Rush and Race
Benjamin Rush was one of the first individuals to champion the idea that blacks were inherently equal to whites. He believed that free blacks were just as capable of serving as upright, functioning members of a republican society as whites were. He expressed these views in a number of his published works, as well as in his autobiography and commonplace book, which he had written and kept for his children. However, his belief that black skin was a form of leprosy led him to make some troubling, even racist claims about Africans. These claims would have negative implications.
IntellectUnlike some of his counterparts, Rush believed that blacks had "inborn principles of taste and morality." In other words, they were equal to whites in the sense that they were equally capable of being cultured, moral citizens. Rush used Phillis Wheatley, a black female poet from Boston, as an example. Wheatley, a free black woman, had become nationally acclaimed as a talented writer, and for Rush, she was an example of how blacks, so long as they were free, were able to pursue the arts and the intellect on a level equal to whites. According to Rush, it was the institution of slavery that "corrupted and perverted" this ability. [1]
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Another example of Rush's faith in the potential of black intellect took place in 1793, during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. As one of the city's most prominent physicians, Rush had an important role in treating patients, and he often turned to his black servants for assistance. One servant in particular, Marcus, was especially helpful to Rush in treating yellow fever. Marcus acted as a male nurse, assisting Rush in administering medicine to patients, and later treated Rush himself when he fell ill with the fever. Rush praised Marcus' talents in a series of letters to his wife, Julia:
Marcus has not, like Briarius, a hundred hands, but he can turn his two hands to a hundred different things. He puts up powders, spreads blisters, and gives clysters equal to any apothecary in town...with a little instruction [Marcus] would exceed many of our bark and wine doctors in the treatment of the present fever. [2]
In addition to using his own black servants for assistance, Rush also networked with a number of free black physicians living in the city, including Dr. James Durham, a former slave. [3]
Religion
Rush also spent much of his time promoting the religious wellbeing of the black community of Philadelphia, a cause which was very important to him. A deeply devout Christian, Rush often worked to bring Africans closer to God. In his "Address to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies upon Slavekeeping" (1771), Rush argued that young, freed slaves should "be educated in the principles of virtue and religion."[4] To help aid in this education, Rush played a large role in the construction of the African Episcopal Church of Philadelphia. Rush believed that the church would "collect many hundred Blacks together on Sundays who now spend that day in idleness...and who knows but it may be the means of sending the gospel to Africa, as the American Revolution sent liberty to Europe?" [5].
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On August 22, 1793, Rush attended a dinner to celebrate the completion of the church's construction. According to Rush, the fifty black and one hundred white attendees were seated at segregated tables, and while the white guests were attended to by black waiters, the black attendees were taken care of by white waiters. Rush described the joyful atmosphere of the celebration in his commonplace book (a type of diary that he attached to his autobiography), and documented how he gave a toast in which he proclaimed, "May African Churches everywhere soon succeed African bondage," which he said was "received with three cheers." [6]
Indeed, whenever Rush praised someone of African descent in his autobiography, he often did so for their morality or their religious devotion. The entry he wrote following William Grubber's death is one example of this. Another example comes from an entry dated April 29, 1800, in which Rush discussed a meeting he had that morning with Ruth, a black woman who "once lived with" a friend of Rush's, Enoch David (though Rush does not clarify if Ruth lived with David as a servant or as a slave). According to Rush, after the two spent some time talking in his study, Ruth apparently stated, "Here is time, place, and opportunity to worship God." Rush mentioned no other topics of conversation from his meeting with Ruth, choosing instead to emphasize Ruth's desire to pray. [7]
Interactions with the Local Black Community
As Rush's involvement with the formation with the African Episcopal Church and his meeting with Ruth suggest, the physician made a good effort to involve himself in the Philadelphian black community. Historian David Barton argues that Rush "participated with blacks in their lives and activities; he was no separatist in any sense of the word." Barton then goes on describe an incident in which Rush attended the funeral of Mrs. Gray, an African American woman whose husband, William Gray, had assisted Rush during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Rush described the scene:
The white attendants were chiefly the neighbors of the deceased. The sight was a new one in Philadelphia, for hitherto (a few cases excepted) the negroes alone attended each other's funerals. By this event it is to be hoped the partition wall which divided the Blacks from the Whites will be still further broken down and a way prepared for their union as brethren and members of one great family. |
Barton argues that this scene is evidence that Rush "was no separatist in any sense of the word." According to Barton, not only did Rush publicly condemn slavery and promote the intellectual potential of blacks, he also sought to fully integrate blacks into society and have them interact with whites as true equals. [8]
Republicanism
