Good evening everyone. I am pleased and honored to introduce our keynote speaker, professor daina ramey berry. Professor berry is an associate professor of history and african and African Diaspora studies, and a fellow at the university of texas at austin. She is the author of swing the sickle. She is also an awardwinning editor of enslaved women in america, and encyclopedia, and in slavery in savannah. In addition to her written an editorial work, she has appeared on radio and Television Shows including National Geographic explorer, the tavis smiley show, cspan, and npr. She is an advocate for public history and served as one of the technical advisors for the remake of roots, the miniseries produced by a e. Her scholarship has been supported by the National Endowment for the humanities, the American Association of university women, and the university women, and the college of philadelphia. Her book, the price for their pound of flesh the value of the enslaved from womb to grave in the building of a nation received favorable reviews in the boston globe, the washington post, as well as essence, and others. She is currently coediting sexuality and slavery, reclaiming intimate histories in the americas, and coauthoring a black womans history of the United States, as well as developing a documentary series about women in American History. So we are very honored and pleased to have professor berry as our distinguished guest, so lets welcome her with a warm round of applause. [applause] daina good evening. I want to thank all of you for your lovely introduction. I want to thank everybody for coming out this seething. It is an honor and pleasure to be here. I am happy to be the keynote opening speaker for the symposium. I want to say a special thanks to dr. Martin and one other person for their invitation. I am sorry if i messed up your name. I was practicing earlier. I want to thank michel for helping me get organized and getting me here, and the committee for the decision to have me come open this conversation. One of the things i wanted to say, i promised your former dean and my current provost some of you are very good friends with, dr. Murray. She told me to give everybody here her best wishes. She was one of the starting members of the president s commission and wanted me to give everybody her regards from texas. In 1845, two physicians corresponded with one another about a trade in bodies. Their letters crossed rough land sent from Harvard University in cambridge, massachusetts to richmond, virginia. Two leading medical institutions at the time. The author of the letter wrote to his colleague about something he needed, and he hoped his friend could help him. You speak of tobacco crops and the price of nword. Of course, you mean the price of dead nword. Do tell me what is the cost of a dead, stiff nword is. One that will cut up fat and doesnt smell. Do you have a price for such merchandise . He wanted specimens to be used for anatomy classes at harvard. He sought bodies for demonstrations and dissections of the human body. Ironically, the very people they considered inhuman at the time where the cadavers used to teach generations of physicians about the human body. In order to supply subjects for dissection, the phrase he used at the time, doctors needed to know when people died and whether or not they could claim their bodies. Often times, enslavers took great care to note births and deaths in their records. They died for a host of reasons. We have evidence of this in plantation records like the document you see behind me. Some, like the sugg family categorized their losses, others used it as commodification and sold cadavers used for medical education. This is what i call the domestic cadaver trade. It is a trade in human cadavers that were used, and they were given prices and commoditized like they were when they were still alive. There were given a price, what i call ghost value, the cost of a dead, stiff, you know the rest. Those values were significantly lower than market values of the living enslaved peoples, ranging anywhere from 5 30, much different than the bodys worth alive, thousands of dollars. The dead bodies were a fraction of the price, depending on the age and condition of the cadaver. We find these in University Account books and letters between physicians. Once price was negotiated, cadavers were placed into the domestic cadaver trade. This was not unique to the south. There was plenty of evidence of the cadaver trade as far north as a vermont and maine, and as far south as texas and louisiana. Medical colleges in new york used the canal system to move bodies from the city of the hudson river on steamboats and ferries, through the erie canal and shipped to other places in the United States. For short distances, the bodies were placed in bags such as the one seen behind me. Medical schools and colleges hired enslaved black men and irishmen as janitors, porters, they were listed in the records with those titles to them, whose primary task was to procure subject for dissection. These men were also referred to as night raiders, bodysnatchers or resurrection men. Grandison harris, some of you may be familiar with him, he was one of the most famous bodysnatchers of the time. He was purchased by a Medical College for 700. Purchased on a South Carolina auction block, and the value today is about 22,000, a price and about 2014. Seven faculty members owned one seventh share of his body, and if they decided to leave the college, they could sell