User:Yusrao/sandbox

Disability and race intertwined with one another during the 19th century. African Americans were labeled the others, which created a dual stigma that connected race and disability. Many famous African American abolitionists had disabilities such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Denmark Vesey. There were also famous slaves that were disabled as well such as Millie and Christine McKoy and Blind Tom Wiggins.

While there were slaves who were born disabled, there were also factors within the forced labor system that lead to slaves becoming disabled, especially unborn children due to the labor work their mothers were forced to do. Enslaved children would be born disabled with disabilities such as missing some sort of limb, being deaf, and even blindness because their pregnant enslaved mothers weren't taken care of during their pregnancy. There were also cases of mothers who would suffer psychological problems such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because they would be sold away from their children. Abuse toward African American slaves also played a role in creating disability in the enslaved community such as the disfiguring of slaves due to being whipped by their masters.

Slave family structures that had the presence of a disabled family member in them needed to live up to the expectations created by the slave masters. Slave masters viewed disabled slaves as useless so slave families with a disabled member needed to prove to the slave master that the presence of a disabled slave in the community wouldn't get in the way of labor work. Slaves created a community among themselves to help each other and make things easy on one another. Disabled slaves played roles in helping slave mothers by taking care of their children. Disabled enslaved men played roles in being caregivers for children as well, one example is of a disabled slave names Willie Wallace who was not physically capable of working in the plantations. His role would be carrying the babies of enslaved mother to the fields where they would work so the mothers would be able to nurse their babies without having to walk back and forth to the plantation.

Disabled slaves were looked at as unproductive by their masters making them easy to get rid of and tradable. Older disabled slaves would get traded off by their masters. Some roles disabled slaves were forced to do were things like begging for money to bring to their masters. Disabled enslaved children were under threat of being traded away from their families because their masters looked at them to be a financial responsibility as well as valueless. Disabled slave mothers were also vulnerable because their masters saw them as useless giving them less necessities to take care of their children. Slave masters would try to get their disabled slaves "fixed" and would get their own doctors to do on their disabled slaves. Some slave masters would even rent out or sale their disabled slaves to physicians and // racial scientist - you need to explain - this isn't a term// to do medical research on them. At times disabled slaves would get murdered by their slave masters because their masters saw them as unproductive and unable to get the job done.

Disabled slaves were sold to physicians, scientists , and hospitals so they could be studied. Disabled slaves would also get sent to medical schools to have research be done on them. Doctors during the 19th century accumulated the bodies of disabled slaves when they would pass away to study. They would also collect the fetuses of unborn children and skeletons of disabled slaves. These doctors would then publish their research in medical journals such as The New Orleans Medical and Hospital Gazette.

There were racial scientist as well as physicians who would write in medical journals that would claim that African Americans weren't fit enough mentally and physically to be free and by giving them freedom African Americans would become disabled. There were scientist and physicians who argued that whites and African Americans were physically different from each other, such as African Americans breathing in less oxygen making them slower than whites which was what Samuel Cartwright argued. There were former presidents like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington who argued that African Americans are inferior to whites, making them incapable of being on their own. Other scientist who have argued on why slavery was necessary and freedom for African Americans created disability within the African American community were scientist like R. Dunglson, Samuel George Morton, H.A Ramsey, and Josiah Clark Notte. Samuel Cartwright also created mental illnesses that African Americans were prone to. One being Drapetomania which he argued was the disease that made slaves runaway for freedom and the second disease was Dysaesthesia Aethiopica which was the wanting of African Americans to be lazy a create problems. Cartwright made arguments that these two diseases were found to be free African Americans than in slaves. Edward Jarvis made arguments as well claiming that African Americans were not suited for freedom. He claimed that there was a higher percentage of deaf, blind, and insane African Americans that were free in the North than the South, making the argument that African Americans were protected from disability because of their slavery. Senator of South Carolina at the time John C. Calhoun argued that with giving African Americans freedom they will then inherit disabilities, his evidence was how there were higher rates of disabled African Americans in states who have abolished slavery. The intertwining of freedom for African Americans and disability was popular for pro slavery advocates. In scientist medical journals it was argued that African Americans were not smart enough to live side by side with whites.

Abolitionist used disability in slave communities to their advantage as well. Abolitionist like John G. Fee argued that slavery created disability within the African American community. Abolitionist advocated that the institution of this forced labor was making African Americans disabled and by giving them freedom it would help their health.

The concept of being able bodied came out during the Civil War to see who would be eligible to fight with the Union Army. This excluded all disabled African Americans as well as disabled people in general. A struggle disabled slaves found themselves in was freeing themselves by escaping the plantation, being disabled made it harder for them to leave the plantation therefor forcing them to live under the control of their slave master even after the Civil War. This also divided up slave families and communities from each other because disabled slaves wouldn't be able to escape with them. Another struggle disabled slaves came across was the Confiscation Act of 1862 which was created so former slaves could pass the union lines but the condition for the act was they had to do labor work, this was harder for disabled slaves due to their disability. Once slavery was abolished able bodied freed men were able to get jobs and wages by working as laborers but disabled African Americans were left behind. Although during reconstruction The Medical Division of the Freedom Bureau had services to help disabled slaves, freed African Americans did not get any help. Being free and becoming free always tied into whether or not the slave had the ability to work.

NOTE 4 ISN'T CORRECT - YOU NEED TO CITE THE SPECIFIC ARTICLE.