Terrifying news had reached Boston: the infectious, debilitating disease Smallpox had reached the colonial town and was spreading rapidly. Its first victims, passengers on a ship from the Caribbean, were shut up in a house identified only by a red flag that read “God have mercy on this house.”
Hundreds of Bostonians fled for their lives, but the 1721 epidemic wiped out more than 14% of the city’s population.
As death took over the city, an enslaved West African known only as Oneseimus suggested a potential way to keep people from getting sick. He described a process of rubbing pus from an infected person into an open wound on the arm. Once the infected substance was introduced into the body, the person who underwent the procedure was inoculated against the disease.
What Oneseimus proposed was not a vaccination, but it did trigger the recipient’s immune response and protected against the disease most of the time. Cotton Mather, the Puritan minister who had purchased Onesimus’, was intrigued by his slave’s idea. He and a doctor, Zabdiel Boylston, undertook a bold experiment to try to stop smallpox in its tracks.
In previous years, Mather didn’t trust Oneseimus, having described his behavior as “thievish,” and calling him “wicked” and “useless.” He looked down on what he called the “Devilish rites” of Africans and worried that enslaved people might learn to rebel. But after Onesimus shared with him an approach to the disease, Mather then considered Onesimus “a pretty intelligent fellow.”
Oneseimus admitted that he had had smallpox, and then didn’t. He “had an operation, which had given him something of the smallpox and would forever preserve him from it…and whoever had the courage to use it was forever free of the fear of it.”
Fascinated, Mather spoke with other slaves about this procedure, a practice he then learned had also been used successfully in Turkey and China. With the hopes that the process would further prevent smallpox, Mather began to spread the news throughout Massachusetts but had no idea how unpopular the idea would be. Mather soon felt the wrath of his fellow white Americans.
The same prejudices that caused Mather to distrust Oneseimus made the white colonists reluctant to undergo a medical procedure developed by a Black man. Mather was ridiculed, threatened and shunned by other preachers. But in 1721, when the smallpox epidemic took over Boston, Mather and Boylston got their chance to test the power of inoculation.
Boylston inoculated his son, his slaves and other residents in Boston. Of the 242 people inoculated, only six died. One in 40, as opposed to 1 in 7 deaths among the population of Boston who didn’t undergo the procedure.
Whether Oneseimus lived to witness the success of the technique he introduced to Mather is unknown. The details of his later life, other than the fact the he partially purchased his freedom, are unclear. What is clear is that the knowledge he passed on saved hundreds of lives, and led to the eventual eradication of smallpox worldwide.
Tamara Shiloh
Tamara Shiloh has published the first two books in her historical fiction chapter book series,
Just Imagine…What If There Were No Black People in the World is about African American inventors, scientists and other notable Black people in history. The two books are
Jaxon’s Magical Adventure with Black Inventors and Scientists and
Jaxon and Kevin’s Black History Trip Downtown. Tamara Shiloh has also written a book a picture book for Scholastic,
Cameron Teaches Black History, that will be available in June, 2022.
Tamara Shiloh’s other writing experiences include: writing the Black History column for the Post Newspaper in the Bay area, Creator and Instruction of the black History Class for Educators a professional development class for teachers and her non-profit offers a free Black History literacy/STEM/Podcast class for kids 3d – 8th grade which also includes the Let’s Go Learn Reading and Essence and tutorial program. She is also the owner of the Multicultural Bookstore and Gifts, in Richmond, California,
Previously in her early life she was the /Editor-in-Chief of
Desert Diamonds Magazine, highlighting the accomplishments of minority women in Nevada; assisting with the creation, design and writing of a Los Angeles-based, herbal magazine entitled
Herbal Essence; editorial contribution to
Homes of Color; Editor-in-Chief of
Black Insight Magazine, the first digital, interactive magazine for African Americans; profile creations for sports figures on the now defunct PublicFigure.com; newsletters for various businesses and organizations; and her own Las Vegas community newsletter,
Tween Time News, a monthly publication highlighting music entertainment in the various venues of Las Vegas.
She is a member of:
- Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)
- Richmond Chamber of Commerce
- Point Richmond Business Association
- National Association of Professional Women (NAPW)
- Independent Book Publishers Association (IPBA)
- California Writers Club-Berkeley & Marin
- Richmond CA Kiwanis
- Richmond CA Rotary
- Bay Area Girls Club
Tamara Shiloh, a native of Northern California, has two adult children, one grandson and four great-grand sons. She resides in Point Richmond, CA with her husband, Ernest.
www.multiculturalbookstore.com
