Smallpox & Slavery - Pride & Shame

Early Advertisement for Smallpox Inoculations

Guest post by Kristine Schwartzman

Smallpox is a deadly disease, a highly contagious virus that disfigures most, and kills from 30% - 50% of its victims. Often, even those who recover suffer from lifelong afflictions related to the illness.

​Smallpox swept the country in the late 1700s, and was the catalyst for the first protective vaccine ever developed. It is the only disease declared eradicated by the World Health Organization.

​The vaccination's development is one of pride, but also shame.  Pride because the vaccine has officially eradicated smallpox. Shame, because the road to the vaccine came on the backs, or the arms, rather, of the enslaved. 

Dr. Edward Jenner is widely recognized as developing the first effective smallpox vaccine in 1796. But, his road to its development in the United States begins in 1716 when a slave named Onesimus "owned" by Cotton Mather, told Mather that he had smallpox at one time, and was cured of it. Onesimus described a long-used method to protect against the virus called variolation.

The procedure involved taking infected material from the blisters of the afflicted, and placing it in a cut on the arm of a healthy individual. The healthy person was then protected from the worst form of the virus. 

Those of us who don't wear tin hats recognize the process. A milder form of the virus was introduced into a healthy person's body, allowing the body's immune system to build antibodies to fight and turn the disease away when encountered. 

Mather widely publicized the procedure, which was met with both relief and fear. And, like today, proof that it worked was required. The road to that proof, as well as the vaccine's further development, depended on a group who had no say in the matter - slaves. 

Used as "property," slaves were the ideal guinea pigs. First, slaves were intentionally given the virus and then the inoculation to ensure efficacy. When the procedure proved beneficial, slaves became "vessels" for vaccine harvest. 

The Civil War became a killing field in more ways than one - smallpox reared its ugly head at a time when there was a shortage of vaccine material. Who better than the enslaved, or the newly emancipated living in refugee camps, to supply vaccine material? 

Medical officers on both sides infected enslaved or newly emancipated babies and children with smallpox in order to create the vaccine. Sometimes these living "vessels" were sent on ships in order to transport vaccine material to another location. One documented case is of a 9-year-old girl whose arm was the vaccine's "container."

Dr. Jenner's vaccine in 1796 used cowpox material to create the vaccine instead of actual smallpox matter. But, from Onesimus, who first explained the procedure to Mather, through the later ordeals of experimentation and inhumane practices, the development of the smallpox vaccine and slavery are forever entwined. 

Sources: 
Vaccine Voyages: Where Science Meets Slavery
Never Forget That Early Vaccines Came From Testing on Enslaved People
How a Boston African Slave Helped Fight a Smallpox Epidemic