The Price for Their Pound of Flesh by Daina Ramey Berry; Bernie Sanders (Foreword by)ISBN: 9780807067147
Publication Date: 2017-12-26
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 lives-including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death-in the early American domestic slave trade. Writing with sensitivity and depth, the author resurrects the voices of the enslaved and provides a rare window into enslaved peoples' experiences and thoughts, revealing how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives. 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.