A
southern physician, Dr. Cartwright, concluded that this behavior
was symptomatic of a mental disease peculiar to Africans. He
labeled the disease Dysaethesia Aethiopica and insisted that
masters were wrong in thinking that it was merely rascality. He
also concluded that the slave's chronic tendency to run away was
in reality the symptom of yet another African disease,
Drapetomania, which he believed would eventually be medically
cured.
Finally, some slaves engaged in active resistance. Most of the
slave insurrections in America were very small, and most were
unsuccessful. The three best known insurrections were those led
by Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner. These revolts
will be treated more fully in the next chapter.
The masters consistently refused to see examples of passive or
active resistance as signs of manhood. Lying and stealing were
never interpreted as passive resistance, but were always
attributed to an inferior savage heritage, as was slave violence.
Prosser, Vesey, and Turner, instead of being numbered among the
world's heroes fighting for the freedom of their people, were
usually represented as something closer to savages, criminals,
or psychopaths.
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