“In His Arm the Scar”: Medicine, Race, and the Social Implications of the 1721 Inoculation Controversy on Boston DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Christianna Elrene Thomas Hurford, M.A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Professor Alan Gallay, Advisor Professor Leslie Alexander Professor Walter C. Rucker Copyright by Christianna Elrene Thomas Hurford 2010 Abstract This dissertation examines the convergence of Atlantic World medicine and disease with the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston and controversy that arose over the practice of inoculation. In Boston, Puritan beliefs intersected with the growing importance of theoretical medical training in Europe, and also with medical practices from Africa. As a result, the controversy over accepted medical treatment highlighted competing views of disease: as an act of the supernatural, as a result of an external pathogenic agent, or some combination of both. This dissertation places the African practice of inoculation at the matrix of what became an Atlantic-wide debate on the efficacy of Europeans obtaining valuable knowledge from Africans. I explore the consequent social upheaval in which issues of race, culture, and concepts of self, body, and “the other” all surfaced. My project is significant in several ways. By viewing the controversy through the lens of race I add a new dimension to the historiography on the inoculation controversy that moves beyond the medical – religious debate over the proper response to disease, to an assessment of how medical changes in the Atlantic World affected the daily lives of both white and black Bostonians. In addition, I also explore how the epidemic and corresponding controversy in Boston later affected the larger Atlantic World. I also add ii to the recent scholarship which challenges the long-standing historiography that presents Europeans as largely uninfluenced by Africans, while the latter quickly discarded their own culture. I contend that the Atlantic-wide debate over European adoption of an African medical practice led many Europeans and Euro-Americans to consider Africans in a new light, while Africans resisted European attempts to culturally assimilate them. This study draws on a variety of sources including newspapers, diaries, church records, pamphlets, sermons, letters, shipping records, travelers accounts, court records, and town records from both sides of the Atlantic. Using an interdisciplinary approach and both quantitative as well as qualitative methods enables me to ask new questions of old sources and view the crisis, controversy, and subsequent social upheaval through the lens of race, and to read many of the nuances in black-white relations in early eighteenth- century Boston. iii This document is dedicated to my Grandmother Dorotha Mae “Sisco” Thomas and my Parents John R. Thomas and Elrene D. “Roman” Thomas iv Acknowledgments This manuscript never would have come to fruition without the help and advice of a number of professors, colleagues, friends and family. I am greatly indebted to my advisor, Dr. Alan Gallay, for all the time he has invested in me, and this project, and for all his patience with me as a writer. Through his scholarly example, Dr. Gallay has taught me how to take words on a page and make a story come to life. Thank you for the significant amount of time you devoted to commenting on numerous drafts and for all you taught me about research and writing. I also thank Dr. Walter Rucker and Dr. Leslie Alexander for supporting me in this project from its beginning. They were always there for me over the years as the project took shape and available to provide a listening ear and offer advice. I also thank my undergraduate professors Dr. Katherine French and Dr. Louis Roper from the State University of New York at New Paltz who first encouraged me to pursue a graduate degree and who continued to inspire and support me through this journey. In the course of the research and writing for this dissertation many others have provided invaluable insight in different ways. Some read drafts, others served as a sounding board and allowed me to talk through my ideas, and all believed in me as a scholar and a writer and encouraged me to keep going. In particular, I am grateful to the v members of my dissertation writing group: Rob Padilla, Steven Hyland, Mike Alarid and Jim Weeks. Several years ago we all came together to encourage each other in our various (and widely different) projects. Thank you for walking though this journey with me, I am so proud of each of you and all you have accomplished. I also thank James Lenaghan, Chris LaHue, Erin Greenwald, Whitney Dirks-Schuster and Dr. Christopher Otter for reading and commenting on various drafts. They bore with me through some very rough drafts and helped me work though the difficult sections to bring this manuscript together into a coherent whole. In addition, several close friends have been by my side throughout this entire project – a big thank you to Laura Michele Diener, Anne Collinson, Angela Ryan, Daniel O‟Malley, Dustin Walcher, Rob Denning and Rebecca Barrett! Much of the research for this project was made possible through various grants from both The Ohio State University Department of History and the Massachusetts Historical Society and I am grateful to each. I also thank the staff at the Massachusetts Historical Society, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the National Library of Medicine for helping me navigate the archives and uncover materials in places I never would have thought to look. Finally, I thank my family for believing in me and encouraging me throughout my graduate career. I appreciate the sacrifices you have made as I worked countless hours on this project. I would never have been able to finish without you. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to my husband, Jeffery R. Hurford, who has always been there for me, supporting vi me in my dreams and goals, and providing the incentive to keep going when the path ahead seemed so long and daunting. vii Vita 1997................................................................Tabernacle Christian Academy 2002................................................................B.A. in History, SUNY New Paltz 2004................................................................M.A. in History, The Ohio State University 2002 - 2010 ...................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: History viii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita ................................................................................................................................... viii Fields of Study ................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: “Gentlemen of Genius and Learning”: European Professionalization of Medicine ........................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 2: “[A] Pretty Intelligent Fellow”: Religion and Medicine in the African Atlantic ........................................................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 3: “The grievous Calamity of the Small-Pox”: The Introduction of Inoculation to the Colonists of the New World ...................................................................................... 106 Chapter 4: “With a Pox to you”: The Question of Authority in the Inoculation Controversy ..................................................................................................................... 153 Chapter 5: “There is a Voice of GOD Crying out in the City”: The Impact of Smallpox and the Inoculation Controversy upon the Black Population of Boston ......................... 192 ix Chapter 6: “The Happiest Discovery of the Age”: Inoculation in the Atlantic World – Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 228 Epilogue - Edward Jenner ............................................................................................... 262 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 269 Appendix A: Timeline of Key Events ............................................................................ 290 x List of Tables Table 1. 1721 Smallpox Deaths ...................................................................................... 197 Table 2. Black Marriages in Boston ............................................................................... 218 xi Introduction In the early eighteenth century both disease and medicine traveled the Atlantic. Boston,