An American Colonialism

An American Colonialism: The Colonial Application of Mosquito Eradication Programs from Cuba and Panama in 1905 New Orleans By Daniel J. Muller Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts In the Department of History at Brown University Advisor: Professor Daniel Rodriguez April 7, 2017 Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 - Yellow Fever and Malaria Eradication 11 in Cuba: The Intersection of Race, Medicine, Government, and Empire Chapter 2 - Turning the White Man’s Grave into 36 the White Man’s Paradise: Racism, Colonialism, and the American Canal Project in Panama Chapter 3 - The Menace at Home: Yellow Fever and 64 the Incorporation of Colonial Public Health Efforts in 1905 New Orleans Conclusion 97 Bibliography 106 Table of Illustrations Figure One - Graph of Yellow Fever Rates in Panama 40 Figure Two - Application of Larvacide and Controlled 48 Grass Burning Techniques Figure Three - A White Man on Horseback Directs 49 Non-White Laborers Figure Four - Dr. Gorgas and Other Officials 50 Conduct Inspections While Laborers Work in Background Figure Five - A Postcard Depicting Judge Owen’s 52 Home in Ancon Figure Six - Gold Workers’ Living Quarters in 53 the Panama Canal Zone Figure Seven - Graph of American Expenditures 55 Figure Eight - Map Showing Colonial Powers in 97 1910 Acknowledgements This project, which began over a year ago, would have been impossible if I didn’t have the support of those around me. First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Daniel Rodriguez for his infinite wisdom and guidance. You pushed us to do our best at every point, and kept us on a schedule from the beginning of the fall semester. Your kindness, guidance, advice, and motivational speeches did not go unnoticed, and you made this process so much easier. I would also like to thank Professors Harold Cook and Michael Vorenberg, who met with me at the beginning of this process and pointed me in Professor Rodriguez’s way. One of the hardest components of writing a thesis is narrowing down the topic far enough, so I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Professor Ethan Pollock, for wrangling all of our beginning thoughts into final, cohesive projects. I am indebted to David Lazris, Vi Mai, Camille Garnsey, Nora Ellman, and Madeline Chin, for keeping me sane this year, convincing me everything was going to be okay, and sharing some truly wonderful memories I won’t soon forget in the Pavillion Room. There are many people who helped make this project possible, but I would specifically like to thank the Williams family - Michael, Susan, Drew, Risa, Albert, Frank, and Leo - for letting me stay in your home for two weeks this year as I conducted research at the Library of Congress. I owe all of you a deep gratitude. Thank you to the incredibly helpful staffs at the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and Harvard Widener Library, who pointed me in the right direction and were always friendly and helpful. Last but not least I would like to thank my friends and family for their incredible support on this academic journey. Thank you Ben, for all your help and moral support, thank you Sarah for always telling me to look on the bright side, and thank you to all the people who have bits and pieces of my thesis at one point or another. Mom, Dad, Julia, and Benjamin - I would never have known how to achieve this level of deep inquiry if it weren’t for the values I learned growing up. You all make me smile every day, and your phone calls of support and constant love. Writing a thesis has truly been one of the most challenging yet most rewarding experiences of my life. If I could choose to do it all over again, I might wait a month or two first, but count me in. Introduction Residents of the Fourth Ward filed quickly into Rocheblave Market. It was August 17th, 1905, a hot summer night in New Orleans, and the presence of the crowd served as a testament to the fame of the special guest scheduled to speak that night. The people eagerly anticipated the speech of the renowned Cuban physician Dr. Juan Guiteras, one of the men responsible for the anti-mosquito work and yellow fever eradication efforts in Havana. Dr. Beverley Warner, normally the expert welcomed by each ward into its meetings, kicked off the evening, describing the work each ward had been doing to eliminate yellow fever, before finally introducing the guest lecturer. Guiteras spoke in front of a New Orleans crowd for the first time that evening, telling of the work proving that the mosquito was the vector for yellow fever and what measures had been taken to halt the spread of the disease in his native country. Though this was his first speech, it was not his last; by the time Guiteras left New Orleans at the beginning of