ABSTRACT
The history of enslavement in southeastern Louisiana, and especially New Orleans is considered complex, and at times, very different from the other southern cities. Enslavement and medicine is a central research area for understanding the extent of illness, physical trauma and how enslaved Africans and slaveowners responded to medical/health care conditions. The scholarship examines enslavement and medicine in terms of how the slaveowner was affected by the development of the field of medicine and the health management of enslaved Africans. The three main areas of enslavement and medicine in the antebellum period are: theory, management and experimentation. Enslaved Africans were subject to mutilations as evidenced in the antebellum advertisements regarding the sale of slaves and to inform the public about the distinguishing characteristics of some runaway slaves. Experiments upon enslaved Africans ranged from procedures regarding vaginal/uterine disorders to amputations, and all were important to the development of medicine in the United States territory and especially to the old South.
