---
title: "Commodification — AP African American Studies Definition"
description: "Commodification is the treatment of human beings as merchandise to be bought and sold. Key to Unit 2 resistance on slave ships and the economics of slavery."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/commodification"
type: "key-term"
subject: "AP African American Studies"
unit: "Unit 2"
---

# Commodification — AP African American Studies Definition

## Definition

In AP African American Studies, commodification is the process of treating human beings as economic goods, merchandise to be priced, bought, sold, insured, and traded. It's central to Unit 2, where African captives resisted it during the Middle Passage and where it built American wealth their descendants were denied.

## What It Is

Commodification means turning a person into a product. In the [transatlantic slave trade](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-1/1-what-is-african-american-studies/study-guide/a6kaxMoVW9Btftwa "fv-autolink"), more than 12.5 million Africans were treated like cargo with a price tag. They were inventoried, packed onto ships to maximize profit per voyage, insured against loss, and sold at market. [Slave ship diagrams](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2/4-african-resistance-on-slave-ships-and-antislavery-movement/study-guide/5nyas0x82rh7R2Hb "fv-autolink") make this brutally visible. They show captives arranged in systematic rows like goods in a warehouse, designed to fit as many people as possible into the hold (EK 2.4.B.1).

But the CED never lets commodification stand alone. It always pairs the concept with [resistance](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2/13-resistance-and-revolts-in-the-united-states/study-guide/Eb17rb9yzYu279TU "fv-autolink") and with economic consequences. Aboard slave ships, Africans refused to be reduced to merchandise. They staged hunger strikes, jumped overboard rather than live enslaved, and organized revolts across language barriers (EK 2.4.A.1). On land, commodification meant enslaved people could be reallocated between domestic and field labor at an enslaver's whim, and their unpaid labor became foundational to the American economy even as they were cut off from the wealth they produced (EK 2.6.C.2).

## Why It Matters

Commodification anchors two topics in [Unit 2](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2 "fv-autolink") (Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance). In Topic 2.4, LO 2.4.A asks you to describe how Africans resisted their commodification and enslavement during the [Middle Passage](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/middle-passage "fv-autolink"), so the term appears right in the learning objective itself. In Topic 2.6, LO 2.6.C asks you to evaluate the economic effects of enslaved people's commodification and labor, both inside and outside African American communities. That second use is where the concept gets bigger. Commodification explains how slavery created North-South economic interdependence (EK 2.6.C.1) and entrenched racial wealth disparities that lasted centuries, since enslaved people earned no wages to pass down (EK 2.6.C.3). If you can connect the dehumanizing logic of the slave ship to the long-run economics of American wealth, you're doing exactly what this course rewards.

## Connections

### [Middle Passage (Unit 2)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/middle-passage)

The Middle Passage is where commodification was most extreme and most visible. Ship designs that maximized 'cargo' and diagrams that undercounted captives by about half show people being treated as units of profit, not human beings.

### [Deracination (Unit 2)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/deracination)

[Deracination](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/deracination "fv-autolink") is being violently uprooted from your homeland and culture, while commodification is being turned into property. EK 2.4.A.1 lists them together as twin traumas of the Middle Passage. One severs your roots, the other erases your humanity, and captives resisted both.

### La Amistad and Sengbe Pieh (Unit 2)

The 1839 Amistad revolt is the CED's flagship example of collective resistance to commodification. Mende captives led by [Sengbe Pieh](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/sengbe-pieh "fv-autolink") seized the ship and ultimately won their freedom, proving the 'cargo' could fight back even decades after the slave trade was abolished.

### Gang System and Task System (Unit 2)

Commodification didn't end at the auction block. Labor systems like the gang and task systems organized enslaved people's time and bodies around output, yet within them African Americans created [work songs](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/work-songs "fv-autolink") and preserved skills, building culture inside an institution designed to deny it.

## On the AP Exam

Multiple-choice questions tend to test commodification through its opposite, resistance. A classic stem asks how hunger strikes aboard slave ships are best interpreted, and the answer is resistance to commodification and enslavement, not despair or illness. Other questions ask how cultural retention countered commodification during the Middle Passage, or which artistic skills African Americans developed despite being treated as property. You should also be ready for an economics angle. Questions on reallocating enslaved people between domestic and field labor test whether you recognize that people were treated as movable assets. No released FRQ has used the word verbatim, but LO 2.6.C (evaluating the economic effects of commodification) is exactly the kind of cause-and-effect analysis short-answer and essay prompts reward, especially arguments about racial wealth disparities rooted in unpaid labor.

## commodification vs Deracination

Both appear in EK 2.4.A.1 as traumas Africans resisted on slave ships, so they're easy to blur together. Deracination is the violent uprooting from one's homeland, family, and culture. Commodification is the transformation of a person into sellable property. Think of it this way. Deracination is about what was taken from captives (their roots), while commodification is about what they were turned into (merchandise). An exam answer that swaps them will miss the point of the question.

## Key Takeaways

- Commodification is the process of treating human beings as economic goods to be bought, sold, and traded, and it appears directly in learning objectives LO 2.4.A and LO 2.6.C.
- Africans resisted commodification on slave ships through hunger strikes, jumping overboard, and revolts organized across linguistic differences, which made the slave trade more expensive and dangerous.
- Slave ship diagrams are visual evidence of commodification because they show captives systematically arranged to maximize profit per voyage.
- Commodification made enslaved people foundational to the American economy while alienating them from the wealth they embodied and produced, which entrenched racial wealth disparities for centuries.
- Even cities and regions outside the slave trade, including the North, benefited economically from the commodification of enslaved people.
- Despite commodification, enslaved African Americans created work songs, preserved skills, and built cultural practices that asserted their humanity.

## FAQs

### What is commodification in AP African American Studies?

Commodification is the process of treating human beings as merchandise to be bought, sold, and traded. In the transatlantic slave trade, more than 12.5 million Africans were forced onto over 36,000 voyages and treated as cargo, priced and packed to maximize profit.

### Did enslaved Africans accept their commodification?

No. The CED emphasizes that captives resisted individually and collectively through hunger strikes, jumping overboard rather than live enslaved, and shipboard revolts like the 1839 Amistad uprising led by Sengbe Pieh. This resistance raised the cost and danger of the slave trade and forced enslavers to redesign ships with barricades, nets, and guns.

### What's the difference between commodification and deracination?

Deracination is being violently uprooted from your homeland and culture, while commodification is being turned into sellable property. EK 2.4.A.1 pairs them as distinct traumas of the Middle Passage, so keep them separate on the exam.

### Did only the South benefit from the commodification of enslaved people?

No. EK 2.6.C.1 states that slavery fostered economic interdependence between the North and South, and cities that played no major role in the slave trade still profited from the economy slavery created. Enslaved labor was foundational to the entire American economy.

### How does commodification connect to wealth disparities today?

Enslaved African Americans earned no wages to pass down and had no legal right to accumulate property, so the wealth their labor created flowed entirely to others. EK 2.6.C.3 says this entrenched wealth disparities along racial lines over centuries, a key cause-and-effect chain for essay arguments.

## Related Study Guides

- [2.4 African Resistance on Slave Ships and the Antislavery Movement](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2/4-african-resistance-on-slave-ships-and-antislavery-movement/study-guide/5nyas0x82rh7R2Hb)

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