Doctoring Freedom: The Politics of African American Medical Care in Slavery and Emancipation

Abstract

In this well-researched and engagingly written book, Gretchen Long explores the significance of medical care as an expression of freedom and independence for African Americans in the context of slavery, war, and emancipation. According to Long, African Americans recognized that healthcare and the control of their bodies were crucial for securing and finding meaning in freedom. To make her case, she examines the intersection of cultural attitudes, differing medical systems, pseudo-scientific ideas about the black body, and conflicts between alternative sects and modern medicine. It is within these contexts, Long argues, that African Americans defined their personhood, political rights, and cultural place in American society. Long's first chapters recount health and medicine in slavery and the different ways the African American body was understood by slave owners and to a lesser extent by leading abolitionists. She focuses on the cultural connections between medicine and dependency, racial ideology and medical practice, and medical and political ideas to demonstrate the diverse ways the black body was manipulated. In newspapers and works of fiction, abolitionists articulated a vision of the black body as noble but broken and abused. In contrast, slaveholders wrote long justifications for slavery, which routinely emphasized that slaves were healthy and well cared for, but also dependent and physiologically less fit for freedom. The two views, while dissimilar, both contained a political message. African Americans offered yet another perspective, relying on their own healing practices, which were grounded in an understanding of their body which differed from their white owners. In the process, African Americans developed a sense of community that centered on control of the body; this focus on the body shaped their expectations of freedom and citizenship.