Category: Slavery
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Slavery in ancient Greece
Slavery was an accepted practice in ancient Greece, as in other societies of the time. Some Ancient Greek writers (including, most notably, Aristotle) described slavery as natural and even necessary.[2] This paradigm was notably questioned in Socratic dialogues; the Stoics produced the first recorded condemnation of slavery.[3] The principal use of slaves was in agriculture, but they were also used in stone…
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The mental illness where former slaves say get off my lawn
Picture this: It’s 1851, and Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, fresh off his groundbreaking discovery of drapetomania, has stumbled upon another “totally legit” medical condition. Behold, Dysaesthesia aethiopica – the malady that explains why those pesky slaves just won’t work hard enough! Cartwright, armed with his medical degree and a PhD in creative oppression, described this…
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the mental illness of refusing to submit to slavery
In the annals of medical history, there are few tales as delightfully absurd as drapetomania, the “mental illness” that made running away from slavery a diagnosable condition. Because, you know, wanting to escape a life of forced labor and brutal oppression is clearly a sign of insanity… or so thought Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright in…
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Samuel Adolphus Cartwright (“the most prominent physician, surgeon, and medical scientist in antebellum Mississippi”)
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 an outspoken critic of germ theory.[1][2] Biography Cartwright married Mary Wren of Natchez, Mississippi, in 1825.[3] During the American Civil…