the share to other members of the faculty. Bodies came from South Carolina, maryland, new york and massachusetts. Harris was in at least 25 of the medical records at the university. Every fourth page, if youre looking through the account book, you will find his name somewhere on those pages. He was so popular and wellknown and respected among the medical community that he appears in many of the photos of the medical class over a 30 or 40 year period of time. The school paid him about 10 per month, and in a fouryear period for mating 53 until 1857, he provided the school 41 subjects for dissection. Students respected him and looked to him because he knew about the human body. They knew he had knowledge some of them were trying to acquire and they knew that he had a familiarity with dissection they did not quite have at the moment. I want us to consider a few things tonight. What are the remains of slavery . How is this history relevant, when does it appear, when does it seek in and rise to the surface . Last week, a wellknown artist closed a show at a gallery in new york city, where she showed this piece. The title is a private Memorial Garden of grandison harris. I was struck by an online review, in which it was stated racism will remain inseparable from americas history, its present and future, it penetrates every corner of our institutions and pervades every fiber of our collective being. Walkers work does not signal an impending culture war, it is a reminder that previous ones never ended. This is not an entirely new history. Many in this room are probably familiar with a handful of scholars who have written about this work, the cadaver trade. Some of the panelists who will be here, and i think michael sappers is coming to give a talk on the traffic in dead bodies. An awardwinning author also published medical apartheid, which you might be familiar with. This history has been written about in article and book form. But it really takes going through the records like the work they are doing here at uva and other institutions to find the history. Harris was not the only University Porter janitor resurrectionist. Another college had a africanamerican janitor by the name of chris baker appeared there is considerable work being done on baker. An archivist has published work on his life. He was born at the Medical College and learn to trade from his father, billy. Students said he was more cheerful in the company of corpses than any man in richmond. When these enslaved porters died, there were scholarships offered in their name. I would argue that very few enslaved people received published obituaries. I would love someone to do an obituary project will be tried to find printed obituaries of enslaved people. To see who they were, where they domestic slaves, what kind of relationship they had with their enslavers. I know many of these resurrectionists had elaborate funerals. We also have to think about how this trade was regulated. Sometimes the Police Arrested body snatchers and other times they protected them. When they were caught, like when chris baker was caught, they were often released after short jail terms and almost always pardoned. There seems to be some collaboration or trying to cheat from Law Enforcement and authority. Sometimes they would release the bodies and sometimes they allowed things to go forward. Enslaved bodies were also used by the living not just for productive and reproductive labor, but as freaks of nature for visitors to consume at fairs and other public amusements. One of the most famous cases outside of south africa, a case of an enslaved woman allegedly enslaved by george washington. They build her as being 161 years old. She was quite a storyteller. Pt barnum took her on a circuit tour, throughout the south and north and she would tell stories and sing songs and let people look at her skin. When she passed away, they did an autopsy, he held a public autopsy and sold tickets for people to come and witness her dissection. Before she died in a sevenmonth period, he made about 42,000 in todays money on tickets just to view her, and after she died, he still make money off of her body. He blamed her, after they found out she was only about 80 years old, he said she tricked me. People were very upset with him for promoting her as a very aged nursemaid. Returning to the dead, baker and harris have lots of company in the 19th century. The university of north carolina, university of pennsylvania, dartmouth, harvard, as well as Medical Colleges in the deep south all participated in the domestic cadaver trade. Not all bodies were africanamerican, but the majority were, and in my research, i was interested in the ones that were, if i could find out if they were formally enslaved, but i also came across a number of free black people on dissection tables. These are images from the early 20th century. You will hear much more about the cadaver trade and the work done here at uva. There will be a presentation on friday. You also see the history presented on twitter. I have enjoyed the last several months following the twitter feed, they have short quotes about, this enslaved person was caught stealing would, or they did not clean the grounds properly. One tweet at a time, revealing the history of uva. Some of you who havent had the opportunity to follow the twitter account, i highly recommend it. We know about some people at uva i think we will hear about on friday, Lewis Commodore and big lewis, they were both owned by the university. One of