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Elizabeth Murray: Aren't you quietly relieved that you shan't be at the caprice of some silly sir and his fortune? The rest of us haven't a choice - not a chance of inheritance if we have brothers, and forbidden from any activity that allows us to support ourselves. We are but their property.
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John Davinier: 'Tis pitiful. Such inability to simply know what value to put on another's life.
Dido Elizabeth Belle: What price a worthless negro?
John Davinier: You utterly misunderstand me. I am saying that no man may have the value of cargo. Human beings cannot be priced since we are priceless - free men and slaves alike. I am with others here. All students in law, applying pressure on the insurance companies to refuse from hereon to insure slaves on any ship.
Dido Elizabeth Belle: But that would require a change in law.
John Davinier: How can we expect to be civilized when we live in such a barbaric world? It is the utter injustice.
Dido Elizabeth Belle: It is more than that. It is the shame of a law that would uphold a financial transaction upon that atrocity.
Cara Jenkins
Extended Reading
