Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Price for Their Pound of Flesh
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.drdainarameyberry.com/
CITY: Austin
STATE: TX
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.drdainarameyberry.com/about * https://www.linkedin.com/in/dainaberry/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2006092914
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2006092914
HEADING: Berry, Daina Ramey
000 00627cz a2200169n 450
001 7041605
005 20070915222603.0
008 061207n| acannaabn |a aaa
010 __ |a n 2006092914 |z no2004019842
035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca07274397
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |d OkU |d DLC
100 1_ |a Berry, Daina Ramey
400 1_ |w nne |a Ramey, Daina L.
670 __ |a Berry, Daina Ramey. Swing the sickle for the harvest is ripe, 2007: |b ECIP t.p. (Daina Ramey Berry)
670 __ |a Look back, 2002: |b cover (Daina L. Ramey)
670 __ |a E-mail from author, Sept. 7, 2007: |b (Daina L. Ramey is maiden name; prefers to use Berry now)
953 __ |a lk52 |b ym83
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:University of California, Los Angeles, B.A, M.A., Ph.D., 1998.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, editor, historian, and educator. University of Texas at Austin, associate professor of history and African American diaspora studies. Previously taught at Michigan State University, East Lansing, and Arizona State University, Tempe. Has appeared on radio and television on various networks, including National Public Radio (NPR), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), C-SPAN, and the History Channel; appeared on season finale of Who Do You Think You Are?, NBC, 2010; appeared on the second episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, PBS, 2013.
MEMBER:Organization of American Historians (distinguished lecturer, 2011-).
AWARDS:Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Duke University, 2003-2004; Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, National Humanities Center, 2007-08. Recipient of research grants, including grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Association of University Women.
WRITINGS
Editor of the” Gender and Slavery” book series, University of Georgia Press.
SIDELIGHTS
Historian Daina Ramey Berry specializes in African American history and African American diaspora. Her research focuses on slavery in the United States, and she serves as editor of the University of George Press “Gender and Slavery” book series. In her first book, “Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe”: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia, Berry examines the family, economic, and work experiences of slaves. comparing the nineteenth-century experiences of Georgia slaves in the distinct upcountry and lowland regions.
Slavery and Freedom in Savannah
Berry is coeditor of with Leslie Harris of Slavery and Freedom in Savannah. The volume features essays on slavery, emancipation, and black life in the city, ranging in time from Savannah’s founding in 1733 to the early twentieth century. Savannah was both a port of entry for slaves and an exporting center for a wide variety goods produced by slave labor. Contributors detail how Savannah was shaped by slavery, from its infrastructure and legal system to its economy.
In an article in the Not Even Past Web site, Berry and Harris noted: “Savannah is a prime location for understanding the centrality of slavery and race to the national and world economy, and the importance of the city to southern landscapes and the southern economy.” The authors went on to point out that, contrary to the assertion by some historians that cities in general were not suited to slavery, urban areas were an integral part of slave economy in North America and slave labor was adapted for city life. Writing in the Georgia Library Quarterly, LaTiffany D. Davis remarked: Slavery and Freedom in Savannah “provides an unbiased, complete recount of events; mid-chapter sidebars are informative and provide further information on topics and people covered in every chapter.”
Enslaved Women in America
Berry is the editor in chief of Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia. The reference book examines the daily lives of enslaved women in the United States and depicts them as central figures in the history of U.S. slavery. The essays and primary source documents cover the period from colonial times on through to emancipation. The reference book is the first of its kind to focus on women who were slaves.
Enslaved Women in America contains over 100 entries that cover topics such as culture, family, labor, health, resistance, and violence. Also included are short biographies of African American women who have been largely forgotten in the history books, such as Harriet Robinson Scott, wife of Dred Scott, an enslaved man who successfully sued for his freedom. In an article for the Not Even Past Web site, Berry pointed out that women both worked in the fields and practiced crafts such as sewing and cooking. “These types of non-agricultural labor were essential to plantation operations and demanded a great deal of skill and time,” she explained, adding: “Thus, as skilled and hence valued laborers, some enslaved women also enjoyed many of the privileges and prerogatives afforded to some male skilled workers.”
Enslaved Women in America “provides valuable details about the often overlooked lives of enslaved black women,” wrote Lesley Farmer i Booklist. “Although other books cover this issue, the encyclopedia approach is unique.” Commenting on the various entries, Library Journal contributor Rosanne M. Cordell remarked: “These absorbing pieces are also well written and approachable for a general adult audience and undergraduates through faculty.”
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh
In The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave in the Building of a Nation, Berry examines slaves as commodities. Following slaves from birth to death in early America, Berry shows how slaveholders applied monetary value to their slaves. According to Berry, numerous factors played a role in assigning this value, including age and gender, overall health, and the vicissitudes of the slave market. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that “surprisingly little scholarship” exists in this area of slave studies.
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh explores the lengths to which slaveholders went to protect their slaves as investments and maximize profits. In general, writes Berry, the value of slaves increased as they grew from infancy into adults and then began to decline once they became elderly. However, even in death slaves could bring value to their owners, who often sold their bodies to medical schools for study. Berry also delves into how slaves resisted their assignment by white society as commodities. According to Berry, they did this primarily through their spiritual beliefs in the value of the soul. Berry draws from a wide range of sources for her examination of slaves as commodities, including slave-trading records, cemetery records, and life insurance policies.
