Samuel A. Cartwright

{{Infobox person

| name = Samuel A. Cartwright

| image = Samuelcartwright.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Samuel Cartwright

| birth_name = Samuel Adolphus Cartwright

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1793|11|03}}

| birth_place = Fairfax County, Virginia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1863|05|02|1793|11|03}}

| death_place = Jackson, Mississippi

| nationality = American

| other_names =

| known_for = Coining "drapetomania"

| occupation = Physician

| spouse = Mary Wren

| children =

| education = University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

}}

Samuel Adolphus Cartwright (November 3, 1793 – May 2, 1863) was an American physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States. Cartwright is best known as the inventor of the 'mental illness' of drapetomania—the desire of a slave for freedom—and as an outspoken opponent of germ theory.{{cite book|first=Randall M.|last=Miller|author2=John David Smith|title=Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport|year=1997|isbn=0-313-23814-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofafro00mill}}{{cite book|title=The Clinical Reporter|author=Homoeopathic Medical College of Missouri|date=1888|volume=1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HJVXAAAAMAAJ|page=320|accessdate=June 20, 2015}}

Biography

Cartwright married Mary Wren of Natchez, Mississippi, in 1825.[https://www.lib.lsu.edu/sites/default/files/sc/findaid/2471m.pdf "Samuel A. Cartwright and Family Papers"], Mss. 2471, 2499,

Inventory, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University, page 4. During the American Civil War, he was a physician in the Confederate States Army and served in camps near Vicksburg and Port Hudson. He was assigned with improving the sanitary conditions for the soldiers.

Slavery

The Medical Association of Louisiana charged Cartwright with investigating "the diseases and physical peculiarities of the negro race". His report was delivered as a speech at its annual meeting on March 12, 1851, and published in its journal.{{cite journal

|title=Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race

|first=Samuel A.

|last=Cartwright

|journal=New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal

|date=May 1851

|pages=691–715

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mjkCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA707

|accessdate=May 25, 2018}} The most sensationalistic portions of it, on drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica, were reprinted in DeBow's Review.{{cite news

|first=Ssmuel A.

|last=Cartwright

|magazine=DeBow's Review

|title=Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race

|pages=64–74

|volume=11

|issue=1

|date=July 1851}} He subsequently prepared an abbreviated version, with sources cited, for Southern Medical Reports.{{cite magazine

|journal=Southern Medical Reports

|first=Samuel A.

|last=Cartwright

|pages=421–429

|volume=2

|year=1851

|title=The Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6NhXAAAAMAAJ&q=quarantine+maps&pg=PA421}}

"If they nonetheless became dissatisfied with their condition, they should be whipped to prevent them from running away." In describing his theory and cure for drapetomania, Cartwright relied on passages of Christian scripture dealing with slavery.

Furthermore, Cartwright described the condition of 'genu fluxit', in which slaves exacted awe and reverence towards their master. The condition could be lost though if masters were to treat their slaves overly harshly and deny basic privileges. Rather than just arguing to treat slaves negatively overall, he desired to treat slaves somewhere in the middle, similar to how one would treat a child.{{cite web |last1=Cartwright |first1=Samuel |title=Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html |website=pbs.org}}

Cartwright also invented another 'disorder', dysaesthesia aethiopica, a disease "affecting both mind and body." Cartwright used his theory to explain the perceived lack of work ethic among slaves.Pilgrim, David. [http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/question/nov05.htm "Question of the Month: Drapetomania"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614115746/http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/question/nov05.htm |date=June 14, 2011 }}. Jim Crow Museum. Jim Crow Museum, Ferris State University. November 2005. Dysaesthesia aethiopica, "called by overseers 'rascality'," was characterized by partial insensitivity of the skin and "so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep." Other symptoms included "lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms."{{cite book|title=Slavery & the Law |author= Paul Finkelman|year=1997|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield| pages=305|isbn=0-7425-2119-2|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1YI0DvuukxkC&pg=PA305}}{{cite book|title=Slavery and Emancipation |author= Rick Halpern, Enrico Dal Lago|year=2002|publisher=Blackwell Publishing| pages=273|isbn=0-631-21735-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=svaQthjrcf0C&pg=RA1-PA273}}

According to Cartwright, dysaesthesia aethiopica was "much more prevalent among free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc." — indeed, according to Cartwright, "nearly all [free negroes] are more or less afflicted with it, that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of them."

