Vaccination Practice Brought to America by an Enslaved African Man

 

Onesimus (late 1600 – 1700s) was what he was called. His birth name is unknown, but he was allegedly snatched from Ghana and enslaved in Boston, MA by Cotton Mather in 1706. Onesimus is described as the man who brought the vaccine to America. In 1721 a smallpox epidemic struck the city of Boston where Onesimus was enslaved. It killed hundreds of people.

Onesimus’s knowledge of inoculations that was practiced in Africa for centuries was shared with his slave owner Mather in 1716. Mather gave this vital information to Dr. Zabdiel Boylston during a time of limited medical innovations, but of course Dr. Boylston was skeptical; one reason was because the information was given from a slave. Despite Boylston’s major pushback regarding the idea he decided to try it because too many people were dying with no cure in site.  Boylston first experimented by inoculating his son.  

Thanks to Onesimus's knowledge generations were saved from dying of small pox.


Sources: The Archive; History.com; massmoments.org

Back to Celebrating Black History