“Berry not only evokes slave testimony but also that of abolitionists, who witnessed and reported on the horrors of slavery,” wrote Boston Globe correspondent Manisha Sinha, who went on to observe: “Berry successfully mines the literature to recover the experience and worldviews of the enslaved.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor called The Price for Their Pound of Flesh “a well-researched, effectively presented piece of scholarship that forthrightly confronts slavery’s brute essence.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 15, 2012, Lesley Farmer, review of Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia, p. 48; May 15, 2013, Rebecca Vnuk, “Outstanding Reference Sources: The 2013 List of Titles,” p. 42.
Georgia Library Quarterly, summer, 2017, LaTiffany D. Davis, review of Slavery and Freedom in Savannah.
Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2016, review of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.
Library Journal, July 1, 2012, Rosanne M. Cordell, review of Enslaved Women in America, p. 102; October 15, 2016, Kate Stewart, review of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, p. 102.
Publishers Weekly, December 5, 2016, review of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, p. 62.
ONLINE
Alcalde Online, https://alcalde.texasexes.org/ (July 29, 2016), Alex Samuels, “UT Historian Daina Ramey Berry on ‘Roots.'”
Boston Globe Online, https://www.bostonglobe.com/ (Februry 10, 2017), Manisha Sinha, review of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.
Daina Berry Ramey Web site, http://www.drdainarameyberry.com (August 27, 2017).
Not Even Past, http://notevenpast.org/ (October 1, 2014), Lesely M. Harris and Daina Ramey Berry, “Slavery and Freedom in Savannah”; (August 27, 2017), Daina Berry Raimy, “Daina Ramey Berry on Slavery, Work and Sexuality.”
NPR: National Public Radio Web site, https://sources.npr.org/ (August 27, 2017), brief author profile.
University of Texas College of Liberal Arts Web site, https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/ (August 27, 2017), faculty profile.
VITAE
Daina [pronounced D-EYE-NAH] Ramey Berry is an Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies and the Oliver H. Radkey Regents Fellow in History at the University of Texas at Austin. Before joining the faculty at UT Austin, she taught at Michigan State and Arizona State Universities. She completed her BA, MA, and PhD in History, African American Studies, and US History at UCLA. Dr. Berry is a specialist in the history of gender and slavery in the United States with a particular emphasis on the social and economic history of the nineteenth century.
former-slaves-at-convention
Her first book, Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia (University of Illinois Press, 2007), examined slave labor, family, and community in two distinct regions. She is the editor-in-chief of Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio,2012), which was awarded one of the 2013 Outstanding Reference Sources by the American Library Association. In 2014, Professor Berry published Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (University of Georgia Press, 2014), edited with Leslie Harris (Northwestern University). This study of urban slavery in the Deep South had an accompanying exhibit under the same name hosted by Telfair Museums, sponsored in part by a major grant from the Institute for Museums and Library Services. The book and exhibit received awards from the American Association for State and Local History and the Georgia Archives. Berry and Harris have a second edited volume tentatively titled Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas currently under review.
Dr. Daina Ramey Berry and Alfre Woodard
In addition to her scholarly writing and editing, Dr. Berry has appeared on several syndicated radio and television shows including NPR, NBC, PBS, C-SPAN, and the History Channel. In 2010 she was on the season finale of “Who Do You Think You Are?” (NBC) where she reconstructed the genealogy of director, actor, and producer Spike Lee. In 2013 she appeared with Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Harvard University) on Episode Two of “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (PBS). She is an advocate for public history and served as one of the technical advisors for the remake of the Roots mini-series, which aired in the summer of 2016. Professor Berry's research has been supported by: the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Association of University Women, the Ford Foundation, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. She is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. In January 2017, Beacon Press published Berry’s second single-authored book: The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from the Womb to the Grave, in the Building of a Nation. That same year, Dr. Berry appeared in another episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" (TLC) where she helped uncover the genealogy of Motown legend Smokey Robinson.
Dr. Daina Ramey Berry and Smokey Robinson
During the spring, summer, and fall of 2017 Dr. Berry will be travelling widely to promote her new book. Check out the various events listed on the website to see if she'll be in a city near you.
Daina Ramey Berry
Associate Professor — Ph.D., 1998, United States History, University of California, Los Angeles
Daina Ramey Berry
Contact
E-mail: drb@austin.utexas.edu
Phone: 512-471-3261
Office: GAR 1.104
Office Hours: Spring 2017: T 2:30-4:30 p.m.
Campus Mail Code: B7000
Biography
Daina Ramey Berry [pronounced D-EYE-NAH or Dinah] is an Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies and the Oliver H. Radkey Fellow in American History at the University of Texas at Austin. She the author of Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia (Illinois, 2007). She is also an award-winning editor of Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio, 2012) and Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (UGA, 2014). In addition to her written and editorial work, Berry has appeared on several syndicated radio and television shows including Who Do You Think You Are?, The Tavis Smiley Show, C-SPAN’s Book TV, and NPR’s The Takeaway. She is an advocate for public history and served as one of the technical advisors for the remake of Roots the mini-series (A+E and History, 2016). Her scholarship has been supported by: the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Association of University Women, the Ford Foundation, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Her work has been, featured in The New York Times and her recent book, The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to the Grave, in the Building of a Nation (Beacon Press) received favorable reviews in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post as well as Essence, Crisis, and Vibe Magazines.
