Discussion Guide for Berry and Foster’s articles from JCWE
- How are archives constructed? How does the way in which decisions are made about what records to keep make it more difficult to research pre-Civil War black history?
- What are the biggest issues when trying to write black history using white-centered archives?
- How can we use an inherently racist archive to write anti-racist history?
- What skills do we need to cultivate in order to use records of slavery to find black histories?
Discussion Guide for Berry, Price per Pound of their Flesh
- What is Berry’s thesis?
- What kinds of sources does Berry use to find out about enslaved people’s commercial value? What kinds of sources does Berry use to find out about other forms of value enslaved people held?
- What other kinds of value besides monetary did enslaved people claim? How did they use those different valuations to influence slave owners and sellers?
- How did an enslaved person’s monetary value change over the course of their life? What factors had the biggest influence on the price an enslaved person brought in the marketplace?