ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the enslaved person is acquired through purchase and, to simplify our reasoning, through purchase in cash. Enslaved people were called pecas. African enslaved people were called “pieces from India,” “pieces from Guinea,” “Negroes from Guinea,” and “heathens of the Coast.” Indigenous enslaved people were called “pieces from the land’s heathens,” “Negroes of the land.” Age, sex, and strength were factors that always influenced the enslaved person’s purchase price. The useful life of an enslaved person indicated the period during which he or she was capable of full labor. Planters were interested in the average useful life of their slave workforce, from which he extracted the annual replacement rate. The various regions of the colony competed in the demand for enslaved people, according to each region’s profit expectations. In practice, the purchase price of the enslaved person was not amortized in a set period, as assumed above, but was spread throughout the enslaved person’s useful life.
