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Runaway Slaves and Drapetomania

Estimating the total number of runaways is difficult. Some
consider the claim of a southern judge in 1855 that the South
had lost “upwards of sixty thousand slaves” to the North to be
a credible estimate. Frederick Olmsted discovered as he
toured the South during the 1850s that on virtually every large
or medium sized plantation he visited masters complained
about runaways. It was a rare planter among those who owned
twenty or more slaves who could boast that none of his slaves
had ever run off.

Masters were forced to explain why contented and well cared
for servants abandoned them so frequently and in such large
numbers. Among other disciplines, masters looked to science
(i.e. pseudo science) for answers. Dr Samuel Cartwright of
New Orleans offered a medical explanation. In an article
published in DeBows’Review in September 1851, Cartwright
explained that many slaves suffered from “Drapetomania, Or
the Disease Causing Negroes to Run Away.” Dr. Cartwright
hypothesized, “The cause, in most cases, that induces the
negro to runaway from service, is as much a disease of the
mind as any other species of mental alienation.” The doctor
went on to assure his readers that the Creator’s will in regard
to the negro is that he shall be a “submissive knee bender,”
noting a particular anatomical conformation of the knee
supposedly peculiar to the race. If the white man abuses the
negro or tries to put him on an equal footing, Doctor
Cartwright said, it causes a mental imbalance which required,
“…whipping it out of them out of it, as a preventative measure
against absconding, or other bad conduct.”

The Birth of Racism in America

In the late summer of 1619 a storm beaten Dutch ship (possibly
a pirate ship) appeared in the harbor at Jamestown. The ship
had nothing to trade except twenty Africans recently taken
from a Spanish vessel. An exchange for food was made and
the Dutch ship sailed away. It is not clear if the Africans were
considered slaves or indentured servants by the English
settlers. There was no precedence in England for enslaving a
class of people for life and making that status inevitable. It is
clear, however, that by 1640, at least one African had been
declared a slave. This African was ordered by the court "to
serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural
life here or elsewhere."

The development of slavery in Virginia set the pattern for the
development of slavery throughout the South and laid the
foundations for the development of race relations in America.

Although blacks were held in hereditary servitude long before
Virginia laws specifically recognized slavery, a large number of
Virginia’s blacks worked as servants for a limited term or
otherwise earned their freedom just like whites. White and
black servants worked together in the fields, shared the same
punishments, the same food, and the same living quarters.
The most remarkable evidence of a racially open society
comes from the records of Northampton County. These
records indicate that some twenty nine per cent of the county’
s blacks were free and that a least two of these, Francis Payne
and Anthony Johnson were planters (Johnson even becoming
a slave owner himself).

During the second half of the 17th century, the British
economy improved and the supply of British indentured
servants declined as poor Britons had better economic
opportunities at home. To lure cheap labor to America, terms
of indentures became fixed and shorter. By the 1670s Virginia
had a large number of restless and relatively poor white men
(most of them former indentured servants) threatening the
established order of the wealthy and propertied. A popular
revolt in 1676, the so called Bacon’s Rebellion, led Virginia
planters to begin importing black slaves in large numbers in
preference to the more expensive and politically restive white
indentured servants.

The increasingly high price of free labor was incompatible with
the profitable running of plantations. The landowners turned
to slave labor, encouraging the first massive introduction of
slaves from Africa in 1698. The new labor force was more
controllable because blacks, as a group, were not normally
thought to be naturally guaranteed the “rights of Englishmen”
accorded to white freemen. In short, the system was to be
based purely on force, and Virginia’s laws soon reflected this.
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