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Benjamin Patrick Register Professor ONeil History 221 Section 01 27 October 2008 African Survival in the New World Why did so many Native Americans die from European diseases, while generations of African slaves brought to the New World survived? There are multiple factors that led to the ability of both African and European populations to survive and eventually outnumber the Native Americans. First I discuss the four diseases, Smallpox, Influenza, Malaria and Yellow Fever, that devastated the Native American population. Second I will attempt to establish a connection between the European and African people that predates their arrival to the New World, therefore pre-exposing both populations to the same diseases and possibly allowing each to have a preacquired immunity or tolerance to the same diseases. Additionally, I will study if all Europeans and Africans were immune to these diseases, or if some of them suffered the same fate as the Native Americans. While Smallpox and Influenza arrived first with the Europeans, Malaria and Yellow Fever actually arrived later with the first Africans brought to the New World. While the African diseases did not cause much of a problem in North America, they thrived in the tropical regions of the New World. Sparing the North American native population, Malaria and Yellow Fever killed the remaining native populations in the tropical regions of the New World that had previously survived Smallpox and Influenza. Additionally, these African diseases killed many European settlers in the tropical regions (McNeill 186-187).

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The Africans were able to survive Malaria and Yellow Fever in the New World because both were diseases that they already lived with in their native Africa. How then did they survive Smallpox and Influenza? When Smallpox first arrived in a population that had never been exposed to it, it would cause a large number of deaths. Once everyone was either killed or immune to Smallpox it would go away. If Smallpox was reintroduced after a number of years it would do the same thing again. In a large population Smallpox could begin to reappear so often that only small children would be infected (Hopkins 8). Smallpox is not as deadly when infecting children as it is when infecting adults. Young adults have the highest mortality rate of all age groups (McNeill 12). Smallpox was considered the Spaniards greatest ally in conquering the Aztecs and Incas. It was Smallpox that killed the last Aztec Emperor and may have killed the last independent ruler of the Incas (Hopkins 3). Europeans thought that the Native Americans were dying from the European diseases because they were either biologically inferior or because they were not Christians. The Native Americans died because they did not have the immunity that the Europeans had acquired from childhood exposure (Mancall and Merrell 53). Smallpox is likely to have slowly become adapted to humans after being transferred from harmless pox viruses in domesticated animals. For the disease to survive, it needs to be able to pass itself from person to person in a continuous fashion. It probably began in the first agricultural communities in which humans lived with domesticated animals. This scenario makes it likely that its first human victims were in Asia or African agricultural settlements around 10,000 B.C.E (Hopkins 13).

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Evidence shows the presences of Smallpox in Africa over 3000 years ago. Three Egyptian mummies from between 1570 B.C.E. to 1085 B.C.E. show visible rashes and scars that appear to likely be Smallpox. Ramses V of Egypt, who ruled for four years until his death in 1157 B.C.E., is believed to have died of Smallpox (Hopkins 14-15). A Smallpox epidemic that arrived in Athens around 430 B.C.E., killing 1/4th of their army, initially began in Ethiopia before spreading to Egypt, Libya and then Athens. Another Smallpox epidemic that originated in Libya in 395 B.C.E. broke out among North African Carthaginian soldiers that were attacking Syracuse1 (Hopkins 19). Smallpox did not reach England until the 1300s when Edward Is crusaders brought it back with them upon returning from the Holy Land (Hopkins 26-34). It is now evident that not only was Smallpox likely a disease that the Africans were exposed to before the Europeans, traveling soldiers also carried disease between the two continents. Another reason for the Africans ability to survive Smallpox was their method of inoculation. Inoculation of Smallpox is thought to have been used in western Africa for generations and possibly centuries before being learned of in North America and Europe (Hopkins 218-219). In fact, Inoculation was first taught in North America by the West African slave Onesimus in 1706. Onesimus was the servant of Reverend Cotton Mather, a Harvard Graduate and the pastor of the North Church in Boston. Reverend Mather asked Onesimus if he had ever had Smallpox. Onesimus said yes and no. Onesimus explained that he had an operation in Africa that gave him a smallpox. It was Onesimus that explained inoculation to Reverend Mather. Reverend Mather then made inoculation well known among physicians in New England. Dr. John Cutler of Boston tried

Syracuse is a province located in southern Sicily.

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Onesimus method on his own son and two African slaves that had not previously been exposed to Smallpox. Using a sharp tooth pick and a quill they were inoculated with the pus from a Smallpox patient. They received mild infections and then became immune to the disease (Hopkins 248-249). Influenza, like Smallpox, is a human disease that spreads from person to person quickly. Also like Smallpox, it has its highest mortality rate among young adult victims. When infecting a virgin population, it is able to destroy the entire community (McNeill 12). Through ancient trade routes, we can establish the connection that would allow the Europeans and Africans to both have been pre-exposed to Smallpox and Influenza, therefore having a pre-existing immunity or tolerance to both diseases. From at least 1000 B.C.E., the Sahara provided profitable trading opportunities for merchants. Since before records were kept, western African traders have been traveling through the Sahara desert to Tripoli, Algiers2 and Cairo to trade. Likewise, traders from Arabia and Mesopotamia traveled through the Sahara to trade goods in the Sahel3 marketplaces. Ancient Egyptian traders reached Ghana to trade for gold through trade routes that stretched to western Africa. Egypt was the central point for this trade. From Egyptian ports you could reach Mesopotamia, the Ottoman Empire, Rome, Carthage and Tripoli. Egyptian traders traveled as far as the Indian Ocean, the Horn of Africa and across Asia (Hirtle and Villiers 203-205). All Africans did not possess immunity to Smallpox. Unlike in North America, African slaves in South America experienced a high mortality rate from Smallpox. This is because the slaves in

Tripoli and Algiers are port cities located on the Mediterranean Sea.

The Sahel is a semi-tropical region bordering the south side of the Sahara desert stretching west to east across the African continent.

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South America were largely brought on slave ships from Angola, in southern Africa. The southern African slaves had not been as widely exposed to Smallpox as the western African slaves and therefore were not immune to the disease. Also, Inoculation was not learned in the South American Spanish colonies or Spain until the late 1700s. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, smallpox epidemics repeatedly killed the populations of Indian and African slaves as well as the Spanish in South America (Hopkins 216-220). The African slaves brought to the New World were able to survive the European diseases for a few of reasons. First, two of the diseases that decimated Native American populations, Malaria and Yellow Fever, were actually African diseases, not European diseases. Second, the western Africans were exposed to Smallpox long before the Europeans, resulting in their adult population largely having an acquired immunity to the disease. Third, the western Africans had developed an inoculation for Smallpox which also increased immunity among their population. Fourth, traveling soldiers and trade routes dating back thousands of years linked western Africa to Europe, allowing diseases such as Smallpox and Influenza to be passed among both populations long before either came into contact with Native Americans. These factors left the African slaves brought to the New World better equipped to live with the diseases that killed many of the Native Americans.

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Works Cited Hirtle, Sheila and Marq de Villiers. Sahara: A Natural History. New York: Walker Publishing Company, 2002. Hopkins, Donald R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002. Mancall, Peter C. and James H. Merrell. American Encounter: Natives and Newcomers from European Contact to Indian Removal, 1500-1850. New York: Routledge, 2000. McNeill, William Hardy. Plagues and Peoples. New York: Doubleday, 1977.

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