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

In life and in death, slaves were commodities. Their monetary value was assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh explores the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives, including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, senior years, and death. Covering the full “life cycle,” historian Daina Ramey Berry shows the lengths to which enslavers would go to maximize profits and protect their investments and how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives.