Regents Fellow in History, at the University of Texas at Austin She is the author of Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia She is also an award-winning editor of Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia and of Slavery and Freedom in Savannah Berry served as one of the technical advisors for the remake of the miniseries Roots (A&E Network, History Channel, 2016) and has been a regular guest on the Learning Channel’s Who Do You Think You Are?, helping to trace the ancestry of Spike Lee, Alfre Woodard, Aisha Tyler, and Smokey Robinson Her scholarship has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Association of University Women, the Ford Foundation, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Berry is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, serves on the editorial boards of two historical journals, and is the coeditor of the Gender and Slavery book series with the University of Georgia Press Beacon Press Boston, Massachusetts www.beacon.org Beacon Press books are published under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations © 2017 by Daina Ramey Berry All rights reserved Text design and composition by Kim Arney “Amen,” by James Baldwin, is reprinted here by arrangement with The James Baldwin Estate “The Ballad of Nat Turner,” by Robert Hayden, is used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Berry, Daina Ramey, author Title: The price for their pound of flesh : the value of the enslaved from womb to grave in the building of a nation / Daina Ramey Berry Description: Boston : Beacon Press, 2017 | Includes bibliographical references and index Identifiers: LCCN 2016014894 | ISBN 9780807047620 (hardback) eISBN: 978-0-8070-4763-7 Subjects: LCSH: Slavery—Economic aspects—United States | Slave-trade—United States—History | Slaves—United States— Economic conditions | Slaves—United States—Social conditions | Child slaves—United States—Social conditions | Women slaves— United States—Social conditions | Older slaves—United States—Social conditions | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Slavery | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies Classification: LCC E443 B446 2016 | DDC 306.3/620973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014894 ... from the sale of these children to the state treasurer The advertisements noted the name and age of the child as well as the mother’s name There is no information about the fathers of the children,... lives Banks modified the Shakespearean phrase ? ?the price for his pound of flesh, ” from The Merchant of Venice, further emphasizing the knowledge base of enslaved people Their awareness and intellect... before they were born? Did they know they would be separated from their mothers when they were ten years old? How did their dual incarceration shape their understanding of slavery? Tracing the