Update
The Oxford Biblical Studies Online and Oxford Islamic Studies Online have retired. Content you previously purchased on Oxford Biblical Studies Online or Oxford Islamic Studies Online has now moved to Oxford Reference, Oxford Handbooks Online, Oxford Scholarship Online, or What Everyone Needs to Know®. For information on how to continue to view articles visit the subscriber services page.
Dismiss

Related Content

Related Overviews

 

More Like This

Show all results sharing these subjects:

  • Science and technology
  • Psychology

GO

Show Summary Details

Overview

drapetomania


Quick Reference

A form of mania (2) supposedly affecting slaves in the 19th century, manifested by an uncontrollable impulse to wander or run away from their white masters, preventable by regular whipping. The disorder was first identified in a medical report that is often cited as a fanciful case of psychologism. Compare dysaesthesia aethiopis. [Coined by the US physician Samuel Adolphus Cartwright (1793–1863) in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal in 1851, from Greek drapeteusis an escape + mania madness]


Reference entries