Welcome to book people. We love being able to put on author events like this wind chill do over 300 a year and its because you keep coming back and support your local independent book stores so do that as much as you can. Tonight we have cameras. This is going to be filmed by cspan so that is exciting. Because of that, when we take question and answers, after she speaks, if you will please raise your hand with a question and wait until one of us comes around with the microphone. Everybody has exciting questions but give us a second and well get to you so we can hear you and not have to repea e pete questions. Repeat questions. Feel free to take pictures but dont have any flash on. We love to see your pictures. We have all the social media, we love to see your perspective. If you would right now please silence your cell phone so we dont have any interruptions. A lot of people have already bought bought the book. We have sold out but getting more in. If you purchase the book before you bring it up here to get signed wed love for you to do that. A far as the signing line, well line up and go in around the stairs, over to my right, where the kid section is and go around the staircase so we depth block the stairs and then the line win inhere. Youve want your become personalized well come around with sticky notes to put your name there. It works. So ill get that done. And so tonight, we are very, very excited to have daina ramey berry, with her book the price for their pound of flesh. So welcome. [applause] thank you so much for coming out. Wanted to thank book people and staff here for allowing me to do this reading here and also thank all of you for taking your friday evening and coming and joining us. I just wanted to structure this evening by reading a few passages from the book, talk about the process, reading a few more. So about maybe 20 minutes of reading total and then id like to open up the floor for question and answer from yall. If you have questions about the book or about the writing process or anything like that. So theres some sections and youll understand about the stuck tour once i get through some of this but ill begin with part of the introduction. Many a man 50 years old had not seep and felt what i had before my 20th year. These are the wofford jordan h. Banks was born into slavery, sold three times, escaped twice, and ultimately reached freedom. His early years were pleasant compared to those as he matured into adulthood. In this narrative published in 1861 we learn about the value of the enslaved and the we i trader and medical doctors trafficked humanle chatle from birth to death and beyond. Banks lived on a virginia plantation with his parents and 16 siblings. His mother was a cook and his father a headman. The family wanes tact. As young child he played with his enslavers son, alexander, who was just a year older than he. By age five, banks realwide that he and alex were different when his play midban began beating him. Banks fought back because his father warned him that had he not respond he would suffer the continued beatings. Embracing the spirit, banks tracked how many whippings he owed alex and returned them blow for blow. Even in childhood, banks actions showed an understanding of his soul value separate from his enslaver. As a processed the distinction between him and his nemesis he had another epiphany. Alec attended and cool he was sent to, quote, scarecrows scare crow thursday field himself dives boyhood began in fields. He his historian chain caught it tis quantum leap into the world of work. As they age in slave youth and young adults learn and understood their place in the world. Banks pa maturation solidified his forward offering enslavement. Especially during three pivotal events of youth and early adulthood. First wag the sale of his two sisters, the second the nearly fatal beating of his mother, and the third this slow death of his enslaver. Of the latter, banks remarked, i saw in life and in death but he left me in chains. Enslaved adults no very well that the death of their enslavers meant the breaking up of their families, thus when banks was put on the Auction Block in 1857 he had a message for his potential buyers. He spotted the traders and tried to liberate himself and run away. I gave them evidence they had a man to deal with, he says. And i determined now to let them see that they would have to treat me how they would have to treat me as a prisoner. During interviews with potential buyers, banks remain defiant by not revealing any information about hit health or his skills because he knew that it would affect the monetary value of him. Desspilt the efforts he called being purchased that day for 1,200. Skip over to another section. Enslaved pipe like banks recalled and respond to their monetary value is a primary thrust of this book. In particular, i examine enslaved and occasionally free blacks values and the individuals who had a vested interest in their fiscal vitality throughout thunder their lives and upon their death and after death. Their position shows just how how being treated as a commodity touched cheer birth, life, and afterlife. Thanks narrative described his experience as a fugitive in a kentucky prison. And his thoughts about death. Jailed in kentucky in october of 18 57 he was incourse rated for stenmonths and two days. The jail was, quote, more like place of punishment than a place of detention. Authorities spent much time trying to distract answers from the prisoners. Banks founded ironic that they jailers believe that the worst they were treated, the more likely that should tell where we came from. He and business fellow captives shared a coat of secrecy, vowing to, quote north tell their real name or place of abode. If i did we might just as well turn and go back home ourselves and save the masters the expense. Prison life was a trap just like slavery. During his anytime jail physicians came to treat the sick, and enslavers came in response to notices and two writes came when convict of murder and other crimes, while. While subjugated to this dual captivity an enslaved prisoner banks had an encount with a man who was assigned to share his cell. They man was near death. Banks was interested in him expanded to know hills story. The doctor who treated this sick cell mate developed a rapport we him and discovered he suffered from tuberculosis and needed care. Bank thought the sick