Recent Publications
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved From Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation (Beacon Press, 2016)
Courses taught
Gender and Slavery in the United States, The Domestic Slave Trade, Antebellum Slavery
Awards, Honors
Presented key to the City of Cambridge, MA by the Honorable E. Denise Simmons, Mayor, 2017
Organization of American Historians, Distinguished Lecturer, 2011-present
National Chair, Membership, Southern Historical Association, 2015-2016
Humanities Media Grant, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, 2015-2016
Center for Women’s & Gender Studies, Faculty Development Program, University of Texas at Austin, 2013-2014
National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellow, 2014
Institute for Historical Studies Fellow, University of Texas, 2012-2013
American Council of Learned Societies, Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship, National Humanities Center, 2007-2008
Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award, Michigan State University, 2004-2005
Nationally Selected “2004 Emerging Scholar,” Black Issues in Higher Education, (1/15/04 Issue)
Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Duke University (History), 2003-2004
American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2000-2001
Daina Ramey Berry on Slavery, Work and Sexuality
American slavery was a dynamic institution. And though slavery was mainly a system of labor, those who toiled in the fields and catered to the most private needs and desires of slaveholders were more than just workers. Although utterly obvious, it must be reiterated that the enslaved were indeed people. In fact, the nature and diversity of the institution of slavery ensured that bondpeople would experience enslavement quite differently. Aiming to highlight the variety of conditions that affected a bondperson’s life as a laborer, Swing the Sickle examines the workaday and interior lives of the enslaved in two plantation communities in Georgia—Glynn County in the lowcountry and Wilkes in the piedmont east of Athens.
berry bookcover
My study of antebellum Georgia forces us to reconsider notions of “skilled” and “unskilled labor,” to see the impact of domestic violence on slave families, the trauma of separations and sales, episodes of “forced breeding” and the significance of religion and an informal economy amongst the enslaved. Swing the Sickle provides an incisive look into the plantation lives of enslaved women and men.
Berry4
Historians have often seen the enslaved workforce as divided into two separate camps: the skilled laborers and the unskilled. This view segregates domestics and craftsmen from field hands.. “Skilled laborer” became loose shorthand for bondmen and “unskilled labor” was nothing more than a proxy for female, or “woman’s work.” But skilled labor was often women’s work, especially if we look at skilled labor as nothing more than one’s ability to do something well. Field labor, and especially intricate rice cultivation, was a form of skilled labor that crossed gendered lines. Women swung the sickle, mastered the hoe and plow, and operated the mechanical cotton gin, all tasks that required practice and dedication over time not restricted to a particular biological sex. Some readers are surprised to learn that bondwomen performed many of these backbreaking field tasks at rates that numerically exceeded their male counterparts. Women also engaged in crafts like sewing, cooking, and even nursing. These types of non-agricultural labor were essential to plantation operations and demanded a great deal of skill and time from bondwomen. Thus, as skilled and hence valued laborers, some enslaved women also enjoyed many of the privileges and prerogatives afforded to some male skilled workers. Molly, for example, though not a field hand, was a valued servant to the King family and therefore, gained the same geographic mobility through her frequent travels as other trusted, skilled bondmen on the same plantation. If we expand our definition of skilled laborer to include the various skilled tasks that women performed, many bondwomen fall into that category.
Berry3
Aside from their lives as laborers, bondpeople in Wilkes and Glynn counties successfully attempted to forge fuller and more meaningful existences outside and around the dehumanizing institution of slavery. They built families and churches, and reveled in each other’s company during holiday feasts, corn shuckings, and during late night “working socials” and quilting parties. These social activities gave both bondmen and women an unexpected degree of automony.
Berry2
Other experiences that fall outside the realm of work were intended to rob the enslaved of all autonomy and agency. Men and women were both subject to unwanted, coerced sexual activity. Sexual exploitation affected both bondmen and bondwomen. While it is well-known that enslaved women suffered immeasurable cruelties and gross sexual violations at the hands of slaveholders and other male agents of power within plantation communities, little thought has been given to enslaved men’s experiences with forced breeding. Bondmen were raped too. They were sometimes coerced into sexual relations with partners other than their wives or the women they courted, all for the slaveholder’s eventual increase in slave labor. That these men were denied a fundamental right to not only choose mates but to dictate the terms of their intimate relations with those mates was yet another debasing act of slavery.
DAINA RAMEY BERRY
This week’s #NPRSource, Daina Ramey Berry, Ph.D., is an expert in African American History. She is an Associate Professor of History and African American Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on slavery in the United States. Berry is a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and the editor of the Gender and Slavery book series at the University of Georgia Press. She is working on publishing her book on a comprehensive study of the prices of the enslaved in the United States. She works in Austin, Texas.
