Inoculation was introduced to America by an African slave. Few details are known about the birth of Onesimus, but it is assumed he was born in Africa in the late seventeenth century before eventually becoming a slave in Boston - “gifted” to the Puritan church minister Cotton Mather from his congregation in 1706. Onesimus told Mather about the centuries old tradition of inoculation practiced in Africa. By extracting the material from an infected person and scratching it into the skin of an uninfected person, smallpox could be deliberately introduced to the healthy individual making them immune. Considered extremely dangerous at the time, Cotton Mather convinced Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to experiment with the procedure when a smallpox epidemic hit Boston in 1721, and over 240 people were inoculated. The African practice Onesimus introduced was also used to inoculate American soldiers during the Revolutionary War thereby introducing the concept of inoculation to the United States.
4 Comments
Most people think of Rosa Parks as the first person to refuse to give up their seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. There were actually several women who came before her; one of whom was Claudette Colvin.
Nine months before Rosa Parks, fifteen-year-old Claudette refused to move to the back of the bus. Claudette had been studying Black leaders like Harriet Tubman in her segregated school. “It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn't get up,” she said of her bus experience. At the time, the NAACP and other related organizations felt Rosa Parks, who was older, middle class, and light-skinned, made a better icon than a poorer, dark-skinned teenager. Therefore, Rosa became the face for the movement. She served as one of four women who challenged and overthrew Alabama segregation law in Browder v. Gayle. |
For frequent updates, visit the Facebook page of Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder!
Archives
April 2024
|