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

Chapter 3 examines the valuation and the experience of this valuation during puberty and young adulthood (defined by Berry as ages 11 to 21).

This chapter opens with Joseph, a 17-year-old being sold with 148 other people in New Orleans right before the Civil War. There is no direct testimony available from Joseph, however, whose sale was witnessed and later described in writing by an unnamed abolitionist. Joseph’s enslaver decided to “retire” to pursue a political career, selling all his enslaved people. Berry asks various questions about Joseph’s experience and thoughts while being auctioned, such as whether he was “prepared” and whether the complimentary description of him by the auctioneer might “comfort him, uplift him, or add to the trauma of being sold” (60).

Puberty was “terrifying” for enslaved people. This was the stage of life when enslaved children were often sold away from their parents. Berry contends that it is during this stage that soul values “often escaped calculation and developed” (61). Soul values are felt in childhood but not fully developed until adolescence. While puberty is the period of development of soul values, it is also the period of sexual development, ostensibly making enslaved people more subject to sexual violations and rape.