Her research has been funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Association of University Women.
daina-ramey-berry-photo16
Associate Professor of History and African American Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin
Location: Austin, Texas
Contact Information:
UT Historian Daina Ramey Berry on ‘Roots’
BY ALEX SAMUELS IN 40 ACRES ON JULY 29, 2016 AT 1:49 PM | NO COMMENTS
Photo provided by A&E Networks.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY A&E NETWORKS.
UT historian Daina Ramey Berry, an expert on 19th century American slave culture, recently served as a historical consultant and technical adviser for A&E HISTORY’s re-imagining of Roots. She traveled to New Orleans to work on the show’s set, arriving at 4 a.m. each day. Then she worked 12-15 hour days, and in her scant free time she finalized spring semester grades for her UT students.
Berry says arriving on set at the same time enslaved people would be going to the fields was a powerful experience, one she wishes she could bring to her students on the Forty Acres.
Since airing in May, Roots has been nominated for seven Emmy awards. Berry spoke with the Alcalde about her experiences working with the cast and crew, how she met Australian film director Phillip Noyce, and the cultural significance of rebooting the beloved 1977 miniseries.
Alcalde: What is your research primarily focused on?
Daina Berry: Most of my research is on the history of slavery in the United States. In particular, I do work on gender slavery and the history of slavery in capitalism. I just finished a book on how enslaved people were priced, how they were auctioned off and sold, and how enslaved people responded to being treated as a commodity.
How does your research connect with the work you did with Roots?
My work connects directly because I’ve done more than 20 years of teaching and 10-15 years of research. I’ve written books, articles, and encyclopedias on the issue of slavery and Roots wanted me to come and make sure that what they were doing on set and in the script was historically accurate.
So how did you get involved with Roots?
I believe it was a total blessing. I was contacted by their public relations person, and they were familiar with me because of my encyclopedia, Enslaved Women in America. They asked me if I was willing to serve on the technical side of the show. So, while I was working on the show, I read drafts of the script, spoke with whomever had questions about anything related to slavery, and they invited me come work on set when they were filming the slavery scenes. That was really helpful because there were small nuances where I could say, “This really would not have been accurate.”
Did you work directly with any of the cast members?
Definitely. I worked with Malachi Kirby, who played Kunta Kinte, all the cast members who were there the days they filmed the whipping and plantation scenes, and I also worked with some of the extras. There were also some children there on set. Luckily, they were there with their parents, but the kids were trying to understand slavery and the history of slavery.
The director I worked with was Phillip Noyce and he was great. He was very intense, but in a good way. When I got to set the first day, he wanted me to sit in the director’s tent right next to him.
What was your favorite part about working on Roots?
It was a phenomenal team. I was extremely impressed with everybody involved in this production and that they really wanted to get this story right. I enjoyed working with Roots because everybody there really appreciated history, and that to me is priceless.
Was there anything that surprised you?
I was really taken aback by the whipping. I have never heard—in real life—the sound of a whip and have never been literally right next to someone being whipped. The first night I was there, one of the actors who had to use the whip was practicing. You could feel the power in the whip just by the sound of it, and it sent chills down my spine. I could not help by think about all the backs that sound landed on for over 200 years.
From a cultural standpoint, why do you think it’s important for Roots to be shown again?
The original Roots first aired in 1977, and the scholarship of slavery and the history since then has exploded. Since then, there have been hundreds and thousands of books that have been published on slavery so we know way more about the institution of slavery and the cultural lives about enslaved people and their owners. The crew that I worked with wanted to tell a version of Roots in 2016 that incorporated all this new research. They could have easily upgraded the show to make it look a bit more modern, but they put in such a great amount of work into each detail, which allowed us to have a current version of what enslavement was like for some years and years ago. To me, that is a huge contribution to our understanding of race and culture in America.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of
the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the
Building of a Nation
Publishers Weekly.
263.50 (Dec. 5, 2016): p62.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation
Daina Ramey Berry. Beacon, $27.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8070-4762-0
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In this "financial recapitulation of black bodies and souls," Berry, associate professor of history and African and
African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, examines how slaveholders ascribed pecuniary worth to
women, men, and children. Slavery took many forms across the antebellum U.S., but all enslaved people experienced
their reduction to the status of chattel, bought and sold at their owner's will. Yet surprisingly little scholarship has
examined the monetary value of these individuals, whose worth increased from infancy through adolescence, peaking
at the height of their productive and reproductive capacities, and declining steadily to the point where the elderly were
considered nearly valueless. Upon their deaths, they might regain some financial significance, as the bodies of many
were sold to medical schools for purposes of dissection. Crucially, Berry also delves into the annals of slave
communities to explore the emotional strategies by which the enslaved resisted their reduction to an "exchangeable
commodity," centering their lives on spiritual beliefs that defined the soul, rather than the body, as the true location of
their individuality. Berry's groundbreaking work in the historiography of American slavery deserves a wide readership
beyond academia. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation."
Publishers Weekly, 5 Dec. 2016, p. 62. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475224898&it=r&asid=e68d02c3fe189d441d9f9e8059f71bfc.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475224898
---
8/13/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1502682322664 2/7
Berry, Daina Ramey: THE PRICE FOR THEIR
POUND OF FLESH
Kirkus Reviews.