them was chris baker of uva. He worked in the rotunda and was well known on campus. On his death, he was buried at the courthouse in 1872, and later his body was exhumed. Im not sure why. He was we buried at another cemetery. There is probably a story behind that. Harris was buried in the same cemetery where he stole bodies while he was alive. I cant help but think, is his body even in his grace . I cant help but ask that question. For me, theres a strong connection between auctions and burials. I framed my book around this. Bodies were sold and buried, but their souls remained free. This is what i found. I just want to say a few things, and then i will try to wrap up so we have time for q a. I want to think about what does it mean when we look at the picture here, the image on the right is a vault at the Medical College of georgia. The remains were studied, we know some of the tags and that harris was involved in stealing those bodies. They were later given a proper burial and given a proper sendoff. This is a picture of the tombstone. This was also true we see this reburial, thats why i was wondering about what happened with lewis at uva. There is sometimes a proper burial that comes later. This is the same thing that happened with some of the rebels of john brown that were buried 40 years later. In this casket, there are the remains of seven individuals, including an africanamerican killed in the john brown raid. While researching the book, i came across a scrapbook that had photographs of the funeral ceremony, there was a 21 gun salute, they gave burial rights, a number of ministers and a large crowd there. I wondered whether or not his family was present, if they even knew had found his remains. I have no idea. It was curious about that and wanted to show the image. A lot of this work is very grim, no pun intended. It is depressing, it is sad, it is a set history. When i was doing the research, i was writing about the commodification of enslaved bodies, interested in how people work given a price tag and what that value meant as they grew older. Then i wanted to know, how did they respond, what today know, what did they think or feel about themselves being treated as a commodity or piece of property . One of the things i kept stumbling against, how do enslaved people live knowing there was modification beyond the grave . How do they make sense of life after death, or lifeanddeath . I know some of them knew about this trade, because there was a slave narrative by a man named charlie grant, his and slavery asked him to exhume the body of a twoyearold and bring it to him. He brought it, and he said, i know he is going to cut that body up and send it to dr. Johnson in virginia. There was an understanding of this. I kept thinking, how do they make sense of this . One of the things i kept finding, is trying to find evidence on enslaved people talking about this history and conceptions of lifeanddeath. One of the things i came up with, they had this notion of their soul. What i call a soul value, and internal value of themselves. The value that enslaved people held onto while their external bodies work commodified. It was an internal valuation of themselves, something nobody else could take from them. It enables them to survive, to separate their bodies from their souls, and i believe that soul values are expressed in a value of ways, words, deeds and actions. No better quote than this here of an enslaved woman that says, yes, honey, i was in slavery but i was not a slave, i was just in it, that is all. It never made me hold my head down and there was a whole parcel of negros like me. We obeyed our masters and mistresses and did our work, but we kept on saying, deliverance will come. We aint no head down, we are poor but proud. To me, that resonated and it told me there is a value that is there and i started looking for other places where i could find soul value, people utilizing this concept come out where i could find them expressing it in physical and verbal ways. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about soul value to the narrative of Frederick Douglass. I think he does a great job teaching us about this, the soul. He ruminates on spiritual connections throughout his life and expressed his soul value by recognizing it in himself as well as in others. In some settings, soul values manifest as inner strength and resolve, and others outright defiance. He describes a severe beating of a woman named nelly, you may be familiar with the story. Her abuse agitated him because she was whipped for imprudence. He said the definition of imprudence could mean almost anything or nothing at all, according to the caprice of the master or overseer at the moment. A lot of enslaved people were punished for imprudence. It was inconsistent, from his perspective. He described nelly as a bright mulatto and mother of children and a vigorous and spirited woman. He saw the expression of her soul value, as nelly was certainly resisting, and three of her five children tried to come to her defense by throwing stones and biting her attacker. Nelly dug her fingers into the overseer, marring his body, resulting in what was described as bloody marks on her face. She continued to resist and seemed determined to make her whipping cost as much as possible. Unfortunately, she was eventually tied to the tree, and douglas had no heart to describe it. I see this and a number of enslaved narratives, or even enslaved people refuse to make a spectacle of black death, to talk