The Psychology of Escape
Brian talks with historian Katherine Bankole-Medina, about a supposed mental condition that induced slaves to run away.
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This is a transcript from an earlier broadcast of this episode, there may be slight differences in wording.
NARRATOR: Major funding for BackStory is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and an anonymous donor.
ED AYERS: From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is BackStory, with the American Backstory hosts.
BRIAN BALOGH: Welcome to the show. I’m Brian Balogh, the 20th century guy, and I’m here with Peter Onuf.
PETER ONUF: 18th century guy.
BRIAN BALOGH: Sadly our 19th century guy, Ed, is away this week, which is too bad for him, because we’re going to talk, for a minute, about a person from his century, a Louisiana doctor named Samuel Cartwright.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: He was greatly respected in the south. He was considered a rock star.
PETER ONUF: This is Katherine Bankole-Medina.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: Professor of History at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland.
PETER ONUF: And she’s been studying Dr. Cartwright for quite some time.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: He actually served as an apprentice with Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia.
BRIAN BALOGH: He was a big deal.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: Benjamin Rush was as big as you can get.
PETER ONUF: So in other words, the guy was no quack. In fact, he was one of the most influential American Medical figures in the years leading up to the Civil War, especially in the slave holding South.
BRIAN BALOGH: And one theory that he advanced was something called drapetomania. It sure isn’t a disease that doctors would diagnose today.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: It was an illness described and defined as one that causes enslaved persons to run away from slavery, or to have thoughts of escape from bondage.
BRIAN BALOGH: OK. That was an illness?
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: Yes. Yes, he considered it an illness. He considered it a form of mental illness akin to madness.
BRIAN BALOGH: Wow. What was his treatment for this, I shudder to ask?
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: (LAUGHINGLY) Indeed, you should. He had some interesting treatments with respect to drapetomania. One of those is the idea that if the slaveholder would keep the enslaved person in an infantile state or in a submissive state, that kind of treatment would help to cure the person from wanting to be free. And if that failed, then the slave owner or the overseer could resort to whipping as a prevention against running away. And it was recommended as a cure.
BRIAN BALOGH: Cartwright’s theory didn’t only apply to African Americans in bondage. He thought the same diagnosis could apply to free black people, as well.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: Cartwright had particular condemnation for free blacks. He believed that free blacks more often suffered from his negro slave disease than did the enslaved blacks.
BRIAN BALOGH: Sure, well, they weren’t being treated like children.
DR. KATHERINE BANKOLE-MEDINA: Absolutely. Absolutely. And Cartwright specifically spelled out that whenever you find free blacks in their own communities, in their own enclaves, actually behaving as if they were free, they were the ones who are suffering the most.
BRIAN BALOGH: A little over a week ago the American Psychiatric Association released a fifth revision of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM-5. Drapetomania isn’t in it. But some new disorders have sparked controversy.
According to some experts, this latest edition of the DSM will re-classify millions of previously normal people as having some sort of disorder. That’s going to have serious consequences for insurance coverage, patient care, and drug companies.
PETER ONUF: So today on BackStory, we’re going to look at the ways past generations of Americans have drawn the line between mental health and mental illness. Why have certain disorders disappeared a various points, only to be replaced by new ones?
We’ve got stories about a sleep walker at the foundation of the asylum movement, about how a few simple words changed activists into schizophrenics, and about a test that tells us if you yeah you, are susceptible to fascism.