(Nov. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Berry, Daina Ramey THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH Beacon (Adult Nonfiction) $26.95 1, 24 ISBN:
978-0-8070-4762-0
What was the assigned value, the price tag, placed on the bodies of the enslaved?In this sharp, affecting study, Berry
(History and African and African Diaspora Studies/Univ. of Texas; Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe: Gender
and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia, 2007, etc.) reminds us of the cold calculus at the intersection of slavery and
capitalism. Assessed at each stage of their lives, in the womb and even after death, the sale price of the enslaved
depended upon a number of variables: the needs, desires, and location of the buyer and the particular skills, perceived
attractiveness, and sex of the bought. Beginning each of her chapters with an auction and an inventory of the economic
imperatives at work, the author movingly vivifies this brutal commodification of the men, women, and children in
bondage with the horrid details attending their sale: the male bodies "greased up and groomed for the auction block,"
the forced breeding that accounted for many family separations, the incomprehension of children sold away, the fivepoint
scale (Berry compares it to U.S. Department of Agriculture meat grades) used to rate the health and utility of the
enslaved, and the role of "breeding wenches" in populating the workforce. In addition, the author explores the
flourishing cadaver trade, in which black bodies still had a post-mortem value; remarks on the emerging field of
gynecology, built on research conducted on enslaved women's bodies; and touches on the matters of insurance,
coroners' inquiries, and autopsies, all part of the grim calculation. Most movingly, Berry discusses what she calls "soul
value," the deeply personal, spiritual value the enslaved assigned to themselves. From this place came the strength that
inspired Ponto to boldly correct his auctioneer, Isaac to cheat the hangman by jumping from the gallows to meet death
on his own terms, Madeline to drown herself rather than suffer repeated rape, and Celia to club her rapist to death. A
well-researched, effectively presented piece of scholarship that forthrightly confronts slavery's brute essence.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Berry, Daina Ramey: THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Nov. 2016. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468388924&it=r&asid=8973e15c0d3384aa9172164ebecd1f98.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468388924
---
8/13/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1502682322664 3/7
Berry, Daina Ramey. The Price for Their Pound
of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb
to Grave in the Building of a Nation
Kate Stewart
Library Journal.
141.17 (Oct. 15, 2016): p102.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Berry, Daina Ramey. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave in the
Building of a Nation. Beacon. Jan. 2017.256p. illus. notes, index. ISBN 9780807047620. $26.95; ebk. ISBN
9780807047637. SOC SCI
Debut author Berry (history, African diaspora studies, Univ. of Texas, Austin) focuses primarily on the sale price and
appraised value of enslaved people in the United States in the early 19thcentury. Utilizing the statistics compiled by
Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman for their book Time on the Cross: The Economics of American
Slavery, Berry adds her own data and finds new evidence within the records of life insurance companies. In addition,
she analyzes "soul value," or enslaved people's rejection of the capitalization of their bodies. The first chapters are
tightly focused on the values of enslaved children, young adults, and women of reproductive age. But Berry's section
on the values of adults veers off-topic with long discussions of the rebellions of Nat Turner and John Brown. The
author concludes with an examination of how medical schools paid for and stole enslaved dead bodies for research,
which she terms "ghost value." VERDICT Although highly readable and addressing the most heartbreaking and starkly
gruesome aspects of slavery, this book doesn't add much new information to the topic. Recommended for serious
scholars of slavery and African American history.--Kate Stewart, American Folklife Ctr., Washington, DC
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Stewart, Kate. "Berry, Daina Ramey. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to
Grave in the Building of a Nation." Library Journal, 15 Oct. 2016, p. 102. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466413045&it=r&asid=da8556ce926431d39fac39cd5bde3c83.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466413045
---
8/13/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1502682322664 4/7
Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia
Lesley Farmer
Booklist.
109.2 (Sept. 15, 2012): p48.
COPYRIGHT 2012 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia. Ed. by Daina Ramey Berry and Deleso A. Alford. 2012.381 p. illus.
Greenwood, $89 (9780313349089). 973.
Slavery constitutes a central motif in U.S. history. Within that construct, women's roles have largely been marginalized
except for a handful of critical personalities such as Phillis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet
Tubman. This encyclopedia focuses on the conditions of enslaved African and African American women in America,
from the colonial days until emancipation. Editors Berry and Alford are associate professors who have written
extensively about gender issues. More than 70 authors, mainly associated with U.S. academia, contributed to the
volume.
A short preface introduces the work, followed by a five-page chronology of enslaved women in America. One hundred
entries comprise the book's main section, arranged alphabetically. The one- to six-page signed entries detail various
issues, ending with cross-references and suggested reading. The editors also provide a topical list of entries: Africa and
the diaspora, biographies, daily life, gender and sexuality, geographical areas, resistance, rights, social and cultural
practices, time periods, and work. A few black-and-white images dot the entries. Appendixes include a historical
population census, a selected bibliography, a contributor list, and an index. The writing is clear, accessible, and
somewhat feminist in tone.
