Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More

Dr. Samuel Cartwright publishes "Report on the Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race."

1851

MED
SRA
SLA

In the report, the white doctor from the University of Louisiana names two diseases that he claims are unique to Black people. He calls one "drapetomania," a disease that "causes" enslaved people to run away and another, "dysaesthesia aethiopica," a disease that "causes" "disobedience" in free and enslaved Black people.

Cartwright was also a proponent of the myth of "cachexia Africana," a "Black malady" that allegedly led to dirt-eating. He uses these claims to build a "diagnosis" of the "animal-like" characteristics of Black people and to argue against abolition.