Primary Sources, Black History

Courageous Freedom Seekers were said to have contracted a disease...  Drapetomania!   Drapetomania was a purported mental illness that caused enslaved black  to flee captivity, described by American doctor Samuel Cartwright, in 1851.    -------- Click & Listen to William Katz, author "Breaking The Chains"  Thursday at 8pm WWW.BlogTalkRadio.com/BlackHistory --------   According to Cartwright, the illness resulted from masters who “made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals” and prescribed “whipping the devil out of them” as a “preventative measure.” In his work, Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, Cartwright’s justification for drapetomania is primarily Biblical, citing the idea that slaves must obey their masters.   The title of the exhibition is taken from an article in the monthly Southern journal entitled The Georgia Blister and Critic, v. 1, #7 (Sept. 1854), p. 156 (exhibit #20). The journal dealt with the “diseases and physical peculiarities of the Negro race.” In t