This encyclopedia provides valuable details about the often overlooked lives of enslaved black women before the
American emancipation. Although other books cover this issue, the encyclopedia approach is unique. The only
reservation is the title itself; a title such as Enslaved Black Women in America more accurately reflects the content. As
long as readers realize the book's perspective, they can benefit from the entries.--Lesley Farmer
Farmer, Lesley
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Farmer, Lesley. "Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia." Booklist, 15 Sept. 2012, p. 48. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA304307064&it=r&asid=ee234f3064f45d1d2b42e7de58caacdf.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A304307064
---
8/13/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1502682322664 5/7
Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia
Rosanne M. Cordell
Library Journal.
137.12 (July 1, 2012): p102.
COPYRIGHT 2012 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia. Greenwood. 2012. 400p. ed. by Daina Ramey Berry & Deleso A.
Alford, photogs. bibliog. ISBN 9780313349089. $89. Online: ABC-CLIO eBook Collection REF
Berry (history, Univ. of Texas, Austin; Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum
Georgia) and Alford's (law, Florida A&M Univ.) concise volume updates readers on research about enslaved women.
Berry's introduction serves as a short explanation of this area of research, which has lagged behind investigations of the
history of male bondmen. Alphabetical and topical lists of entries open the volume. Each of the more than 100 entries,
most of which are one to five pages in length, includes See also references and a suggested reading list. All aspects of
the daily life of bondwomen are covered, and there are also profiles of notable and lesser-known slaves. Also included
are black-and-white photos and primary-source documents, a detailed "Chronology of Enslaved Women in America,"
an appendix covering the "Population of Enslaved Women 1750-1860," and a selected bibliography of more than 340
print and web sources. VERDICT Ranging in topic from branding to child care and from folk medicine to hiring out,
these absorbing pieces are also well written and approachable for a general adult audience and undergraduates through
faculty. All public and academic libraries supporting American history, African American studies, or women's studies
programs should purchase this work.--Rosanne M. Cordell, Indiana Univ., South Bend
Cordell, Rosanne M.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Cordell, Rosanne M. "Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia." Library Journal, 1 July 2012, p. 102. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA323858270&it=r&asid=3943dc2a70e81025a3982cbab191f2b7.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A323858270
---
8/13/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1502682322664 6/7
Outstanding reference sources: the 2013 list of
titles
Rebecca Vnuk
Booklist.
109.18 (May 15, 2013): p42.
COPYRIGHT 2013 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
This year's list was compiled by the Outstanding Reference Sources Committee, Collection Development and
Evaluation Section, RUSA. The committee was established in 1958 to recommend the best reference publications of
the year for small and medium-sized libraries. The annotations below come from the Booklist reviews, where
available.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Biotechnology: In Context. Ed. by Brenda Wilmoth Lerner and K. Lee Lerner. 2012. 1,000p. illus. Gale/Cengage, $270
(9781414490823). In a simple, engaging style, this work enables the older young adult researcher to clearly understand
how complex issues related to this branch of science have impacted--and continue to impact--society agriculturally,
medically, politically, and culturally.
Dictionary of African Biography. 6v. Ed. by Emmanuel K. Akyeampong and Henry Louis Gates Jr. 2011. 3,300p. illus.
Oxford, $995 (9780195382075).
Top of the Booklist Editor's Choice (Reference) list for 2012, this huge undertaking contains more than 2,100 entries
covering all periods of African history, from the first humans through the twenty-first century, and all regions of the
continent. Subjects include pharaohs, entertainers, politicians, activists, authors, and individuals who have contributed
to African life and history.
Encyclopedia of Housing. 2d ed. 2v. Ed. by Andrew T. Carswell. 2012. 928p. illus. SAGE, $375 (9781412989572).
Extensively updated since the first edition appeared, in 1998, the second edition of this work approaches shelter from
the perspectives ot design, human ecology, environmental science, economics, and sociology, and it includes as many
tables of economic data relating to housing as photographs or floor plans.
Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology. 3v. Ed. by Daniel J. Christie. 2011.1,376p. Wiley-Blackwell, $595
(9781405196444).
A state-of-the-art resource featuring almost 300 entries--contributed by leading inter national scholars--that examine
the psychological dimensions of peace and conflict studies.
Encyclopedia of Trauma: An Interdisciplinary Guide. Ed. by Charles R. Figley. 2012. 904p. SAGE, $375
(9781412978798).
An excellent example of a reference source that takes a topic and examines it from all angles rather than a particular
discipline, the focus of the discussion is trauma. Essential for academic libraries supporting programs in psychology,
medicine, or social work.
Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia. Ed. by Daina Ramey Berry and Deleso A. Alford. 2012. 381p. illus.
Greenwood, $89 (9780313349089).
This encyclopedia provides valuable details about the often overlooked lives of enslaved black women before the
American emancipation. Although other books cover this issue, the encyclopedia approach is unique.
8/13/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1502682322664 7/7
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Japanese Philosophy: A Source Book. Ed. by James W. Heisig. 2011. 1,360p. University of Hawaii, $70
(9780824835521).
Leading scholars in the field have translated selections from the writings of more than 100 philosophical thinkers from
all eras and schools of thought, many of them available in English for the first time.
Literature of War. 3v. Ed. by Thomas Riggs. 2012. 1,200p. illus. Gale, hardcover, $400 (9781558628427).
One of the specialized reference sources available today, this set covers the historical, cultural, and social context of a
variety of literary works over time dealing with the subject of war.