Cultural depictions

Cartwright was referenced in the 2004 film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America. In the film, after the Confederate States of America wins the American Civil War, Cartwright's work forms the basis for the fictional Cartwright Institute for Freedom Illnesses, a medical school incorporating his theory on drapetomania and other "negro peculiarities".
Cartwright is also portrayed in the 1971 Mondo exploitation film Goodbye Uncle Tom alongside many other figures from the time. Notably, Cartwright is stated to be Jewish in the film, which he was not in reality.
Cartwright is mentioned and appears, along with other historical personalities, in Season 7 of the series Outlander_(TV_series), based on the books by Diana Gabaldon.

Publications

{{cite news

|title=How to Save the Republic, and the Position of the South in the Union

|volume=11

|issue=2

|date=August 1851

|pages=184–197

|magazine=DeBow's Journal

|url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/acg1336.1-11.002/200:7?cite1=Cartwright;cite1restrict=author;page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image;q1=Negro

|last=Cartwright, M. D.

|first=S. A.}}

{{cite news

|title=Dr. Cartwright on the Caucasians and the Africans

|volume=25

|issue=1

|date=July 1858

|pages=45–56

|last=Cartwright

|first=Dr.

|magazine=DeBow's Review

|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/acg1336.1-25.001/55

|accessdate=May 15, 2018}}

{{cite news

|first=Samuel A.

|last=Cartwright

|magazine=DeBow's Review

|volume=27

|issue=3

|date=September 1859

|pages=263–279

|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/acg1336.1-27.003/282

|title=The Education, Labor, and Wealth of the South}}

{{cite news

|title=Unity of the Human Race Disproved by the Hebrew Bible

|first=Samuel A.

|last=Cartwright

|magazine=DeBow's Review

|volume=4

|date=August 1860

|number=2

|pages=129–136

|url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/acg1336.1-29.002/*

|access-date = September 29, 2019}}

{{cite book

|title=The Dred Scott decision. Opinion of Chief Justice Taney, with an introduction by Dr. J.H. Van Evrie. Also, an appendix, containing an essay on the natural history of the prognathous race of mankind, originally written for the New York Day-book, by Dr. S. A. Cartwright, of New Orleans

|chapter=An essay on the natural history of the prognathous race of mankind

|first=Samuel A.

|last=Cartwright

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/dredscottdecisio1863unit/page/45 45]–48

|location=New York

|publisher=Van Evrie, Horton & Co.

|year=1863

|url=https://archive.org/details/dredscottdecisio1863unit}}

References

= Citations =

= Sources =

"[https://web.archive.org/web/20120225122235/http://www.lahistory.org/site20.php Samuel Adolphus Cartwright]", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 1 (1988), p. 157
''Dictionary of American Medical Biography", Vol. 1 (1984)
{{cite journal |title = Samuel A. Cartwright and States' Rights Medicine |author = Marshall, Mary Louise |journal = New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal |year = 1940 |volume = 93 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=85JFAAAAYAAJ}}
{{cite web |url = http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-abuse/Racism/InOurOwnVoice |title = In Our Own Voice: African-American Stories of Oppression, Survival and Recovery in Mental Health Systems |date = c. 2002 |accessdate = April 21, 2015 |author = Jackson, Vanessa |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110526165450/http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-abuse/Racism/InOurOwnVoice |archive-date = May 26, 2011 |url-status = dead }}
{{cite web |url = http://cghs.dadeschools.net/slavery/defense_of_slavery/theorists/theorists.htm |title = Thomas Roderick Dew |publisher = Miami-Dade County Public Schools |work = Defense of Slavery: Theorists of Racial Inequality |accessdate = April 21, 2015 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110719010845/http://cghs.dadeschools.net/slavery/defense_of_slavery/theorists/theorists.htm |archivedate = July 19, 2011}}
{{cite Appletons|wstitle = Cartwright, Samuel Adolphus}}
Mary Louise Marshall, "Samuel A. Cartwright and States' Rights Medicine," New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, XC (1940–1941).

External links

[https://books.google.com/books?id=mjkCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA707 Drapetomania], the original article as printed in The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. (Google Books)

Category:1793 births

Category:1863 deaths

Category:Writers from New Orleans

Category:People from Fairfax County, Virginia

Category:Confederate States Army surgeons

Category:19th-century American writers

Category:People from Huntsville, Alabama

Category:American proslavery activists

Category:People from Natchez, Mississippi

Category:Proponents of scientific racism

Category:People of Louisiana in the American Civil War

Category:Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni