Cicely was young, Black & enslaved- her death during a 1714 epidemic has lessons that resonate today

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A grave marker for an enslaved woman named Jane uses the archaic ‘1740/1’ Julian calendar notation to denote her death in early 1741. Nicole Maskiell, CC BY-ND

____Cicely lived and died during a time of racial unrest and disease. A slave revolt in 1712 in New York City led to several brutal executions and deportations. News of the revolt spread throughout the Colonies, stoking concerns of a wider uprising. Colonists armed themselves in fear...

Racial unrest was quickly followed by contagion. A measles outbreak the next year followed the same path up the coast as news of the revolt had traveled.

The epidemic started in Newport, Rhode Island, in the summer of 1713 and hit Cambridge, Massachusetts, that September. It broke out at Harvard before spreading to Boston. More than 400 Bostonians died – about 18% of them people of color – at a time when Black people were only 4% of the total population.

Racial discord and disease continued throughout the Colonial period. Between Cicely and Jane’s deaths in 1714 and 1741, a smallpox crisis gripped Boston, inflaming racial tensions. An enslaved person named Onesimus helped introduce an early form of inoculation called “variolation.” This technique was practiced on both white and Black Bostonians, to the consternation of many. On its heels, a five-year diphtheria outbreak ravaged New England, killing 5,000 people, including Jane.

Much like today, Colonists received mixed messages during disease outbreaks, with some leaders touting the value of inoculations while others stood fast against them. As Jane toiled in the shadow of Harvard in 1740, the male landowners of Cambridge held a contentious election that saw very high voter turnout amid a diphtheria epidemic...

read more: https://theconversation.com/cicely-was-young-black-and-enslaved-her-death-during-an-epidemic-in-1714-has-lessons-that-resonate-in-todays-pandemic-147733


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[crickets]

1. K&R for visibility.

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2. was this posted somewhere else?

...it's a really fascinating and detailed account which does bring to light an analogous situation for black Americans today who are experiencing disproportional infections and deaths from this virus.

I saved it in my journal.

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3. INTERESTING-THANKS

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4. it's well done, glimpse of history

...good detail, and compelling parallels to today.