Monetising human life: slave valuations on US and British West Indian plantations

Abstract

This paper examines specifically a frequently employed purpose of accounting on slave plantations in the antebellum US and the pre-emancipation British West Indies (BWI) -the evaluation of slaves as assets. We attempt to explain why this exercise was undertaken and the processes involved. Slaves were paraded past plantation managers and overseers, often in the company of appraisers and bookkeepers, where narrow distinctions were made on the basis of qualitative information such as physical characteristics and productive efficiency. The paper considers certain comparative features between the two slave environments, such as the greater concern in the BWI with linking valuations to the skill sets of slaves and a valuation premium on male slaves in the US which did not exist in the Caribbean. The paper concludes with a consideration of certain moral issues of slavery, such as the potential implication of accounting and accountants in a repressive regime and the attribution of contemporary morality to an historical epoch long past.