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[[File:Samuelcartwright.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Samuel A. Cartwright]] (1793–1863)]]
{{short description|Purported mental illness of slaves}}
{{short description|Purported mental illness of slaves}}
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[[File:Samuelcartwright.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Samuel A. Cartwright]] (1793–1863)]]
'''Drapetomania''' was a supposed [[mental illness]] that, in 1851, American physician [[Samuel A. Cartwright]] hypothesized as the cause of [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|enslaved Africans fleeing captivity]].<ref name="White">{{cite book|last=White|first=Kevin|title=An introduction to the sociology of health and illness|year=2002|publisher= [[SAGE Publishing]] |isbn=0-7619-6400-2|pages=41, 42|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5bHxQBNWGHMC&pg=PA41}}</ref>{{rp|41}}<ref name = "Discarded" > {{ cite journal | year = 2000 | publisher = [[Elsevier BV]] | last = Bynum | first = Bill | page = 1615 | journal = [[The Lancet]] | oclc = 01755507 | lccn = sf82002015 | issn = 0140-6736 | eissn = 1474-547X | volume = 356 | issue = 9241 | s2cid = 5440631 | pmid = 11075805 | doi = 10.1016/s0140-6736(05)74468-8 | title = Discarded Diagnoses : Drapetomania }} </ref> This hypothesis centered around the belief that slavery was such an improvement upon the lives of slaves that only those suffering from some form of mental illness would wish to escape.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Michael|first=Ruane|date=April 30, 2019|title=A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-brief-history-of-the-enduring-phony-science-that-perpetuates-white-supremacy|access-date=January 21, 2022|newspaper=[[Washington Post]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Pilgrim|first=David|date=November 1, 2005|title=DRAPETOMANIA - NOVEMBER 2005|url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm|url-status=live|access-date=January 21, 2022|website= [[Ferris State University]] (Jim Crow Museum)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810084718/https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm |archive-date=2020-08-10 }}</ref>
'''Drapetomania''' was a proposed [[mental illness]] that, in 1851, American physician [[Samuel A. Cartwright]] hypothesized as the cause of [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|enslaved Africans fleeing captivity]].<ref name="White">{{cite book |last=White |first=Kevin |title=An introduction to the sociology of health and illness |year=2002 |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing]] |isbn=0-7619-6400-2 |pages=41, 42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5bHxQBNWGHMC&pg=PA41}}</ref>{{rp|41}}<ref name="Discarded" >{{cite journal |year=2000 |publisher=[[Elsevier BV]] |last=Bynum |first=Bill |page=1615 |journal=[[The Lancet]] |oclc=01755507 |lccn=sf82002015 |issn=0140-6736 |eissn=1474-547X |volume=356 |issue=9241 |s2cid=5440631 |pmid = 11075805 |doi=10.1016/s0140-6736(05)74468-8 |title=Discarded Diagnoses&thinsp;: Drapetomania }}</ref> This hypothesis was based on the belief that slavery was such an improvement upon the lives of slaves that only those suffering from some form of mental illness would wish to escape.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Michael |first=Ruane |date=April 30, 2019 |title=A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-brief-history-of-the-enduring-phony-science-that-perpetuates-white-supremacy |access-date=January 21, 2022 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pilgrim |first=David |date=November 1, 2005 |title=Drapetomania - November 2005 |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm |url-status=live |access-date=January 21, 2022 |publisher=[[Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810084718/https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm |archive-date=2020-08-10 }}</ref>