about specific scenes too brutal or violent, they couldve just said it is too violent to disclose, but he does the same thing. He refrains. In the end, nelly was covered with blood, but he noticed she was whipped, severely whipped, but she was not subdued. She continued to denounce her overseer. She had bruised her flesh but it left her undaunted. To me, he recognized her soul value. Soul values were often challenged when a person reached a point of despair, something a number of scholars have written about, the social death of people, than being in a melancholy state, not being able to live on, moving around in a depressive state. We know about this and learn about this state from Frederick Douglass as well. He entered a long period of disillusionment. He says, mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died. The dark night of slavery closed in upon me, and behold a man transformed into a brute. Next he speaks about the altered state of mind he was in in this low place. Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beastlike stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times i would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. For about six months, he remained in this state, what he calls mental and physical wretchedness. Just like the beating of nelly, he refrained from repeating each separate transactional beating he received, because in his words, such narration need not contain all the harrowing details. Once again, protection from the public spectacle. As he described the flickering of hope deep in his soul, i want to call your attention to what happens to a flame when it encounters wind. Flames are both extinguished and expanded by wind. Sometimes in order to make a fire, we need wind. If the flame of light simmered, nearly disappearing, it only took one gust of wind for Frederick Douglass to ignite the fire of hope represented in his sole value. Many of you know how the story ends. He received help from an he received help from an enslaved man named sandy and later returned to the plantation for a final fight with covey. He said, my dear reader, this battle with mr. Covey, undignified as it was, and as i fear my narration of it is, was the turning point in my life as a slave. it rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty. It brought up my baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood. I was a changed being after that fight. I was nothing before. I was a man now. It recalled to life my crushed selfrespect and my selfconfidence, and inspired me with a renewed determination to be a freeman. It was a resurrection from the dark tomb of slavery to the heaven of comparative freedom. Spirit made me a free man, in fact while i remained a slave and form. Once again, i believe this is his soul value. As he resurrected himself and rose from the grave of despair, other slave people died, never to experience earthly freedom. Some would argue their souls have been searching for peace and we are left to deal with the remains of slavery. They are ghost values cant us by resurfacing in basement, wells, addicts, backyards, provincial mansions and universities. We encounter them as fleshless bones broken in pieces, just as ceramic wares and covered at archaeological digs. Unmarked graves, burials without headstones, bodies separated from their souls, the spectacle of black death continued in the 20th century through lynching. Once again, we have here an image of emmett till. We know his mother wanted to see the hate that grew out of slavery and snatched her sons life. She wanted the world to see his soul. She made the world face the harsh reality of bigotry, racism and hate. Decades after his funeral, she allowed for the omission of his grave so that his son would have an intimate wake at the museum of African American culture. Just 108 miles from here. We cannot also help recognize the soul value of till modeled to us by his surviving mother, nor can we ignore the public protest of the africanamerican man in this picture who was not pleased with the initial rendition of till in the Whitney Museum on exhibit last march. Returning to the contemporary, even today, the descendents of slaves people are still being, rodney king, dissected, Kendrick Johnson, display, henrietta lacks, and murdered, too many to name. Body parts examined, explored, stolen and misused. 220 miles south of where harris took bodies, where he worked as a body stature, someone stole the organs of Kendrick Johnson in 2013. Some of you may have heard about his death, his body was found in a gym mat, the first autopsy revealed they did not suspect foul play. That he was looking for his gym shoes and got caught. The autopsy said there was no foul play. He was buried, his parents were not comfortable, they did another autopsy and found his body was stuffed with newspaper and none of his organs were there. I believe this is part of a trade in body and body parts that has been part of world history, not just American History, that came before the history of slavery and continues today. The funeral home blamed the coroner and the coroner blamed the funeral home and they are still dealing with this history. What we make of those, respect the dead and make sense of this legacy . How does the history of the cadaver trade connect with today . We will grapple with these questions over the next few days, here from the work being done at multiple universities and campuses throughout the United States and around the world, and we can acknowledge the