Differences and DrapetomaniaDrapetomania is a mental illness used to describe why slaves "ran away." Drapetomania was created by a southern physician named Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851. The invention of drapetomania occurred during a controversial time for both the North and the South. The North and South did not agree at this time on the institution of slavery. Northerners saw slavery as unjust and Southerners saw it as a means of livelihood. The Northern states had many free blacks because they chose to abolish slavery. Northerners enforced personal liberty laws to help slaves fleeing the South so they could not be recaptured, and southern states obtained the Fugitive Slave Act to help return runaway slaves towards the south. During the antebellum period, southerners were desperate to maintain the institution of slavery. Demand for cotton increased between 1830 and 1850, and southerners depended on slavery to support their cotton-based economy. Southerners use drapetomania to define black people and dehumanize them. There were many reasons why Southerners were suddenly in agreement about the discovery of drapetomania. Antebellum plantation society generally sought measures to explain slavery. [Points Overview]Southerners used drapetomania as a logical excuse to continue the institution of slavery. Drapetomania was designed to explain the escape behavior of slaves. It was treatable and preventable. Dr. Cartwright's definition of disease was based on biological context and the need to manage slaves. It was found among people of African descent and relies heavily on the slaves' need for control. Drapetomania was also defined as a mental illness. Drapetomania was a race... middle of paper ... appearing helpless without slavery was a way to gain public acceptance of drapetomania. The problem was that the evidence of mental illness did not extend north. Northerners did not believe in the existence of such a disease because it was only diagnosed in the South in slaves who were not free. They had not seen or heard of North Africans suffering from drapetomania. Furthermore, Dr. Cartwright was contradicted by stating that the disease was present in Africans when Dr. Little knew that it was more prevalent in whites than blacks. The evidence for mental illness was questionable due to its context, its founder, and the contradictions of its symptoms. Drapetomania gave southern slave owners an excuse for continued slavery and their working lives, while taking the lives of all southern slaves by keeping them in bondage..