Presidents and Black America: A Documentary History. By Stephen A. Jones and Eric Freedman. 2011. 504p. illus.
CQ Press, $142 (9781608710089).
This work features a mixture of primary source material with introductory essays outlining each president's views on
blacks in America.
Typography Referenced: A Comprehensive Visual Guide to the Language, History, and Practice of Typography. Ed. by
Allan Haley. 2012. 400p. illus. Rockport, $50 (9781592537020).
A definitive source of typographic information, documenting and chronicling the full scope or essential typographic
knowledge and design from the beginnings of movable type to the present.
Women in American Politics. History and Milestones. 2v. By Doris Weatherford. 2012. 500p. CQ Press, $225
(9781608710072).
Readers and researchers have reason to applaud this unique and comprehensive two-volume reference that frames the
events, situations, issues, and achievements as well as the players that comprise and define women in American
politics. Comprehensive, easy to use, and clearly written.
Vnuk, Rebecca
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Vnuk, Rebecca. "Outstanding reference sources: the 2013 list of titles." Booklist, 15 May 2013, p. 42+. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA333064592&it=r&asid=94ecad615c25fe5a3704caee983a75e5.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A333064592
In ‘The Price for Their Pound of Flesh,’ black bodies matter
E-MAIL
Share via e-mail
TO
Separate multiple addresses with a comma
ADD A MESSAGE
80 character limit
YOUR E-MAIL
SEND
GOOGLE+
LINKEDIN
COMMENTS
PRINT
GETTY IMAGES
By Manisha Sinha GLOBE CORRESPONDENT FEBRUARY 10, 2017
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.
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.
Get The Weekender in your inbox:
The Globe's top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond.
Enter email address
Sign Up
The author of a previous book on gender and slavery in antebellum Georgia, Berry details, for instance, how enslaved women were categorized as “breeders,” prized for their reproductive abilities; skilled laborers; or as “fancies,” who were “recognized for their beauty’’ and “sometimes exploited for sex.’’
The data that Berry culls from the records of the Southern Mutual Life Insurance Co. on slave policies and patterns of valuation of the labor force in the Crane Brake Plantation in Mississippi reinforces her arguments. State governments and courts, which awarded compensation to slaveholders for their dead or damaged slaves, participated in this process of commodification.
Berry’s discussion of the value of slaves is not restricted to the slaveholders’ gaze. Instead she deploys a “reverse gaze” looking also at how the enslaved developed “soul values,” or a sense of their own intrinsic human worth, that challenged and contradicted the “exchange values” assigned to them by their enslavers. For instance elderly superannuated slaves saw their exchange values drop even as their soul values in the eyes of slaves increased.
Here her use of evidence is telling and most imaginative. Berry not only evokes slave testimony but also that of abolitionists, who witnessed and reported on the horrors of slavery. Unlike generations of historians of slavery who dismissed abolitionist writings as neo-abolitionist history, Berry successfully mines the literature to recover the experience and worldviews of the enslaved.
Perhaps the most innovative part of the book is Berry’s discussion of the “ghost values” of slaves and the “domestic cadaver trade.” Even after death, slaveholders’ sought to capitalize on their investments in the bodies of the enslaved, selling them to the nation’s leading universities for use in medical training and study. Grave robbers, professors, and students sought easy access to the bodies of the poor and especially the enslaved. They collaborated in this unseemly business with a few black men, whose stories make for interesting vignettes in the book.
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.
THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation
By Daina Ramey Berry
Beacon, 262 pp., illustrated, $27.95
Manisha Sinha is the Draper chair in American history at the University of Connecticut and author of “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition.’’
Slavery and Freedom in Savannah puts African Americans and slavery at the center of the history of a popular tourist destination. The Telfair Museum’s Owens-Thomas House is the most-visited house museum in Savannah. We worked with the museum staff to bring together the latest historical research on the role of African Americans in Savannah and the importance of slavery to the life of the city. Telfair Museums plans to build on this research by incorporating the history of slavery more fully into its interpretation of the history of the Owens-Thomas house and the people who lived and worked there. This project builds upon some twenty-plus years of collaboration among museum professionals, academic historians, and historical archeologists, enabling major landmarks and historic sites in this nation to begin to tell more fully the history of non-whites and non-elites.
Savannah is a prime location for understanding the centrality of slavery and race to the national and world economy, and the importance of the city to southern landscapes and the southern economy. Because of the great economic and social dominance of rural plantation-based slavery in the Americas, historians have long assumed that that slave labor was not suited to cities and therefore slavery in American cities was insignificant. But a re-examination of slavery in cities throughout the Atlantic World has demonstrated the importance of urban areas to the slave economy and the adaptability of slave labor and slave ownership to metropolitan regions, especially port cities such as Savannah.. Urban slavery was part of, not exceptional to, the slave-based economies of North America and the Atlantic world.
Urban communities such as Savannah incorporated slave labor into their economic, social and political frameworks, often from the very beginning of their existence. By the time the Georgia colony was founded in the first third of the eighteenth century, it was difficult for the colonists or the trustees to imagine a world without slavery. Although the trustees, led by James Edward Oglethorpe, instituted a ban on slavery in the colony’s early years, in fact those same founders also requested and received black enslaved laborers from South Carolina to help them construct the city. Despite their own use of slave labor, Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees vigorously opposed proslavery colonists during the 1730s and 1740s. But many colonial residents believed that slave labor was necessary to the success of the colony, and to their pursuit of wealth, and found ways to work around the ban, importing slaves for various uses. By the time the ban was officially lifted in 1751, there were already 400 slaves in Georgia.
