A Small Glimpse of Painful History

Stephen Johnson's book The Ghost Map filled me in on how horrible cholera is. This article from NPR Code Switch, How yellow fever turned New Orleans into the 'City of the Dead,' did the same for yellow fever.

The article also, and more thoroughly, describes the social effects of the disease. Only half the people who contracted it survived, and surviving it (which people at the time called being "acclimated") was a mark of social status, of all things. European immigrants to the city, of course, were not acclimated.

Worse, it was common to believe that African-descended people were immune to it, and from there it got even more twisted:

"If black people are naturally resistant to yellow fever, black slavery is natural, even humanitarian, because it protects white people from spaces and labor that would kill them." [ed. note: WHAT?!] In other words, the belief was that black people could work outside in hot, swampy spaces that were prone to yellow fever, without any risk.

Advocates of slavery argued that God had made black people immune to expand the cotton industry and the national economy, and to save white people from death.

But here's the thing: Even then, many people knew that black folks weren't really immune. In fact, at slave markets, few were willing buy a person who wasn't already acclimated. Acclimated slaves sold for 25 to 50 percent more than unacclimated slaves... (emphasis added)

The cognitive dissonance emanating from these paragraphs is almost enough to break a few blood vessels and cause dangerous bleeding, even without the disease.