In 1859, his single auction house in Richmond, Virginia, sold human beings with a market value of more than $2.67 million. It was a business, run by businessmen, financed by banks, priced by markets, insured by underwriters and accounted for to the penny. Because there were two business models, and the difference between them is the coldest arithmetic in our history. Saint-Domingue imported some 800,000 Africans and yet held only about half a million enslaved people when its revolution began in 1791 the rest were dead. And when the business finally closed, the books were balanced one last time in favour of the owners.