September, he had shared a similar message with numerous wards and communities.1 As one of the architects behind the Cuban anti-mosquito campaign, Guiteras played an important role in ridding the island of yellow fever. Now, a few years later and in New Orleans, he was hoping to help them accomplish the same feat. Guiteras arrived in New Orleans knowing that he could provide assistance, for Havana had experienced its own problem with yellow fever. After hundreds of years of nonimmune populations dying horrific and prolonged deaths, Havana was almost disease-free thanks to a successful anti-yellow fever campaign that began in 1899 and continued through the first few years of the twentieth century. Now New Orleans had its own epidemic, and Guiteras could be of 1 “General Fumigation Programme for Sunday,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, August 18, 1905, 7. 2 Mariola Espinosa. Epidemic Invasions: Yellow Fever and the Limits of Cuban Independence, 1878-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 5. 3 Joseph A. LePrince and A.J. Orenstein. Mosquito Control in Panama: The Eradication of Malaria and Yellow 1 service. He had lived through the American colonial government in Cuba, and now he was full of knowledge about the implementation of their health programs. Guiteras’ presence represented the willingness of American officials to incorporate his knowledge and expertise into the anti-mosquito campaign in New Orleans. However, the American project in Havana of which Guiteras had been a part was not an ordinary health project; rather, it was meant to serve the interests of the Americans, the colonizers, over the interests of the Cubans, the colonized.2 The American coastline and southern population was threatened by the presence of yellow fever in Havana, while many Cubans did not feel threatened by a disease to which they had gained immunity through exposure as children.3 Upon American arrival in Havana, the U.S. began working on the disease that mattered most to American health, rather than on diseases such as tuberculosis that regularly affected the Cuban population.4 By valuing American healthcare interests over Cuban healthcare interests, and instituting policies that benefitted American lives over Cuban lives, the U.S. indicated that the American bodies had more worth than the Cuban bodies. Yet the relationship between the two countries was more colonial than imperial; American authorities were more interested in preserving power, not controlling all facets of life. The Americans needed the Cubans to help defeat the disease, and many Cubans actively worked with the American authorities. Cuban physicians were actively involved in the yellow fever work, while most of the laborers working with the Sanitary Department both on the ground and as supervisors were Cuban as well.5 2 Mariola Espinosa. Epidemic Invasions: Yellow Fever and the Limits of Cuban Independence, 1878-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 5. 3 Joseph A. LePrince and A.J. Orenstein. Mosquito Control in Panama: The Eradication of Malaria and Yellow Fever in Cuba and Panama (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1916),70. 4 Gorgas, William C. Gorgas to Baker. Letter. From Library of Congress: William C. Gorgas Papers. Accessed January 9, 2017, 4. 5 Espinosa, Epidemic Invasions, 99. 2 Cuba was not the only site of American intervention at the beginning of the twentieth century. The U.S. began working on a canal in Panama in 1904, the year before the New Orleans outbreak, with the goal of constructing the first canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the Canal Zone, the Americans made no false pretense about its goals; in order to construct the canal, the U.S. needed to eliminate the yellow fever and malaria threats that were deadly for its workers. Dr. William Crawford Gorgas, the Chief Sanitary Officer in Panama, had just served in the same role in Havana and was intent on minimizing the loss of American life in Panama. Here, the colonial project was focused on the differences between the Americans and the colonized populations, with foreign and native people of color utilized for the sole purpose of working under the white American occupying force to rid the isthmus of yellow fever and malaria.6 The colonial and racial nature of the project manifested itself in other ways, from the superior living conditions of the white Americans to labor conditions to the quality of care received from the hospitals in the Canal Zone. However, just as in Cuba, the bodies of the white Americans were deemed more important than the bodies of the colonized population. The mosquito campaign in New Orleans, therefore, was the first anti-mosquito campaign in the U.S.

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