The Value of the Enslaved

Daina Ramey Berry is an associate professor of history and African and African Diaspora Studies, at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building Of A Nation.

In this interview we discuss how the enslaved were bought and sold, priced, evaluated, marketed, insured, bankrolled, and treated like property or livestock.

Dr. Berry also shows that the enslaved resisted this commodification by internalizing what Professor Berry calls “soul value.”

Credits:

Host: John Shuck

“Redemption Song”, Bob Marley, Uprising, Island/Tuff Gong, 1980


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