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

Berry discusses “third-party rape” as an occurrence that challenges conventional definitions of rape that depend on a victimizer and a victim. How so?

Berry often asks a string of questions after introducing enslaved people about whom little is known, especially of their intellectual lives. Using one such instance from the text, answer the following: What sorts of reflections do you think Berry wants to provoke with these questions? How do these questions push for an understanding of the book’s topic that deviates from traditional scholarship on the subject matter?

Berry presents case studies of Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion and John Brown’s 1859 rebellion. How do these two case studies help Berry discuss her theory of soul value and its manifestations as well as ghost values?

The term “resurrectionist,” used to refer to African Americans who removed people from their graves as part of the trafficking in cadavers in the 19th century, suggests that, despite the disrespect involved in this grave robbing, there is a quality of being “resurrected” beyond being pulled up and out of the grave. What are the different ways this resurrection could be conceived from a scientific perspective? How might the communities harmed by this grave robbing think about this term?

Taking a cue from Berry’s methodology of attempting to imagine, in a historically informed context, the intellectual lives of enslaved people, what questions could you ask to help move into the intellectual lives of resurrectionists Chris Baker and Grandison Harris?

Berry stresses the ways that soul value manifests in rebellions by enslaved people. How else do you think soul value manifested for enslaved people? Are there any instances in the book where you see soul value manifesting differently than in rebellion?

Many of the source materials Berry critically relies on are not first-person accounts written by enslaved people. Would a first-person account be inherently more accurate than an account by another person? How does Berry navigate source materials that are not direct expressions of enslaved people?

While Berry focuses on the lives and thoughts of enslaved people, she also pays attention to and raises questions about the intellectual lives of enslavers. If soul value was felt as an enslaved child and articulated moving into adolescence, what about enslavers’ soul value? How might enslavers manifest soul value, and are there any examples offered? Is the manifestation of soul value for enslavers also a manifestation of resistance to slavery?