Page 26 - April-May 2020 Neat

26 The Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793

The Yellow Fever
Outbreak of 1793: Nine

Observations and Lessons

Continued from Page 25

Benjamin Rush’s account of yellow fever
suggests the gruesomeness and heartbreak of
Jones and Allen’s work on burial detail. Rush
relied on Allen and Jones for details about
postmortem effects of yellow fever. The
discharge of blood from the nose, mouth and
bowels of several corpses necessitated sealing
the joints of coffins, to prevent leakage of
draining fluids. Allen and Jones witnessed the
posthumous tears shed by the corpse of a young
woman. Rush gave these descriptions in clinical
detail, but they were images of anguish etched in
the memories of Jones and Allen.

The reverends described occasions they were
summoned to inter a corpse and “found a parent
dead, and none but little innocent babes to be
seen, whose ignorance led them to think their
parent was asleep.” The plight of the children
and their innocent prattle left the reverends “so
wounded and our feelings so hurt, that we enslaved population did not experience natural black patient.” Likewise, Carey wrote, “They
almost concluded to withdraw from our increase until the 1750s, or perhaps even the did not escape the disorder; however, the
undertaking; but, seeing others so backward [in 1760s. The people Lining listed as susceptible to number of them that were seized with it, was not
their duty], we still went on.” yellow fever—whites, mulattoes, Native great; and, as I am informed by an eminent
Americans, and people of mixed European and doctor, ‘it yielded to the power of medicine in
Jones and Allen mentioned a little girl who Native American heritage—were born in them more easily than in the whites.’”
chided them, “Mamma is asleep—don’t wake America or recently arrived from Europe.
her!” The child’s reaction to the coffin “almost Lining witnessed blacks who probably survived Jones and Allen took issue with the claim that
overcame us.” The reverends recalled, “When yellow fever as children in Africa, where the yellow fever was gentler on African Americans
she demanded why we put her mamma in the disease was endemic. Yellow fever was than on Philadelphia’s whites. The reverends
box, we did not know how to answer her, but devastating among adults. Where the disease noted, “In 1792 there were 67 of our color
committed her to the care of a neighbor, and left was endemic, however, yellow fever was a buried, and in 1793 it amounted to 305; thus the
. . . with heavy hearts.” relatively mild childhood illness that provided burials among us have increased more than
lifelong immunity. fourfold.” Jones and Allen asked, “Was not this
As for allegations that black nurses were in a great degree the effects of the services of the
neglectful, Jones and Allen implored their Philadelphia’s Free Africa Society offered their unjustly vilified colored people?”
readers to consider the difference between services to the city. While Allen and Jones
“nursing in common cases” and nursing during agreed to arrange burials, William Gray 9. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
an epidemic. Many nurses were “up night and organized efforts to recruit black nurses. Carey
day,” “worn down with fatigue and want of admitted, “The services of Jones, Allen, and In his account of the fever outbreak, Carey
sleep,” “without any one to relieve them.” Some Gray, and others of their colour, have been very alleged “some of the vilest blacks” extorted high
patients were delirious, “raging and frightful to great, and demand public gratitude.” Benjamin wages for their attendance as nurses. Carey
behold;” other patients “lay vomiting blood and Rush marveled, “Absalom Jones, and Richard wrote, “They extorted two, three, four, and even
screaming enough to chill them with horror.” Allen, two black men, spent all the intervals of five dollars a night for attendance, which would
time, in which they were not employed in have been well paid by a single dollar.” A few,
Benjamin Rush encouraged African Americans burying the dead, in visiting the poor who were Carey noted, had been “detected in plundering”
to offer their help on the mistaken but sick, and in bleeding them and purging them, the goods of the ill. Carey strained to control the
widespread belief that blacks were immune to agreeably to the directions which had been racist implications of his charges, praising
yellow fever. Observing a yellow fever outbreak printed in all the news papers. Their success was Jones, Allen, Gray, “and others of their colour.”
in Charles Town (Charleston), South Carolina in unparalleled by what is called regular practice.”
1748, Dr. John Lining wrote, “There is Jones and Allen responded that far more blacks
something very singular in the constitution of Despite assurances of their immunity, African than whites served as nurses, but an equal
the Negroes, which renders them not liable to Americans suffered from the disease. Rush number of whites were guilty of pilfering. Theft
this fever.” In a Philadelphia paper, Rush lamented, “It was not long after these worthy by nurses in general was rare, the reverends
published an excerpt of Lining’s remarks with a Africans undertook the execution of their noted, but in proportion to their numbers, white
declaration of Rush’s intent “to hint to the black humane offer of services to the sick, before I nurses were more likely to steal than black
people” that they had “a noble opportunity” of was convinced I had been mistaken. They took nurses. Furthermore, high prices did not result
showing their gratitude to a city that was a the disease, in common with the white people, from African Americans charging unreasonable
center of anti-slavery sentiment, where whites and many of them died with it.” fees. Instead, families outbid each other for the
placed blacks “upon a footing with themselves.” available caregivers.
Despite deaths from the disease, white observers
Lining, however, did not witness immunity believed yellow fever was more survivable for
among American-born blacks. In the 1740s, African Americans than for whites. Rush noted, (Continued on Page 27)
South Carolina’s enslaved population was “The disease was lighter in them, than in white
overwhelmingly African born. South Carolina’s people. I met with no case of hemorrhage in a