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

Nat Turner was born in 1800 in Southampton County, Virginia. He was an enslaved preacher who led a four-day rebellion of enslaved and free Black people that resulted in the killing of 60 white people, including children, and the freeing of many enslaved people. The rebellion was suppressed, but Turner remained in hiding for 30 days before being found, tried, and executed by hanging at Jerusalem (now Courtland), Virginia, on November 11, 1831. The rebellion is generally considered the most important one by enslaved people in US history.

Turner learned to read and write early in life and read the Bible constantly. He had visions throughout his life, which he believed were signs from God and which he followed. He escaped from his enslaver at the age of 21 but voluntarily returned after receiving a vision that directed him to go back to his enslaver. Turner experienced various visions while planning the 1831 rebellion, which were interpreted in relation to natural events, such as an eclipse and the sun appearing blue-green. Turner believed that he was called by God to form a rebellion against slavery and that it was only through violence that whites would realize the atrocity of slavery. He was tried on November 5 and hanged on November 11, 1831. When asked if he regretted his actions during the rebellion his response was, “Was Christ not crucified?” (Foner, Eric (2014). An American History: Give Me Liberty. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p. 336.)

Turner’s body was dissected, and his skin was flayed to create souvenir purses. His head was removed from his body, but it is unclear when. What is believed to be Turner’s skull has been placed with the Smithsonian by his descendants to undergo DNA testing. His Bible was recently donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture by white descendants of slaveholders killed in the rebellion.

John Anthony Copeland Jr. was born free in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1831. His family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, a center of abolitionist activity, in 1843. He attended Oberlin College’s high school division and became active in the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society. He was a leader in the 1858 Oberlin-Wellington Rescue that revolved around John Price, a fugitive from slavery from Kentucky. Price was arrested in Oberlin by a US marshal under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which required that Price be returned to Kentucky. The marshal did not want to hold Price in Oberlin, with its culture of abolitionism, so he took him to Wellington, a town south of Oberlin.

A group of Oberlin abolitionists, including Copeland, joined activists in Wellington and found Price in the attic of a hotel, forcibly removed him, and took him back to Oberlin, where he was guided to the Underground Railroad, through which he escaped to Canada. Copeland was indicted but escaped arrest and was a fugitive when recruited to participate in John Brown’s revolt at Harper’s Ferry.

At Harper’s Ferry Copeland and several other revolutionaries attempted to gain control of Hall’s Rifle Works, but several were killed while trying to escape, and others attempted escape by swimming across the Shenandoah River, where Copeland was captured. He was held for trial and found guilty of murder and conspiracy to incite enslaved people to rebellion.

Awaiting execution, he wrote several letters to his family consoling them and also describing his actions as ones aimed at revolutionary liberation. Copeland was executed at Harper’s Ferry on December 16, 1859. His final words were grounded in the righteousness of dying for freedom and the superiority of this death to slavery.

His parents were not allowed to enter Virginia as free Black people, so they asked Professor James Monroe of Oberlin College to travel to Harper’s Ferry to bring their son’s body back. Monroe was unable to secure the body, which was dissected by medical students at Winchester Medical College.

A memorial service was held in Oberlin on December 25, 1859, for Copeland, Shields Green, and Lewis Sheridan Leary, who all died during or because of their participation at the rebellion at Harper’s Ferry. A monument was erected soon after the memorial.

Shields Green was a fugitive from slavery from Charleston, South Carolina, born around 1836, who lived with Frederick Douglass for almost two years in Rochester, New York, before being introduced to John Brown by Douglass.

He was tried, convicted, and executed by hanging alongside John Copeland on December 16, 1859. There is very little information about Green, with Frederick Douglass being the only source outside the trial. In contrast to Copeland, Green is believed to have been quiet and neither received nor wrote letters while awaiting trial. While he may have been illiterate, it would have been possible to have someone write letters for him. He is the only one of the five Black members of Brown’s raid for whom there is no daguerreotype. He is also believed to have been treated worse than any of the other Black members who were executed at Harper’s Ferry, likely because his skin was very dark.

Frederick Douglass spoke highly of Green and eulogized him. Medical students dug up his body, and he was dissected at Winchester Medical College. Professor James Monroe, sent by John Copeland’s parents to secure his body, saw Green’s body on the dissection table in Winchester, but he did not try to secure the body to take back with him to Oberlin, where Green had been active.

A memorial service was held in Oberlin on December 25, 1859, for Green, John Copeland, and Lewis Sheridan Leary, who all died during or because of their participation at the rebellion at Harper’s Ferry. A monument was erected soon after the memorial.

Dangerfield Newby was born around 1820 in Culpeper County, Virginia. His father was a white landowner, and his mother was owned by his father’s neighbor. His mother and father, though they lived together for many years, were not legally allowed to marry. His father was able to secure the freedom of Dangerfield, his siblings, and his mother and moved them across the Ohio River, where Newby met John Brown.

Newby’s wife was enslaved in Virginia, where she lived with their seven children. Her enslaver had told Newby that he would sell her to Newby for a price that is now disputed, but he later reneged on his offer after Newby had raised anywhere from $750 to $1,500. Letters from his wife in which she pleads with him to buy her as soon as possible were found on him after he was killed at Harper’s Ferry.

Newby was killed in the revolution, and his body was left in the street for 24 hours, where it was stabbed and beaten, and his limbs were hacked off. He was buried with seven of the other revolutionaries in a packing box at Harpers Ferry. In 1899 the bodies were exhumed and taken to John Brown’s farm in New York, where they were reburied.

Chris Baker was a “resurrectionist” at the Medical College of Virginia. His father worked at the college and likely taught him about anatomy and how to prepare bodies for dissection. Baker initially worked as an enslaved person while living in the basement of the dissection hall. He appears in several formal photographs with medical students. He was indicted for grave robbing in 1882 but was pardoned by the governor. He remained working at the college until 1912.

Baker, like other resurrectionists, lived a liminal existence. Records indicate that he was not welcome in the Black community, though he was respected by the medical faculty and students for his knowledge but was probably not fully integrated into this population, either. The governor’s pardoning of him speaks to the connections and status he had via his long-standing work at the college.

The remains of 26 unidentified Black people were found in a well at the Medical College of Virginia in 1994 during construction, once again raising questions about what to do with the remains of those trafficked in the cadaver trade. A recent movement has argued the need to provide DNA testing so that descendants can claim remains and determine what they would like done.

Grandison Harris, like Chris Baker, was a “resurrectionist.” He worked at the Medical College of Georgia as an enslaved person, continuing in his position after emancipation. While enslaved he was owned by seven faculty members, who each possessed one seventh of his external value and were able to sell their shares if they left the university. The university purchased his wife and daughter from the auction block, and they were brought to live with Harris.

The remains of over 400 Black people, whose bodies were likely prepared for dissection by Harris, were found in the basement of one of the buildings of the Old Medical College in Augusta in 1989. Some were inscribed with specimen numbers. They were sent to the Smithsonian for testing, where they remained for almost 10 years and were returned in a sealed vault.