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The Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793 25

The Yellow Fever
Outbreak of 1793: Nine

Observations and Lessons

Continued from Page 24

In the initial panic at the contagion, terror
prompted friends and relations to desert their
loved ones. Carey described servants
abandoning humane masters, and masters
rushing faithful servants to Bush Hill Hospital
on a mere suspicion of the fever. Carey wrote,
“Who, without horror, can reflect on a husband
deserting his wife . . . in the last agony—a wife
unfeelingly abandoning her husband on his
death bed,” and “parents forsaking their only
children—children ungratefully flying from
their parents . . . without an enquiry after their
health or safety.”
television evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (later work of black caregivers was largely invisible to
Messner) spoke approvingly of hugging a whites. Reverends Jones and Allen labored on
Devèzewrote, “In short, the public papers
person with HIV/AIDS. In 1987, Britain’s burial detail and visited the sick. Black nurses,
inspired you with terror by pretending to declare
Princess Diana shook hands with an AIDS new to the vocation but eager to help, struggled
the disease contagious.” This terror justified,
patient, without gloves. In the 1980s, simply to care for patients who were delirious with
even required, “abandoning the unfortunate
touching a person with AIDS challenged public fever. Jones and Allen remarked, “We have
victims of this fatal malady, neglected and left
sentiment on the disease. suffered equally with whites; our distress hath
alone to expire in all the horror of despair.”
been very great, but much unknown to the white
Devèze pleaded, “Children! mothers! husbands!
Girard and Devèze rightly believed yellow fever people. Few have been the whites that paid
think of the duty which God has prescribed to
was not contagious. Most Americans, however, attention to us, while the colored persons were
you.” The doctor warned that if “those for whom
dreaded a sick person and feared that a healthy engaged in others’ service.”
alone you ought to live are deprived of the cares
person was an asymptomatic carrier. Even the
they expect from you—think what will be your
symptoms of a common cold could provoke African Americans were constantly working in
remorse when they are no more.”
public backlash. Carey knew of people showing the background of the stories whites
signs only of “common colds, and common fall remembered. John Fenno wrote, “I have
John Fenno wrote of “stress and apprehensions”
fevers,” people “only slightly ill” who were repeatedly been in the Street when scarcely an
that were “so powerful, that Husbands deserted
forcibly “sent to Bushhill, by their panic- individual was to be seen as far as the eye could
their Wives; Wives their husbands; children their
stricken neighbours.” An anonymous extend, except a Negro leading a Herse, or a
parents, & vice versa.” Fenno claimed “this
Philadelphia resident wrote that “each person Chair Carriage, or a Horse Cart with a Corpse—
unnatural conduct,” in violation of “affection,
became afraid of his neighbors, insomuch that if sometimes two in a Cart.” Carey remarked that
principle & duty,” was “awfully sanctioned” by
any became sick they were avoided, and many men of fortune, who had given work to
the “fatal consequences” of loyalty: “Husbands
fled from the sick, leaving them in a destitute hundreds, “have been abandoned to the care of a
& wives who mutually nursed each other both
situation, perhaps shut up in a house, and the negro, after their wives, children, friends, clerks,
died in numerous Instances.”
neighbors alarmed.” and servants had fled away, and left them to their
fate.” Likewise, “corpses of the most respectable
Humans were not the only victims of
Some acts of rejection exceeded self-preserving citizens” went to the grave, “unattended by a
abandonment. Rush observed, “Here and there a
avoidance and reached the level of violent friend or relation,” “the horse driven by a
dead cat added to the impurity of the air of the
hatred. Jones and Allen recalled “an instance of negro.”
streets; for many of those animals perished with
cruelty, which, we trust, no colored man would
hunger in the city, in consequence of so many
be guilty of.” As Jones and Allen understood the Rush recalled, “Funeral processions were laid
houses being deserted by the inhabitants who
incident, “Two sisters, orderly, decent, white aside. A black man, leading, or driving a horse .
had fled into the country.”
women, were sick with the fever.” One sister . . with now and then half a dozen relations or
recovered. “A neighboring white man saw her, friends following at a distance from it, met the
The abandonment of loved ones was confined to
and in an angry tone asked her if her sister was eye in most of the streets of the city at every
the initial phase of panic. Of the cases of
dead or not? She answered, ‘No,’ upon which he hour of the day, while the noise of the same
relations and neighbors abandoning others,
replied, ‘Damn her, if she don’t die before wheels passing slowly over the pavements, kept
Carey wrote, “But I must observe, that most of
morning, I will make her die!’” The stunned alive anguish and fear in the sick and well, every
them happened in the first stage of the public
woman managed only a “modest reply,” hour of the night.”
panic. Afterwards, when the citizens recovered a
prompting the man to grab a container heavy
little from their fright, they became rare.”
with water. The unkind neighbor meant to dash (Continued on Page 26)
her over the head, but an African American
7. People Feared the Sick.
intervened on the woman’s behalf. (Jones and
Allen do not mention the gender of the Good
As a Philadelphia resident observed in 1793, an Have you had a Paranormal
Samaritan.)
orphanage was necessary because the extended experience that you would like to
family of bereft children, and the neighbors who share with the readers of The ‘X’
8. Whites Overlooked the
knew them, were “shy of them.” Fear of the Chronicles Newspaper? Send it to
Contributions and Suffering of African
disease meant, in many cases, the children were publisher@xchroniclesnewspaper.com
rejected by surviving relations. Fear of the sick Americans.
or by snail mail: The ‘X’ Chronicles
during the yellow fever outbreak was Newspaper, PO Box 1261, Crystal
comparable to people’s initial response to the Benjamin Rush, Matthew Clarkson, and
HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. In 1985, American Mathew Carey acknowledged what the African Beach, Ontario, L0S 1B0
Americans did for the public good. Sadly, the