The slave population in Georgia grew rapidly after the ban on slavery was lifted in 1751. By the eve of the American Revolution, the colony held 16,000 slaves. Almost all of the forced migrants arrived in Georgia through the port of Savannah. Slave labor quickly became central to the economic success of the Georgia colony. Slaves were used to clear land, construct buildings, and cultivate rice and indigo.
The American Revolution and its aftermath was a time of great upheaval for the slave system in Georgia, and in the nation. For some, and particularly for enslaved blacks, it appeared that slavery might be on the verge of ending, even in the South. Despite the on-going struggle between slave-owning whites and blacks seeking freedom, the successful emergence of the slave-based cotton economy in the nineteenth-century in part guaranteed the continuation of slavery. Savannah grew to be the third-largest antebellum exporter of cotton in the South, behind New Orleans and Mobile. Rice and indigo were also important export crops that carried over from the eighteenth-century economy; rice reached its peak production in the region on the eve of the Civil War. Savannah flourished because of its location amid fertile coastal rice plantations, cotton plantations to the west, and Atlantic access to markets for raw materials, slaves, and finished products. The Savannah port also exported significant amounts of lumber and timber. The production of all of these goods involved the use of slave labor. Antebellum Savannah was one of the smaller southern cities by population, lagging far behind New Orleans, Baltimore and Charleston; only Norfolk, Virginia, was smaller in terms of major southern cities. But the enormous wealth produced by slaves is still evident in the gracious squares of the planned city.
On the eve of the Civil War, Savannah’s commitment to slavery was secure. But its economic success and political position in the south made its capture central to the Union army’s plan to crush the slaveholding republic. Although the city’s beautiful architecture was largely preserved, Sherman’s troops destroyed slavery and, temporarily at least, reordered the relationships between blacks and whites. Following the war, and in the face of strong and sometimes violent white opposition, blacks briefly gained access to the vote and political office, and expanded on antebellum institutions such as churches and schools. For the next forty years, blacks sought to negotiate their new roles as members of a wage-earning working class, hoping to carve a space in which to exercise their full rights as citizens. But by 1900, the gains blacks had made during Reconstruction had been replaced by legal segregation. Whites limited blacks’ access to the political realm, employment, and a host of other rights and privileges of citizenship. In response, Savannah’s blacks became active members of regional and national efforts to continue the march toward freedom and autonomy for African Americans, work that would not see fruition until the mid-1950s, when a series of Supreme Court decisions struck down legal segregation.
Georgia Library Quarterly
Volume 54
Issue 3 Summer 2017
7-1-2017
Article 21
Book Review - Slavery and Freedom in Savannah
LaTiffany D. Davis ldavi211@kennesaw.edu
Slavery and Freedom in Savannah edited by Leslie M. Harris & Diana Ramey Berry (University of Georgia Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0- 8203-4410-2, $34.95)
Slavery and Freedom in Savannah is a compilation of essays written by historians from Savannah, Georgia, and
other areas in the South. In
this collection Harris and
Berry not only serve as
editors but contributors as
well. They remind readers
of the significant role urban
parts of Georgia played
during the period that
slavery was legal in the
United States: “But a
reexamination of slavery in
North American cities
reveals the importance of
urban communities—
especially port cities—to
the slave economy, and the adaptability of slave labor and slave mastery to metropolitan regions.”
According to James A. McMillin, author of the chapter titled “The Transatlantic Slave Trade Comes to Georgia,” Georgia’s trustees intended the colony to be anti-slavery, but the ban was frequently challenged due to the wealth experienced in South Carolina—a wealth of possibility for Georgia. Savannah served as a port for transporting slaves from Africa, the West Indies, and South Carolina. This book tells the story of how Savannah settlers obtained wealth from the slave trade.
Slavery and Freedom in Savannah attempts to tell the story of individuals, families, the local
community, and greater city. Readers follow the prominent Telfair family through many chapters that offer perspectives of the South from the slave owners as well as the romanticized mindset of slavery they possessed during that era. Glances into the lives of freed blacks show the restrictions and laws purposed to hinder
them in areas such as business and legal matters.
Concluding chapters provide an overview of the Reconstruction Period. The final chapter in Slavery & Freedom in Savannah, written by Bobby J. Donaldson, tells of the rise of hope in Savannah for African Americans who now spoke without retaliation. These final chapters invoke messages of inspiration for building community and
obtaining education from notable figures such as Dr. J.J. Durham who spoke of “goodness and progress.”
Slavery & Freedom in Savannah would be beneficial as a reference tool. This book provides an unbiased, complete recount of events; mid-chapter sidebars are informative and provide further information on topics and people covered in every chapter. Readers gain insight into the struggles and successes of enslaved Africans, freed blacks, and slave owners as well as the birth and progression of Savannah’s economy.
LaTiffany Davis is Learning Commons Librarian at Kennesaw State University