history of slavery and its contributions to leading institutions. Partnering with the dwelling project, some members of the symposium will have the opportunity to walk the grounds and in the spaces occupied by enslaved people. How do we address slavery when it comes to the surface . I cannot think of a better example than nat turner, whose decapitated skull recently made national news. [video clip] is my honor to present this remains to you. Being able to hold that piece of his body that he could not own for himself. We will be able to treated with the respect and honor it is due, that we are able to give him the burial he deserves. We are here representing the generations before us. Daina slavery remains, and i believe it is our job to find ways to allow these souls to rest in peace. Thank you. [applause] daina do we have some time for q a . Questions, comments, reactions, thoughts . We have a microphone, you can just raise your hand. Sometimes it takes a while to settle in what i just talked about. There is a question in the back. Yes . First of all, thank you for the work and the journey, as you said, it was not easy and that is evident, but the value for those families and for us is immeasurable. I will start with that. Daina thank you. The last piece about nat turners remains, i know there is a museum that has issues with native american remains. Because they are multitribe identifiable, they will not release them to be properly buried. And how often do we find remains and how often are they identifiable and how often are we able to return them to families . Daina great question, thank you. I think its interesting you ask about im going to share a quick story. I was teaching and introduction to African American history class in texas, and i was talking about nat turners remains, and my students were looking at me like i was crazy. Shes been chasing this skull, trying to find out where it might have gone. We have never heard about this, we have read about turner and weve never heard about this. A student raised his hand, he said, i come from four generations of medical doctors, and we have a purse made out of human skin. This is what i say about attics and basements and cellars. The remains are everywhere, unfortunately. I wrote a piece in the New York Times about turner and i received hundreds of emails from descendents saying my father was a medical doctor, i have some skulls, what we do with them . I was like, i am just a historian, i am not the right person. [laughter] daina it raises a question, though. I think its a good question. I did get letters from a native american, people from newfoundland. They were working with the federal government in i am drawing a blank. But they used the piece i wrote to negotiate getting some of the bodies back. We do have challenges here because of legislation, and like you said, because of the different nation histories. I do think people are trying. This opens up a can of worms when we look at the smithsonian and other institutions that have this material. I dont have an answer for what to do, but i do know that there are a few attorneys and a few commissions working on this very issue. I have a question. It was brought to my attention that some africanamerican remains, i dont know if they were enslaved, were found on the property of the university of virginia, and i was trying to find out if the remains were ever tested. Daina that would be a question for kurt. Because my ancestors were enslaved at the university. And i would personally like to know myself. Daina i dont know if they are being tested here yet, but i know the turner remains, and even the site near where he was hung and they found some bones there, they are trying to match the bone fragments with the skull to see if there is a connection, and the descendents, to see if there is a connection. Are they doing that at uva . I dont know. I dont know what bones they found or where they are now. This was 20some years ago. [indiscernible] yes, all right. Daina he is bringing the microphone to you. I am the historic architect project manager here at the university. It was my project to discover the gravesite. The archaeologists stripped the topsoil off the earth and discovered where the great shafts were, and that is as far as we went. We deliberately did not go far enough to find bones. This is north of the university cemetery. Right next to it. Daina thank you. 56 . Wow. Yes, and another area, the africanamerican cemetery, where in 2012, we discovered the shafts of 67 interments, but they were not disinterred. We held a commemoration and 2014 and we will have another one this coming thursday night. I have one question for you. As a physician, i see dr. Battle and some other physicians, it is a rite of passage for medical students, we dissected cadavers. The overwhelming number of cadavers were africanamerican, acquired the right way. In the early 1900s, as schools expanded, medical students began to take it on themselves to find bodies. As we see contemporary issues related to slavery, blackwhite issue, there was a story of a boy in the northeast who was walking past a medical school and looked up and there was a white arm hanging out of the window. He climbed to see what it was, he was curious, and the person in there, i assume it was a doctor, said, that is your mothers arm. Very crude. The boy went back home to his father to say, the physician said that was his mothers arm. The father went to the gravesite to exhume the body and it was not there. This