Black History : In 1850’s a Louisiana scientist Dr. Cartwright claimed to have discovered two new diseases peculiar to Blacks that he believed justified enslavement

HODEE

Alonewolf
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Jul 2, 2003
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Slavery was So Cruel, and the Masters and Overseers, were so Ignorant. All of America was ignorant so this Dr. Cartwright set out to explain, why Blacks ran away from slavery!
Slaves Never Were, We Will Never Be !
SUBMISSIVE

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“The best means to stimulate the skin is, first, to have the patient well washed with warm water and soap; then, to anoint it all over in oil, and to slap the oil in with a broad leather strap; then to put the patient to some hard kind of work in the sunshine.”

After the prescribed “course of treatment”, Cartwright said the slave will “look grateful and thankful to the white man whose compulsory power … has restored his sensation and dispelled the mist that clouded his intellect.”




SUBMISSIVE is the practice this Dr. Cartwright wrote to convince America " Blacks " should be.

“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 hearing 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.”
Dr. Cartwright claimed to have discovered two new diseases peculiar to Blacks that he believed justified enslavement as a therapeutic necessity “A runaway slave is mania mad or crazy.

Did you know that in the 1850’s a Louisiana scientist claimed to have found a disease called drapetomania which made slaves run away from their masters?

It sounds crazy but it is true. In May, 1851, Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright published a paper entitled, “Report On The Diseases and Physical Peculiarities Of The Negro race” in The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, a reputable scholarly publication, that claimed that black ran away from their masters because of a disease.

Dr. Cartwright claimed to have discovered two new diseases peculiar to Blacks that he believed justified enslavement as a therapeutic necessity for the slaves and as a medical and moral responsibility for their White masters. He claimed that Blacks who fled slavery suffered from drapetomania. In his words:

“A runaway slave is mania mad or crazy. It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptoms be absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers. In noticing a disease that, therefore, is hitherto classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in most cases that induces the Negro to run away from service is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable as a general rule.”

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"Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race"


"Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," by Dr. Cartwright (in DeBow's Review)


DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY.
It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers...
In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it.
 

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