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Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity. 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.
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''. 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
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"—in a paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana that was widely reprinted.
He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with laves treating them as equals".
In ''Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race'', Cartwright says that the
Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race
, ''The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal'' 1851:691–715 (May). ** Reprinted in DeBow's Review XI (1851). Available a
Google Books
and excerpted a
** Reprinted in Arthur Caplan, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., and James McCartney, eds, ''Concepts of Health and Disease in Medicine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives'' (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1980). ** Reprinted in Arthur L. Caplan, James J. McCartney, Dominic A. Sisti, eds, ''Health, Disease, and Illness: Concepts in Medicine'' (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004)
An Early History – African American Mental Health
* * {{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
Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity. 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.
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''. 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
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...
and shown to be part of the edifice of scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that the Human, human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called "race (human categorization), races", and that empirical evi ...
.
The term derives from the Greek (, 'a runaway lave) and (, 'madness, frenzy').
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."
Description
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"—in a paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana that was widely reprinted.
He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with laves treating them as equals".
In ''Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race'', Cartwright says that the Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away:
Prevention and remedy
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". 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".Contemporaneous criticism
While Cartwright's article was reprinted in the South, in thenorthern United States
The Northern United States, commonly referred to as the American North, the Northern States, or simply the North, is a geographical and historical region of the United States.
History Early history
Before the 19th century westward expansion, the ...
it was widely mocked. A satirical analysis of the article appeared in a ''Buffalo Medical Journal'' editorial in 1855. Renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, in ''A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States'' (1856), observed that white indentured servant
Indentured servitude is a form of Work (human activity), labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as paymen ...
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.
The contemporary southern intelligentsia regarded Cartwright as a fringe figure. Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
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."
See also
* 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'' * Depression * Dromomania * Political abuse of psychiatry * Fugitive slave * Classification of mental disorders * Sluggish schizophrenia * Biology of depression * GaslightingReferences
Sources
* Samuel A. Cartwright,Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race
, ''The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal'' 1851:691–715 (May). ** Reprinted in DeBow's Review XI (1851). Available a
Google Books
and excerpted a
** Reprinted in Arthur Caplan, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., and James McCartney, eds, ''Concepts of Health and Disease in Medicine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives'' (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1980). ** Reprinted in Arthur L. Caplan, James J. McCartney, Dominic A. Sisti, eds, ''Health, Disease, and Illness: Concepts in Medicine'' (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004)
External links
*An Early History – African American Mental Health
* * {{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
Bibliography
*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. Scientific racism Obsolete medical terms Political abuses of psychiatry Obsolete terms for mental disorders Stereotypes of African Americans White supremacy in the United States Pseudoscience Mania Social problems in medicine Slavery in the United States Fugitive American slaves African-American health Psychiatric false diagnosis History of psychology Post-traumatic stress disorder