I Think I Have Drapetomania
Recently, I learned about a nineteenth-century "mental illness" called Drapetomania.
Its main symptom was the desire to escape slavery.
I'm not joking.
In 1851, physician Samuel Cartwright claimed enslaved Africans who ran away had a mental disorder. His argument: slavery was supposedly so beneficial that anyone wanting to leave must be irrational.
Dr. Samuel Cartwright
By modern standards, this idea is absurd.
That’s what makes it so revealing. It shows how oppressive systems can turn basic human needs into problems.
Drapetomania wasn't really a disease. It was an attempt to explain away a basic human desire: freedom.
Imagine being so committed to a system that when people try to leave, you decide they are the problem.
That's not medicine.
That's propaganda wearing a lab coat.
Thinking more about Drapetomania led me to the Maroons.
Maroon flag in Freetown, Sierra Leone
The Maroons were communities of escaped slaves who built independent settlements throughout the Caribbean, South America, Central America, and beyond. They hid in forests, mountains, swamps, and other places that colonial powers considered inhospitable to survival.
Yet they did. They thrived against all odds.
Not only did they survive,
They created.
They built communities.
They developed languages.
They preserved traditions.
They defended themselves.
They made lives for themselves outside the systems that claimed ownership over them.
In other words, they did what human beings have always done when given the chance.
They became themselves.
That lesson, finding freedom where individuality and community meet, is what drives MeWeFree.
People often ask me what MeWeFree means.
The simple answer is:
Me + We = Free.
But freedom has always existed between individuality and community.
The Maroons didn't just run away; they ran toward something.
They ran toward something.
Toward each other.
Toward a shared future.
Toward the possibility of creating a life on their own terms.
That's what interests me.
Not escape for the sake of escape.
Escaping is only the first step toward creating something better.
I think a lot about labels.
Some labels are useful.
Some help us understand ourselves.
Some help us find other people who share our experiences.
But history shows that labels can also be used as weapons.
Drapetomania was a label.
And it tells us something important.
When a society doesn’t understand why people want freedom, it sometimes decides that wanting freedom is the problem.
Today, we see versions of this everywhere.
People are told they're weird.
Too intense.
Too obsessed.
Too sensitive.
Too emotional.
Too different.
Too much.
Maybe that's why I've always felt drawn to outsiders.
To people who don't fit neatly into categories.
To people who spend their lives trying to understand themselves.
To people building communities around interests, identities, and experiences that mainstream culture doesn't always understand.
MeWeFree is for people who challenge labels put on them and look for real freedom together.
Not because we're running away from the world.
Because we're building something inside it.
The Maroons inspire me because they remind us that freedom is not simply the absence of chains.
Freedom is the ability to create culture.
To create community.
To create meaning.
To create yourself.
The ship on our Maroon flag represents that journey.
Flag flying outside St. John's Maroon Church.
Not a destination.
A journey.
Freedom is not just a status; it is movement, a constant journey toward creating meaning and community.
And that every community starts with somebody deciding there must be another way.
If that makes us a little strange, so be it.
If that makes us outsiders, so be it.
And if the uncontrollable desire to be free was once considered a mental illness?
Well.
I guess I've got Drapetomania.
And I have a feeling I'm not the only one.
A maroon t-shirt based on the flag of the Maroons.
A maroon crewneck sweatshirt based on the flag of the Maroons.
