The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, black bodies matter
For a long time American historians have been steadily dismantling the moonlight-and-magnolias plantation myth of the Old South, which portrayed slavery as a paternalistic institution. Daina Ramey Berry’s revelatory new book, “The Price for Their Pound of Flesh,’’ reinforces this trend in the history of slavery. It not only emphasizes the horrific nature of the so-called peculiar institution but also its central place in the growth of early capitalism in the western world.
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Unlike some recent books on slavery and capitalism, however, Berry pays systematic attention to the ways in which the enslaved sought to counteract the ruthless economic exploitation of their bodies and labor. Focusing closely on how slaves were valued from conception to their death and beyond, she gets to the dark heart of southern slavery, the commodification of human beings.
According to Berry, the enslaved were assigned a “monetary value” even before birth and their bodies continued to yield profits for slaveholders after their demise. She traces the fluctuating value of slaves throughout their lives, based on “sex, age, skill, health, beauty, temperament, and reproductive ability.’’
Each chapter is devoted to distinct phases in a slave’s life cycle, as adolescents, young adults, in middle and old age, and begins with their average appraised values and sale prices. One can trace the trajectory of a slave’s worth rising until adulthood and dropping in old age. But the qualitative evidence is even more devastating. Berry reveals how slaves were often valued and rated in the manner that the USDA develops meat grades, with “choice” slaves rated by their appearance and ability to labor as “prime hands” and half or quarter hands.
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Like Craig Steven Wilder’s “Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities,’’ Berry reveals the sorry history of scientific racism and medical experimentation on black bodies in American academia. To this story she adds the skinning and collection of the body parts of famous slave rebels such as Nat Turner and the disrespect and lack of burial rights accorded to John Brown’s African-American comrades. A macabre postscript reveals the apparent discovery of Turner’s skull. Berry’s book is sure to take its place as one of the foremost histories of American slavery that will instruct students of the subject and a lay audience alike.
Read More: https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2017/02/09/the-price-for-their-pound-flesh-black-bodies-matter/JjitHYyETKYHBUbN2uKHwM/story.html
Valued like a side of meat from conception to their death and beyond.
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