ABSTRACT
Whites addressed the question of the humanity of African people by developing laws and an economic institution which oppressed the African; and at the same time heralded the equality and democracy of Whites. The human/subhuman issue operated in two arenas: first, in the psychological arena Africans were perceived as intellectually inferior and possibly incapable of intellectual improvement. Second, the human/subhuman issue addressed the physical nature of African people. The human/subhuman issue had a tremendous impact upon medicine and enslavement. Nowhere in the United States did enslavement and medicine link to racial supremacist notions more completely than the lower South. Southern doctors theorized about the African intellect and physical body; and they offered medical ideas tailored to the African. Samuel Cartwright was well respected and relentless in his pro-slavery arguments. He defended the anti-abolitionist arguments using medical, scientific and biblical sources.
