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]
- ^ White, Kevin (2002). An introduction to the sociology of health and illness. SAGE Publishing. pp. 41, 42. ISBN 0-7619-6400-2.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Michael, Ruane (April 30, 2019). "A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Hervé Guillemain, "Drapetomania" in Hervé Guillemain (ed.), DicoPolHiS, Le Mans Université, 2021.
- ^ De Bow's Review of the Southern and Western States. Vol. 11. New Orleans: J.D.B. De Bow. 1851. pp. 331–336.
- ^ Caplan, Arthur; McCartney, James; Sisti, Dominic (2004). Health, disease, and illness: concepts in medicine. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 1-58901-014-0.
- ^ Pilgrim, David (November 2005). "Question of the Month: Drapetomania". Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
- ^ Cartwright, Samuel A. (1851). "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race". DeBow's Review. XI. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
- ^ 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