Emancipation Creates Sickness

Throughout the first few chapters of Sick from Freedom, Jim Downs establishes a use of personal narratives to exemplify the tragedy and conditions these individuals were left to endure due to a lack of support and care from the government.  In the Introduction, he reveals that "tens of thousands of freed slaves became sick and died due to the unexpected problems caused by the exigencies of war and the massive dislocation triggered by emancipation. The distress and medical crises that freed slaves experienced were a hidden cost of war and an unintended outcome of emancipation" which showcases a concept that we discussed in class which is the mental and physical wear and tear on the body that occurs due to a difference in skin tone.1 Because of their skin tone, they fell susceptible to outbreaks in the nineteenth century as Americans' ideological position on race remained the same.

In the account of Joseph Miller, Downs mentions that "once they became sick, they often got sicker and many died. Any folk remedies or curses they may have developed while enslaved were impossible while they were on the move--running from slave masters, Confederate guards, and even untrustworthy Union soldiers."2  Alas, the Emancipation Proclamation proved to show that the slaves were officially freed in the Confederacy, yet it did not contain provisions or support for those individuals to survive. It developed into worse conditions for African-Americans during these times. It is important to note that the Miller family, in particular, "did not die from complicated medical ailments or unknown diseases" but due to the environment and political status forced upon them.3 Similarly, Downs notes "many physicians learned about the health "of the Negro" as a separate race or they may have developed ideas about race based on common assumptions and propaganda that circulated throughout the antebellum North. The Civil War morphed these ideas into practice that influences how army doctors treated, touched, and probed black bodies, and in other instances these ideas served as the justification for neglect."4  This section summarizes many ideas previously discussed and encountered connecting to race, morphology, and medicine; however, a closer examination allows for a distinct connection to be drawn to a few questions Haney Lopez raises in his piece which rests as a foundation for ideas and theories used within Downs' Sick From Freedom:

“If race is not biological, then what is it? Why do we easily recognize races when walking down the street if there is no morphological basis to race? Why does race seem obvious if it is only a fiction?".5 These few questions can be raised and asked within this piece, accordingly.

1 Downs, Jim. Sick From Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 7.

2Downs, Jim. Sick From Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 19.

3Downs, Jim. Sick From Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 21.

4Downs, Jim. Sick From Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 41.

 5Haney-Lopez, Ian F. "Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice." Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository, no. 1 (1994): 19.