Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity. This hypothesis centered around the belief that slavery was such an improvement upon the lives of slaves that only those suffering from some form of mental illness would wish to escape. The term derives from the Greek δραπέτης (drapetēs, "a runaway [slave]") and μανία (mania, "madness, frenzy").