Drapetomania Explained

Drapetomania was a nonexistent mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity.^{[1] [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] and shown to be part of the edifice of scientific racism. A slave's desire for freedom is not pathological.^[8]

The term derives from the Greek Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: δραπέτης (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: drapetēs, 'a runaway [slave]') and Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: μανία (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: 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

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] 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]

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:

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".^[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".^{[12] [13]}

Contemporary criticism

While Cartwright's article was reprinted in the South,^[14] in the northern United States it was widely mocked. A satirical analysis of the article appeared in a Buffalo Medical Journal editorial in 1855.^[15] 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.^[16]

The contemporary southern intelligentsia regarded Cartwright as a fringe figure.^[17] 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."^[18]

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.
• Depression
• Dromomania
• Political abuse of psychiatry
• Fugitive slave
• Classification of mental disorders
• Sluggish schizophrenia
• Biology of depression

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 at Google Books and excerpted at PBS.org.
  • 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
• Web site: Findlay . James A. . 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 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20090215004923/http://www.broward.org/library/bienes/lii13000.htm . 15 February 2009 . dead . Broward County, Florida, US . 2000.
• News: Dimuro . Gina . Southerners Actually Thought Slaves Escaping Was A Sign Of Mental Illness . All That's Interesting . 4 April 2018.
• DicoPolHiS

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.

Notes and References

1. Book: White, Kevin . An introduction to the sociology of health and illness . 2002 . . 0-7619-6400-2 . 41, 42 .
2. 2000 . . Bynum . Bill . 1615 . . 01755507 . sf82002015 . 0140-6736 . 1474-547X . 356 . 9241 . 5440631 . 11075805 . 10.1016/s0140-6736(05)74468-8 . Discarded Diagnoses : Drapetomania .
3. News: Michael . Ruane . April 30, 2019 . A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy . January 21, 2022 . .
4. Web site: Pilgrim . David . November 1, 2005 . Drapetomania - November 2005 . live . January 21, 2022 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20200810084718/https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm . 2020-08-10 .
5. Hervé Guillemain, "Drapetomania" in Hervé Guillemain (ed.), DicoPolHiS, Le Mans Université, 2021.
6. Book: De Bow's Review of the Southern and Western States . J.D.B. De Bow . 1851 . 11 . New Orleans . 331–336 . en.
7. Book: Caplan . Arthur . McCartney . James . Sisti . Dominic . Health, disease, and illness: concepts in medicine . 2004 . . 1-58901-014-0 .
8. Web site: Question of the Month: Drapetomania . 11 January 2021 . Pilgrim . David . November 2005 . Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.
9. Cartwright . Samuel A. . Samuel A. Cartwright . Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race . . 1851 . XI . 16 November 2011 .
10. Book: Stedman, Thomas Lathrop . Practical Medical Dictionary . W. Wood . 1914 . 3rd . New York . 2027/ien.35558005332206?urlappend=%3Bseq=286%3Bq1=drapetomania . 268 . drapetomania . 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. Book: Slavery & the Law . Paul Finkelman. 1997. . 0-7425-2119-2. 305.
13. Book: Slavery and Emancipation . Rick Halpern, Enrico Dal Lago . 2002 . Blackwell Publishing . 0-631-21735-5 . 273.
14. Cartwright . 1851 . Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race . De Bow's Review . XI . 331–336.
15. S. B. Hunt . Dr. Cartwright on "Drapetomania" . Buffalo Medical Journal . 10 . 1855 . 7 . 438–442 . 35375930 . 8676958 .
16. Book: Frederick Law Olmsted . A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on Their Economy . Mason Brothers . 226 . 1856 . 9780678008133 .
17. 2 . 4 . University of Toronto Libraries - UOTL . . Carmody . Todd . Review of Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 by Rana A. Hogart (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017) . 2018-10-16 . 2380-3312 . 10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29596 . 1–6 . free .
18. Book: Gould . Stephen Jay . The Mismeasure of Man . 1980 . W. W. Norton & Company . United States . 0-393-01489-4 . 70 . 29 December 2023 . Mismeasure.