is a white body. So grave robbing not only occurs to African Americans, overwhelmingly, but to white people also, but the difference is the reaction. In that same community, individuals were saying grave robbing of blacks should stop. People listened but did nothing about it. In that community, there was an uprising about a white womans body who is been robbed, and about 20 people died, many of those were physicians. The reaction to these types of things are very similar today. Daina thank you for sharing that. Any other questions . Thank you for your remarks. I have a question. Do you see any kind of connection between current habits, for example, when the young mans body was stuffed, with people of color, like on their drivers license, they say you can take my organs and that types of things, that people are changing their behavior because they may be fearful that if something does happen, in an accident or there might be a market that says you match this person . Do you have any comment on that . Daina great question. Even though the works i was talking about was mostly in the 19th century, this was for the anatomical gift back, when people could decide on their drivers license and the paperwork they would donate their organs or would like to donate their organs for science. I have seen, in the late 19th century, early 20th century, there was an uptick after henrietta lacks, and tuskegee, even though that was people who were alive. Africanamericans who are not certain about this. I had a relative a few years ago, i was the executor, and i got letters from family members, the most moving letters, that because of her, she allowed six other the people to live. I go back and forth myself, but i have that testimony of how it saved other peoples lives. Herx other people to live. I go backandforth myself, i have that testimony of how it saved other peoples lives. I think it is a personal decision. I know now, they are hypervigilant about keeping the sure the bodies are connected to who is being cremated, that is all done properly. The activities i was referring to were mostly bodies that were being procured illegally. It was not illegal to dissect in the 19th century. There were black and white ,odies on the dissection tables particularly unclaimed bodies whereail and other places people do not claim the bodies, hospitals, and so forth. How much today, even though we have that case i talked about. There is an under market organ trained organ trade that has been going on for centuries. It is hard to trace that because of the illegal nature of it. Thank you. We have time for one more question. Thank you again for coming. I listened to you thursday night on research at the National Archives and beyond. You talked about young ladies and babies during that talk. There were some of us in the chat room in tears. Matter of fact, she made the comment, i am crying for the babies, you remember that the other night. Reading slave narratives and things like that, the value of the girls was very important, and you stressed some of that in your talk. If you could share some of that . Daina sure. Because i was looking at how enslaved people are valued as they age, as a young girl reached puberty, her value was more important because she will give birth to additional sources of labor, right . I found in a lot of the medical records and medical journals of the 19th century, physicians and planters writing back and forth talking about when the girls had their first menstrual cycle and they would write back and forth and say on our plantation they were age 17 or 18 or 14. Trying to figure out when they can have their cycle and give birth. Someone in, their values were decreased because they were barren or participated in self abortions or miscarriages they did on their own as a form of resistance. You find this attention paid to a young girl as she ages, mothers being sick in their hearts about not wanting them to know, sometimes they would tie down their breasts and hide that they have their menstrual cycle, because they would know they would be expected to give birth, particularly after the closing of the transatlantic slave trade. There is not a source of enslaved people coming in. Forced reproduction, breeding, being raped was common among slave women. Thats kind of what i was talking about with their values. We are coming to an end, we want to thank you all for being with us tonight and remind you again that the next event is at 7 30 on the lawn in front of the hall, a big tent, the slave dwelling project. If youre not planning on staying overnight tonight, it will be a little chilly. We will learn from those folks tomorrow morning how well they took that. You are welcome to come to the event at 7 30. It is until 10 00. Please also partake of hors doeuvres if you would like. This ends this particular program, but before we leave, be sure to go out and purchase the book, price for their pound of flesh, and the professor will be out signing the book. We look forward to seeing you for the rest of the symposium. Have a good night. A big round of applause. [applause] a tweet asking about an issue that still resounds today. His question is about how many people were fathered by u. S. Gis in vietnam, how are they treated 45 years after the u. S. Departure. You can be featured in our next live program. Conversation on facebook. Com cspanhistory and on twitter at cspan history. Each week, American History filmsngs you archival that provide context for todays Public Affairs issues