Cartwright specifically cited the tendency of slaves to flee the plantations that held them. Since slaves happy with their condition would not want to leave, he inferred that such people had to be sick, impervious to the natural order of things. He published an article about black slaves' illnesses and idiosyncrasies in a widely circulated Southern journal.<ref>Hervé Guillemain, "Drapetomania" in Hervé Guillemain (ed.), DicoPolHiS, Le Mans Université, 2021.</ref> Contemporarily reprinted in the South, Cartwright's article was widely mocked and satirized in the northern United States. The concept has since been debunked as [[pseudoscience]]<ref name="Caplan">{{cite book |last1=Caplan |first1=Arthur |last2=McCartney |first2=James |last3=Sisti |first3=Dominic |title=Health, disease, and illness: concepts in medicine |year=2004 |publisher=[[Georgetown University Press]] |isbn=1-58901-014-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NmHCGb3GvJoC&pg=PA2}}</ref>{{rp|2}} and shown to be part of the edifice of [[scientific racism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm |title=Question of the Month: Drapetomania |access-date=11 January 2021 |author=Pilgrim, David |date=November 2005 |publisher=[[Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia]]}}</ref>
Cartwright specifically cited the tendency of slaves to flee the plantations that held them. Since slaves happy with their condition would not want to leave, he inferred that such people had to be sick, impervious to the natural order of things. He published an article about black slaves' illnesses and idiosyncrasies in [[De Bow's Review]].<ref>Hervé Guillemain, "Drapetomania" in Hervé Guillemain (ed.), DicoPolHiS, Le Mans Université, 2021.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HGA2AQAAMAAJ |title=De Bow's Review of the Southern and Western States |publisher=J.D.B. De Bow |year=1851 |volume=11 |location=New Orleans |pages=331–336 |language=en}}</ref> Contemporarily reprinted in the South, Cartwright's article was widely mocked and satirized in the northern United States. The concept has since been debunked as [[pseudoscience]]<ref name="Caplan">{{cite book |last1=Caplan |first1=Arthur |last2=McCartney |first2=James |last3=Sisti |first3=Dominic |title=Health, disease, and illness: concepts in medicine |year=2004 |publisher=[[Georgetown University Press]] |isbn=1-58901-014-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NmHCGb3GvJoC&pg=PA2}}</ref>{{rp|2}} and shown to be part of the edifice of [[scientific racism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm |title=Question of the Month: Drapetomania |access-date=11 January 2021 |last=Pilgrim |first=David |date=November 2005 |publisher=[[Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia]]}}</ref>


The term derives from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] δραπέτης (''drapetēs'', "a runaway [slave]") and μανία (''mania'', "madness, frenzy").<ref name=Cartwright>{{cite journal|last=Cartwright|first=Samuel A.|author-link=Samuel A. Cartwright|title=Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race|journal=[[DeBow's Review]]|year=1851|volume=XI|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html|access-date=16 November 2011}}</ref>
The term derives from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] {{lang|grc|δραπέτης}} ({{lang|grc-Latn|drapetēs}}, 'a runaway [slave]') and {{lang|grc|μανία}} ({{lang|grc-Latn|mania}}, 'madness, frenzy').<ref name=Cartwright>{{cite journal |last=Cartwright |first=Samuel A. |author-link=Samuel A. Cartwright |title=Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race |journal=[[DeBow's Review]] |year=1851 |volume=XI |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html |access-date=16 November 2011 }}</ref>


As late as 1914, the third edition of [[Thomas Lathrop Stedman]]'s ''Practical Medical Dictionary'' included an entry for ''drapetomania'', defined as "[[Vagrancy (people)|Vagabondage]], [[dromomania]]; an uncontrollable or insane impulsion to wander."<ref>{{cite book|title=Practical Medical Dictionary|last=Stedman|first=Thomas Lathrop|publisher=W. Wood|year=1914|edition=3rd|location=New York|hdl=2027/ien.35558005332206?urlappend=%3Bseq=286%3Bq1=drapetomania|page=268|article=drapetomania}} Also available from [https://archive.org/stream/stedmansmedical00unkngoog#page/n282 Internet Archive]</ref>
As late as 1914, the third edition of [[Thomas Lathrop Stedman]]'s ''Practical Medical Dictionary'' included an entry for ''drapetomania'', defined as "[[vagrancy (people)|vagabondage]], [[dromomania]]; an uncontrollable or insane impulsion to wander."<ref>{{cite book |title=Practical Medical Dictionary |last=Stedman |first=Thomas Lathrop |publisher=W. Wood |year=1914 |edition=3rd |location=New York |hdl=2027/ien.35558005332206?urlappend=%3Bseq=286%3Bq1=drapetomania |page=268 |article=drapetomania }} Also available from [https://archive.org/stream/stedmansmedical00unkngoog#page/n282 Internet Archive]</ref>


== Description ==
== Description ==
Line 15: Line 15:
He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals".<ref>Baynton, Douglas C. "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History". ''The New Disability History: American Perspectives'', 2001.</ref>
He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals".<ref>Baynton, Douglas C. "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History". ''The New Disability History: American Perspectives'', 2001.</ref>