man made a mistake by trusting the physician. The doctor described as very kind, found out where the man came from, as well as his name and enslaver. Promised the sick man he would perform him and car for him. Shortly after the enslaver came to jail to claim his property. The doctor informed him the sick man would not survive the journey back to his homestead, quote, but his reply was he did not care about the value of his life. Would rather take him dead as a caution to other slaves than not give him at all. Witnessing this exchange, banks observed this was a case that showed with what a spirit of revenge the owners pursue the slaves who escape. But with the malicious gratification of getting here is a map offered more than the poor skeleton of the slaves worth but the malicious gratification of getting him home dead or alive was so sweet the would not receive the price of his pound of flesh. With that, the sick man and his enslaver left, leaving a deep impression on banks understanding of himself as human property. The enslaver refused to sell a nearly dead man to a physician who was willing to pay for his pound of flesh, above the market value, preferring to make an example of him and assert that dead or alive he had use for the mans enslaved body. What was the physician lazy interest in man . Had he developed an affinity for him or have an ulterior motive . Doctors just like planters found ways to use enslaved bodies at all stages of health. They, too, had a price tag for the dead. Enslaved people represented an exchangeable commodity in thieves traders, enslavers and doctors. By exploiting love we find that the financial value of human chatle touch already chattel affect this life. Banks midthe phrase the price of his pound of flesh emphasized the only base of enslaved people. Their wareness and intellect have been present in historical record but few scholars asked what kid the enslaved think. Much of the existing literature is about what enslaved people experience but if we attempt to add their engamed understanding this engaged understanding this narrative changes. Enslaved people had different ideas. Looking at their view 0 commodity shifts we way look at slavery and added to the understanding of social and cultural systems that continue to devalue black lived today such as mass incarceration, elite athletes and performers. Part of a new economic history of american slavery, this book uses voice athletes traded and along with valuation of their captivity. Enslaved people speak back through the words and actions. They reach out from the pages and invite the reader to hear the stories to see them as human beings, and to understand them as commodities, just as they did. Enslaved people of all ages recognize the multi layered values ascribed to the bodies bs and their values were selfactualized. We begin this journey before conception, because even enslaved people had a monetary value. So ill skip forward at little bit more. Enslaved people were valued any life and death but because they were people in property multiple sets of values were placed on the bodies and now eyell define the way ive talk about value because im looking at both internal external values. I talk about the values share. Value is used here as a noun, a verb, and an adjective. It is passive, active, subjective, and reflective. It is rooted in kind itch valuing and requires an assessment of feelings. The first value signifies their spirit or soul value. It defied monetization and spoke to their spirit and soul as human beings. Threatened selfworth of enslaved people. For some then meant that no monetary value could allow them to comply with slavery. Others weakened by enslavement negotiated certain levels of commodity commodityic indication survived their experience and others were socially dead. While the value of the soul should not be located on the while the value of the soul should not be locate on a spectrum, this book assesses the living soul value, seeking to uncover what the enslaved actually made of this situation. They considered conceptions of selfand spaces that denied it. By centering their own thoughts and feelings as a oelseed to the flesh and blood values ascribed to their bodies, i demand recognition of the selfactualized value of their souls. The second form of valuation signifyies external value that planteres, doctors, traders and others attributed to enslaved people bases on potential work output. The third value also an external assessment represents the market value in terms of the sales price for the human flesh that negotiated in a competitive market. It often marked the highest price pate for them as commodities. Exploring these three forms of valuation at once, soul, xrays market, allow appraisal. Tut enslaved people had a fourth external value. One constricted at and beyond death. Ghost value is my concern for the price tag affectioned to deceased enslaved bodies and postmortems or as a circulated through what kale the domestic cadaver trade. Once unenslaved person died, whether buried or not that it were begin a goes value. Some were sold or transports for sale to medical schools throughout the United States. Ghost values were also assigned for legal and insurance purposes as indicated by state sponsored executions, court disputes and personal insurance policies. In other words, since enslaved peoples recall uwere calculated regularly its ease to determine the value of their body as death the ghost value. And an individual enslave keir look at his or her most recent inventory, insurance policy or bill of sale to find out how much one of his or her enslaved laborers was worth. Ghost values are evident in the probate records of plantation owners who braised the value of their labors in the last wills and test. Legal disputes over high are contract that result in load of enslaved life gave courts the right to value deceased chattel in order to settle cases. While not all dead people were sold, many were, as were free blacks and poor and marlingized whites. The enslaved body was also traded and sold and used after death. I want to pause here just for a moment to say thats the framing of the value system im trying to explore and i did about ten years of research through archives through the United States, both in the north and the south to come up with these values and to try to find the spaces where enslaved people talked about how they felt