[Image: An advertisement of a cargo with enslaved black people who are carrying the smallpox vaccine from Africa to Boston. The advertisement emphasizes that the boat has been quarantined and the men onboard are healthy.]
[Image: Onesimus, an enslaved black man who molded inoculation in America. 1700s. ]
[Image: 8 out of 22 orphan boys who were sent on a voyage to be carriers of the cowpox vaccination. 1803.]
[Image: An advertisement of a cargo with enslaved black people who are carrying the smallpox vaccine from Africa to Boston. The advertisement emphasizes that the boat has been quarantined and the men onboard are healthy.]
The Vaccination of Smallpox Through Vulnerable Carriers
The innoculation of smallpox due to vaccines created a turning point in U.S. history. This world changing discovery can and should be thanked to the souls who endured the unethical experimentation of this eradication.
The first vaccine brought into the United States in 1721 was used on an enslaved man, referred to as Onesimus. He was injected as a measure to try and prevent the spreading of smallpox in colonial Boston. Because of the excitement to cure smallpox, enslaved people who had historically been sick with smallpox but were now healthy, were worth even more to sell. They were imprisoned and forced to carry cowpox, a variation used to inoculate against smallpox, on ships across seas. Many people died in these tight crowded, badly conditioned cargos. It is unknown what happened to a majority of these men as well.
Another vulnerable and exploitable group to the smallpox vaccine was children. Orphan children were shipped across seas on extremely long travels as well. In 1803, twenty two orphaned boys traveling with director Franciso Xavier de Balmis, traveled across seas to be used as carriers of the cowpox vaccination. These boys were few of many orphaned prisoners who were used as vessels in unsafe voyages across the world.These kids were seen as a symbol of hope to the world, holding so much responsibility on their impressionable shoulders, all while being 10 or younger.
Works Cited
Blakemore, Erin. “How an Enslaved African Man in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, 1 Feb. 2019, www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-onesimus-slave-cotton-mather.
Das, Amrita (2008) "Global Health and Politics: Julia Alvarez’ Saving the World," The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 4. DOI: 10.20429/cr.2008.020104
Desikan, Anita, et al. “Confronting Smallpox: How an Enslaved Man Helped Spur the First US Vaccine Study.” The Equation, 29 Aug. 2023, blog.ucsusa.org/anita-desikan/confronting-smallpox-how-an-enslaved-man-helped-spur-the-first-us-vaccine-study/.
Gonzales, Michael. “Onesimus: The Enslaved Black Man Who Shaped American Inoculation.” Autumn Leaves, 5 Feb. 2021, autumnleaves.com/onesimus-how-an-enslaved-black-man-brought-inoculation-to-the-18th-century/.
Hollingham, Richard. “The Chilling Experiment Which Created the First Vaccine.” BBC News, BBC, 24 Feb. 2022, www.bbc.com/future/article/20200928-how-the-first-vaccine-was-born.
Mitchell, Elise is a PhD candidate in A, Elise. “West Africans and the History of Smallpox Inoculation: Q&A with Elise A. Mitchell.” The Royal Society, 19 Oct. 2020, royalsociety.org/blog/2020/10/west-africans-and-the-history-of-smallpox-inoculation/.
Patowary, Kaushik. “Balmis Expedition: How Orphans Took the Smallpox Vaccine around the World.” Amusing Planet, Blogger, 29 Dec. 2020, www.amusingplanet.com/2020/12/balmis-expedition-how-orphans-took.html.
Standage, Tom. “Send for the Orphans: How the Smallpox Vaccine Crossed the Globe.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 8 Apr. 2021, www.economist.com/1843/2021/04/08/send-for-the-orphans-how-the-smallpox-vaccine-crossed-the-globe.
“Vaccine Voyages: Where Science Meets Slavery.” Edited by Peter Ranscombe, The Lancet. Infectious Diseases, Elsevier Ltd., 21 Apr. 2022, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9023002/.