{{quote|If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night—separated into families, each family having its own house—not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed—more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.<ref>S. L. Chorover. ''From Genesis to Genocide'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[MIT Press]] 1974). p. 150.</ref>}}In ''Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race'', Cartwright says that the [[Bible]] calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away:<ref name="Cartwright" />{{quote|If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying to make the negro anything else than "the submissive knee-bender" (which the Almighty declared he should be), by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his bearing towards him, without condescension, and at the same time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away.}}
{{blockquote|If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night—separated into families, each family having its own house—not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed—more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.<ref>S. L. Chorover. ''From Genesis to Genocide'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[MIT Press]] 1974). p. 150.</ref>}}In ''Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race'', Cartwright says that the [[Bible]] calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away:<ref name="Cartwright" />{{blockquote|If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying to make the negro anything else than "the submissive knee-bender" (which the Almighty declared he should be), by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his bearing towards him, without condescension, and at the same time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away.}}


=== Prevention and remedy ===
=== Prevention and remedy ===
Line 22: Line 22:


===Contemporary criticism===
===Contemporary criticism===
While Cartwright's article was reprinted in the South,{{ Dubious | date = August 2023 | reason = <ref name="Differences"/> }} in the [[northern United States]] it was widely mocked. A satirical analysis of the article appeared in a ''Buffalo Medical Journal'' editorial in 1855.<ref>{{cite journal |author=S. B. Hunt |title=Dr. Cartwright on "Drapetomania" |journal=Buffalo Medical Journal |volume=10 |year=1855 |issue=7 |pages=438–442 |pmid=35375930 |pmc=8676958 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=coBYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA438}}</ref> Renowned landscape architect [[Frederick Law Olmsted]], in ''A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States'' (1856), observed that white [[indentured servant]]s had often been known to flee as well, so he satirically hypothesized that the supposed disease was actually of white European origin, and had been introduced to Africa by traders.<ref>{{cite book |author=Frederick Law Olmsted |title=A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on Their Economy | publisher=Mason Brothers |page=226 |year=1856 |isbn=9780678008133 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f3sFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA226}}</ref>
While Cartwright's article was reprinted in the South,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cartwright |date=1851 |title=Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race |journal=De Bow's Review |volume=XI |pages=331–336}}</ref> in the [[northern United States]] it was widely mocked. A satirical analysis of the article appeared in a ''Buffalo Medical Journal'' editorial in 1855.<ref>{{cite journal |author=S. B. Hunt |title=Dr. Cartwright on "Drapetomania" |journal=Buffalo Medical Journal |volume=10 |year=1855 |issue=7 |pages=438–442 |pmid=35375930 |pmc=8676958 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=coBYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA438}}</ref> Renowned landscape architect [[Frederick Law Olmsted]], in ''A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States'' (1856), observed that white [[indentured servant]]s had often been known to flee as well, so he satirically hypothesized that the supposed disease was actually of white European origin, and had been introduced to Africa by traders.<ref>{{cite book |author=Frederick Law Olmsted |title=A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on Their Economy | publisher=Mason Brothers |page=226 |year=1856 |isbn=9780678008133 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f3sFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA226}}</ref>


The contemporary southern intelligentsia regarded Cartwright as a fringe figure.<ref name="Differences"> {{ Cite journal | issue=2 | volume=4 | publisher=[[University of Toronto Libraries]] - UOTL | journal=[[Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience]] | last=Carmody | first=Todd | title=Review of Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 by Rana A. Hogart (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017) | date=2018-10-16 | issn=2380-3312 | doi=10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29596 | pages=1–6 }} </ref>
The contemporary southern intelligentsia regarded Cartwright as a fringe figure.<ref name="Differences">{{ Cite journal | issue=2 | volume=4 | publisher=[[University of Toronto Libraries]] - UOTL | journal=[[Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience]] | last=Carmody | first=Todd | title=Review of Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 by Rana A. Hogart (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017) | date=2018-10-16 | issn=2380-3312 | doi=10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29596 | pages=1–6 | doi-access=free }}</ref> {{ Dubious | date = December 2023 | reason = <ref name="Mismeasure"/> }} [[Stephen Jay Gould]] identified Cartwright as "a prominent Southern physician" with the caveat that Cartwright's defenses of slavery constituted "an extreme within the range of 'scientific argument'" that was not typical and likely paid little attention by "many intelligent Southerners."<ref name="Mismeasure">{{cite book |last1=Gould |first1=Stephen Jay |title=The Mismeasure of Man |date=1980 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=United States |isbn=0-393-01489-4 |page=70 |url=http://tankona.free.fr/gould1981.pdf |access-date=29 December 2023 |ref=Mismeasure}}</ref>