and how they what they believed in and about other forms of strength. I want to just Say Something now and read a small section on where i introduce soul value, again, i tried to trace the growth over time and initially if youre young, they dont necessarily know about the soul value built they became aware of us, the chapter on adolescence, between the average is ten 11 and 123, and this is therron starting to recognize theres soul value. The years were terrifying. Not only were their bodies changing, but this was also a time when enslaved children experienced the separation that they had feared all of their lives. Daughters and sons were taken from their parents as the external value of their bodies increased. Market scenes from their childhood now made sense and hanted them for the rest of their lives. At this station they knew full well that others planned ownership of them and Sexual Assault came at any age. However their parents, if present, as well as other kin, reminded them of a value that enslavers and traders do not commodityie identify. Their spiritual value, soul values often escaped calculation and developed during the years. Enriched through an inner spiritual centering that facilitated survival, soul view agod were reinforce bid loved ones. Sometimes the internal value appeared as a spirit, a voice, a vision, a premonition, a sermon or an ancestor or a god. Imcame in public and private set examination occasionally described as a personal message from a higher being where a heaviness in their soul in the core of their beings. My soul began singing, one person rid i was today i was one of the elected children. This telling, the uplifting, this singing singing singing ofl of Things Unknown thats me enslaved feel free during captivity. Freedom over the southerly matured in pubberty pewberty. Soul values were no a are, a it lated in the early teens. Reading the social and economic circumstances allows to us make educated conclusions regarding enslaved and adolescent internalize it soul value. Unlie appraisal and sale view us thats came from within. Such values sapped and defined enslaved peoples characters. From the time i was a little boy, Edward Walker related. I grounded my feelings to know i had to work for another man. These feelings were not encouraged by my parent reports the other slaves. Instead, they came from within me and grew with the years. As he aged, walker had the fortunate opportunity to learn to read and write and develop a big taste for math. He could up numbers like, must reply and died quickly and was good at divide quickly and was good at fractions. These skills, is inherent learning and believe in an incalculable soul value led to his successful escape. So, a number of places in the book i talk about running away, and i want to clarify that because im not suggesting that everybody made toy freedom. These are really exceptional cases. Theyre cases that made it to newspapers, that made it to archives, cases that made it into published narrative in books. So i cant say theyre representative. But it is a space where i can enter in and understand how enslaved people were feeling so i dont want to suggest that those that escaped has successful escape attempts but a lot of the ones i have in the book were successful in making it to canada. Now two other sections i want to read before i open it up to question and answer. One is my favorite story of the entire manuscript. Its a story of this gentleman named isaac. And this is from chapter five, and its the last chapter i wrote although the book has six chapters, the one that literally dish think i was an fire. Just came. It flowed in three hours. Ive never done. I gave it to my ed for my parents and friends and i asked people to read and it they would say we dont have any changes. Im like, come on have to have changes soole there was something about this, maybe because i had already framed the entire manuscript. This is longer section but i want you to know isaacs story and then wrap up with two quotes and then talk about the book. Isaac is an elderly enslaved man himself soul value and burial. When 40 plusyearold isaac took the stand people marveled over his muscular and active physique. South carolina residents saw him as quote, the very man of sculpture would select for a model. Because of the curves of his muscles and i the great strength he possessed. His intellect matched his physique and he was respected as much as unenslaved man could be in the institution that fought to destroy the spirit of such an individual. But isaac was different. He was richly gifted and with a clear headness and nobleness of will. His character garnered respect from enslaved and the free. Isaac was a leader. Like nat turner, danger field numberby, John Copeland and john brown hi tried to overturn the system of slavery decades earlier. When isaac took the stand he was not on the Auction Block. He was on the witness stand on trial for his life. Here isaac faced a jury not of heir peers but an elite group of enslavers. Men who questioned him about planning to lead a rebellion on july 4, 1816. That it aron yankee not an ironic dade. Dade. Eye sang had a sole value and this internal selfconstructed value manifest evidence itself as confidence, resolve, and belief in freedom. Those around him may not have rick nice it it because they were distracted by the value of his brawn. We learn of eye sick through the enemy rife witness to his trial. So this is just an example of my sours. The memory of a witness to his trial and executioner, a unanimous named john vaughn. Who shared the narrative. A kentucky newspapered for vaughn grew up in South Carolina and remembers id eye sass as hero. After being interrogated be conspiracy he and his cam rad planned for six months, eye sass walk found guilty along with 13 others and scheduled to hang as punish vaughn described isaac as head man who gained respect from his enslaver and he local minister before the Discovery Life his plan to rebel help was respectfully his community, respected that even, quote, the severest slave patrol would take his word and let million if he was ever caught without a written pass. When he planned the revolt veteran mar shred at hill physical prowess. His religious and the moral enemy strong that gave him pour over those around him. During the trial, isaac tried to take the blame and spire the lives his comrade improvement. I