Blue Death on the Devil’s Backbone: Fear, Control, and Cholera in 1833 Adams County, Mississippi

In the fall of 1833, Natchez, Mississippi, was the site of a significant cholera outbreak, hitherto disguised from the historical record by plantation owners fearful of the stigma of this particular disease.  This paper illuminates both the magnitude of this outbreak by comparing census data for Adams County with crude death rates gathered from sexton reports, and establishes an overwhelming association between slavery and death from cholera.  From this foundation, it goes on to explore the unique response of plantation physicians who worked with local planters to further obfuscate the disease’s impact.  It ends by uncovering such complicities through the example of contemporary physician, Samuel A. Cartwright, and the key testimony given by citizens in an ordinance trial inspired by the suspicion of cholera’s presence in the town.  By revealing the presence of a previously underreported and particularly stigmatized disease, this study further exposes living conditions on antebellum slave plantations and the historical actors who sought to keep resultant mortalities from the public record.