==See also==
==See also==
* [[Dysaesthesia aethiopica]], another novel diagnosis of Cartwright's regarding what was seen as a mental illness that was the cause of laziness among slaves.
* [[Dysaesthesia aethiopica]], another novel diagnosis of Cartwright regarding what was seen as a mental illness that was the cause of laziness among slaves.
* ''[[The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease]]''
* ''[[The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease]]''
* [[Depression (mood)|Depression]]
* [[Depression (mood)|Depression]]
Line 35: Line 35:
* [[Classification of mental disorders]]
* [[Classification of mental disorders]]
* [[Sluggish schizophrenia]]
* [[Sluggish schizophrenia]]
* [[Biology of depression]]


==References==
==References==
Line 47: Line 48:
==External links==
==External links==
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* [http://academic.udayton.edu/health/01status/mental01.htm An Early History&nbsp;– African American Mental Health]
* [http://academic.udayton.edu/health/01status/mental01.htm An Early History&nbsp;– African American Mental Health] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709081628/http://academic.udayton.edu/health/01status/mental01.htm |date=2011-07-09 }}
* {{cite web |last1=Findlay |first1=James A. |title=DRAPETOMANIA --- A DISEASE CALLED FREEDOM: An Exhibition of 18th-, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Material Culture of the African Experience in the Americas from the Collection of Derrick Joshua Beard |url=http://www.broward.org/library/bienes/lii13000.htm |publisher=[[Broward County Library]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215004923/http://www.broward.org/library/bienes/lii13000.htm |archive-date=15 February 2009 |url-status=dead |location=Broward County, Florida, US |date=2000}}
* {{cite web |last1=Findlay |first1=James A. |title=DRAPETOMANIA --- A DISEASE CALLED FREEDOM: An Exhibition of 18th-, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Material Culture of the African Experience in the Americas from the Collection of Derrick Joshua Beard |url=http://www.broward.org/library/bienes/lii13000.htm |publisher=[[Broward County Library]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215004923/http://www.broward.org/library/bienes/lii13000.htm |archive-date=15 February 2009 |url-status=dead |location=Broward County, Florida, US |date=2000}}
* {{cite news |last1=Dimuro |first1=Gina |title=Southerners Actually Thought Slaves Escaping Was A Sign Of Mental Illness |url=https://allthatsinteresting.com/drapetomania |website=All That's Interesting |date=4 April 2018}}
* {{cite news |last1=Dimuro |first1=Gina |title=Southerners Actually Thought Slaves Escaping Was A Sign Of Mental Illness |url=https://allthatsinteresting.com/drapetomania |website=All That's Interesting |date=4 April 2018}}
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[[Category:Slavery in the United States]]
[[Category:Slavery in the United States]]
[[Category:Fugitive American slaves]]
[[Category:Fugitive American slaves]]
[[Category:Race and health in the United States]]
[[Category:African-American health]]
[[Category:Psychiatric false diagnosis]]
[[Category:Psychiatric false diagnosis]]
[[Category:History of psychology]]
[[Category:History of psychology]]

Latest revision as of 18:15, 20 September 2024

Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863)

Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity.[1]: 41 [2] This hypothesis was based on the belief that slavery was such an improvement upon the lives of slaves that only those suffering from some form of mental illness would wish to escape.[3][4]

Cartwright specifically cited the tendency of slaves to flee the plantations that held them. Since slaves happy with their condition would not want to leave, he inferred that such people had to be sick, impervious to the natural order of things. He published an article about black slaves' illnesses and idiosyncrasies in De Bow's Review.[5][6] Contemporarily reprinted in the South, Cartwright's article was widely mocked and satirized in the northern United States. The concept has since been debunked as pseudoscience[7]: 2  and shown to be part of the edifice of scientific racism.[8]

The term derives from the Greek δραπέτης (drapetēs, 'a runaway [slave]') and μανία (mania, 'madness, frenzy').[9]

As late as 1914, the third edition of Thomas Lathrop Stedman's Practical Medical Dictionary included an entry for drapetomania, defined as "vagabondage, dromomania; an uncontrollable or insane impulsion to wander."[10]

Description

[edit]
Engraving of an escaped slave, published in 1837

Cartwright described the disorder—which, he said, was "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers"[9]—in a paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana[7]: 291  that was widely reprinted.

