>>507280795 (OP)From Colonial Beginnings to the Antebellum South
In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the price of an enslaved person was relatively low. In the 1740s in colonial Virginia, for example, a male slave might be purchased for approximately $30 to $50, which, while a significant sum at the time, was considerably less than what prices would become. As the demand for labor to cultivate cash crops like tobacco and rice grew, so too did the value of enslaved individuals.
By the early 19th century, the domestic slave trade had become a major economic enterprise, particularly after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808. This cutoff of the external supply of enslaved people, coupled with the invention of the cotton gin and the expansion of cotton plantations in the Deep South, caused a sharp and sustained increase in prices.
In the 1830s, the average price of an enslaved person was around $400 (approximately $13,000 in today's money). By the 1850s, this figure had more than doubled. The average price for any enslaved person, regardless of age, gender, or condition, was approximately $800 (around $25,000 today) on the eve of the Civil War.