The Immunity of Slavery: Slave Owners and Epidemiological Disturbances, 1793–1858

Examining the yellow fever and cholera epidemics that occurred prior to the Civil War sheds new light on the various connections between health, capital and power in the United States. The story unfolds with antebellum court records revealing previously unknown facts about the health and value of slaves, and the transient nature of power. Indeed, when slave owners challenged the legality of transactions involving slaves who died of yellow fever shortly after being sold, they unexpectedly became voices of dissent within Southern society. How could the idea that African Americans were susceptible to the disease be reconciled with “racialized assumptions about the black body bolstering racial slavery”? (Olivarius, 2019) Before cholera arrived in America in 1832, slave owners considered African Americans’ immunity to epidemic diseases to be a fact of life. In line with the views of Northerners such as Benjamin Rush and Stephen Girard, this widely held belief eased the abolitionist pressure on the institution of slavery for more than three decades. As cholera unveiled this false sense of security after 1832, slave owners defied logic by increasing their slaves’ exposure to epidemiological disturbances through hiring them out to urban employers. We argue that this emboldened slave owners in their defense of the institution of slavery. Firstly, it expanded the network of interests within Southern society that were prepared to combat the “germ theory” of abolition. Secondly, by helping cotton become king, it enlarged the scope of power exerted by slave owners across the Atlantic.