He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals".[11]

If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night—separated into families, each family having its own house—not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed—more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.[12]

In Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, Cartwright says that the Bible calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away:[9]

If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying to make the negro anything else than "the submissive knee-bender" (which the Almighty declared he should be), by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his bearing towards him, without condescension, and at the same time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away.

Prevention and remedy

[edit]

In addition to identifying drapetomania, his feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented".[9] In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause"—a warning sign of imminent flight—Cartwright mentioned "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure".[7]: 35 [13][14]

Contemporary criticism

[edit]

While Cartwright's article was reprinted in the South,[15] in the northern United States it was widely mocked. A satirical analysis of the article appeared in a Buffalo Medical Journal editorial in 1855.[16] Renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, in A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856), observed that white indentured servants had often been known to flee as well, so he satirically hypothesized that the supposed disease was actually of white European origin, and had been introduced to Africa by traders.[17]

The contemporary southern intelligentsia regarded Cartwright as a fringe figure.[18] [dubious – discuss] Stephen Jay Gould identified Cartwright as "a prominent Southern physician" with the caveat that Cartwright's defenses of slavery constituted "an extreme within the range of 'scientific argument'" that was not typical and likely paid little attention by "many intelligent Southerners."[19]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ White, Kevin (2002). An introduction to the sociology of health and illness. SAGE Publishing. pp. 41, 42. ISBN 0-7619-6400-2.
  2. ^ Bynum, Bill (2000). "Discarded Diagnoses : Drapetomania". The Lancet. 356 (9241). Elsevier BV: 1615. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(05)74468-8. eISSN 1474-547X. ISSN 0140-6736. LCCN sf82002015. OCLC 01755507. PMID 11075805. S2CID 5440631.
  3. ^ Michael, Ruane (April 30, 2019). "A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  4. ^ Pilgrim, David (November 1, 2005). "Drapetomania - November 2005". Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Archived from the original on 2020-08-10. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  5. ^ Hervé Guillemain, "Drapetomania" in Hervé Guillemain (ed.), DicoPolHiS, Le Mans Université, 2021.
  6. ^ De Bow's Review of the Southern and Western States. Vol. 11. New Orleans: J.D.B. De Bow. 1851. pp. 331–336.
  7. ^ a b c Caplan, Arthur; McCartney, James; Sisti, Dominic (2004). Health, disease, and illness: concepts in medicine. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 1-58901-014-0.
  8. ^ Pilgrim, David (November 2005). "Question of the Month: Drapetomania". Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d Cartwright, Samuel A. (1851). "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race". DeBow's Review. XI. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
  10. ^ Stedman, Thomas Lathrop (1914). "drapetomania". Practical Medical Dictionary (3rd ed.). New York: W. Wood. p. 268. hdl:2027/ien.35558005332206. Also available from Internet Archive
  11. ^ Baynton, Douglas C. "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History". The New Disability History: American Perspectives, 2001.
  12. ^ S. L. Chorover. From Genesis to Genocide (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1974). p. 150.
  13. ^ Paul Finkelman (1997). Slavery & the Law. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 305. ISBN 0-7425-2119-2.
  14. ^ Rick Halpern, Enrico Dal Lago (2002). Slavery and Emancipation. Blackwell Publishing. p. 273. ISBN 0-631-21735-5.
  15. ^ Cartwright (1851). "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race". De Bow's Review. XI: 331–336.
  16. ^ S. B. Hunt (1855). "Dr. Cartwright on "Drapetomania"". Buffalo Medical Journal. 10 (7): 438–442. PMC 8676958. PMID 35375930.
  17. ^ Frederick Law Olmsted (1856). A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on Their Economy. Mason Brothers. p. 226. ISBN 9780678008133.
  18. ^ Carmody, Todd (2018-10-16). "Review of Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 by Rana A. Hogart (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017)". Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 4 (2). University of Toronto Libraries - UOTL: 1–6. doi:10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29596. ISSN 2380-3312.
  19. ^ a b Gould, Stephen Jay (1980). The Mismeasure of Man (PDF). United States: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 70. ISBN 0-393-01489-4. Retrieved 29 December 2023.

Sources

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Bibliography

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  • Katherine Bankole, Slavery and Medicine: Enslavement and Medical Practices in Antebellum Louisiana, New York: Taylor and Francis Group, 1998.
  • Bob Myers, "Drapetomania": Rebellion, Defiance and Free Black Insanity in the Antebellum United States, phD thesis, 2014.
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