Rush believed that blacks, just as much as whites, were capable of being virtuous, republican citizens. But what is meant by "republicanism?" For Rush, republicanism was the ideal form of government, and a republican society was one in which there was a balance "between the government and the virtues of the individuals in the society," along with an emphasis on "the knowledge and virtue of the individual citizen." [9] Republicanism, for Rush as well as many of the other Founding Fathers, was ideal since it granted freedom from the oppressive tyranny of a monarch. However, a republican form of government could only work if its citizens, who both voted and participated in the government, were educated and virtuous. Granted, at the time, free blacks were not considered citizens and did not have the right to vote. However, Rush still believed that African Americans were still capable of participating in a republican society, so long as they were Christian, since according to Rush:
A Christian...cannot fail of being a republican, for every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self denial, and brotherly kindness, which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy and the pageantry of a court. [10]
"Leprosy"
Benjamin Rush's views on African Americans were not without issue. While Rush believed in the innate equality of blacks, he also sought to discover the medical reasons behind their dark complexions, and did so in ways that were problematic. Historian Mark M. Smith finely documents Rush's most controversial opinion surrounding race: the idea that black skin was a form of leprosy. Smith quotes an address to the American Philosophical Society, given by Rush in the 1790s, in which the physician made some troubling claims:
Rush argued that the "Negro" was black because his environment, taken to include diet, customs, and diseases, had led to a high incidence of leprosy...The skin itself- not innately, mind you, but just because of the leprosy- "exhale[s] perpetually a peculiar and disagreeable smell, which I can compare to nothing but the smell of a mortified limb." [11] |
Rush's quote about this "disagreeable smell" was a translation of an observation made by a Dr. Theiry, who was studying black skin in Spain and whom Rush admired as a physician. Rush claimed later in his address that the "leprosy induces a morbid sensibility in the nerves. In countries where the disease prevails, it is common to say that a person devoid of sensibility, has no more feeling than a leper." Smith argues that, while Rush probably did not intend for this claim to have negative consequences, it was later used by proslavery activists to argue that "the African was ideally suited to manual labor and fit to endure ferocious punishment." [12]
Later in the address, Rush continued to make troubling claims. When discussing the phenomenon of albinism in Africa, Rush proposed two theories. One was that albinism was yet another form of leprosy. Another theory, put forth by Africans who encountered albinos, was that those with albinism "were produced by the women being debauched in the woods by the large baboon, the ourang-outang, and by that species in particular called the guaga mooroos. No satisfactory discovery has been made to account for such singular, but not unfrequent phenomena in the species." [13] To say that it was "not unfrequent" for African women to be "debauched" by wild animals is enough to make those of us reading Rush's works today uncomfortable, as it should. Even if Rush did not mean to offend with this comment, by asserting that it was common for African women to be violated by apes, he likely, inadvertently added fuel to arguments in favor of not only dehumanizing Africans, but also of sexualizing African women.
Of all of Rush's controversial statements, one in particular has drawn criticism from modern readers of Rush's work: the idea that black skin, or "leprosy," could be cured by bloodletting, also known as depletion. Rush had long advocated for the supposed effectiveness of depletion in curing a variety of ailments. However, even during his time period, many other physicians began to recognize that the treatment actually did more harm than good, since it often resulted in extreme blood loss and, consequently, death. These criticisms did not keep Rush from asserting that depletion could "lessen the black color in negroes." [14]
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Perhaps even more disturbing was Rush's support for the experiments of a Dr. Beddoes, who had been experimenting with applying muriatic acid to black peoples' skin in an attempt to lighten their skin color. The application of acid to bare skin, with the intent to bleach it, was no doubt a very painful experience for Africans who underwent the experiment. The torture that victims of the experiment underwent was ignored, and perhaps even disregarded altogether, by Rush.
By claiming that black skin was a form of leprosy in his address to the American Philosophical Society, Rush was trying to argue that any behaviors that made blacks seem inferior were not due to some innate inferiority, but were rather the unfortunate side effects of an external ailment. According to Rush, "If the color of the negroes be the effect of a disease, instead of inviting us to tyrannize over them, it should entitle them to a double portion of our humanity, for disease all over the world has always been the signal for immediate and universal compassion." [15] Though Rush's claims were made with good intentions, they would have a negative effect on how Africans were viewed by society. This is because they promoted the idea that black skin was something that needed to be cured in the first place. By supporting the idea that black skin was a form of leprosy, Rush was also supporting the idea that all black people, despite their natural equality to whites, were still suffering from some sort of ailment that set them apart from the rest of the American populace. Even if Rush did not quite realize it, this sort of implication would have a negative effect on blacks' attempts to fully integrate into American society.