We are all familiar with the Founding Fathers and the events that lead to the American Revolution. Stephen Coss points to events in 1721 as the seeds of that revolution two generations later in his new book: The Fever of 1721.
The Boston of 1721 was already full of conflicts between American colonists and the British crown that would lead to the revolution 50 years later. The royal governor, Samuel Shute, quickly came into conflict with Massachusetts legislature. The crown appointed the governor, but the local legislature was in charge of his compensation. The legislators voted to pay the new governor no salary. This lead to the Massachusetts colony’s government being paralyzed by dissent. The Abenaki Indians were become actively hostile as the colony continued to grow and settle further and further into New England and the natives’ lands. War was increasingly likely. The financial markets were a mess with a crippling currency shortage. The English financial markets were suffering from the bursting of the “South Sea Bubble”.
In April 1721, the Seahorse, a British navy frigate, sailed into Boston harbor after hunting pirates. But it carried a deadly cargo: smallpox. In the 17th and 18th century, towns like Boston were struck by a smallpox epidemic ever decade or so. The Seahorse was supposed to dock at Spectacle Island to prevent infection. But the quarantine procedures failed. One fourth of Boston’s population contracted smallpox, and almost 10% of the population died.
A local clergyman heard the tale of one of his family’s African slaves about the West African method of inserting pus from a smallpox victim into an uninfected person. The recipient would gain immunity while usually suffering only a mild form of the disease. The clergyman began advocating for this treatment.
However, the clergyman was Cotton Mather, one of the main players in the Salem witch trials. He had to overcome the public’s suspicion of him and the overt racism of relying on an African method as a legitimate medical procedure.
The local papers were involved in the controversy about this medical procedure. Perhaps the biggest flamethrower of publishing in Boston was James Franklin, publisher of the New-England Courant, and his younger brother/apprentice, Benjamin Franklin. The Courant was trying to operate as an independent newspaper, published without government license. It criticized the vaccination procedure as well as Boston’s government and influential citizens. The Franklin brothers thought the medical procedure would just further spread the disease and unnecessarily kill the patients.
The Fever of 1721 pulls together these tales of medical innovation, freedom of the press, government strife, and economic crisis. I had not heard of this portion of Boston’s history and found the stories to be fascinating.
I’m a sucker for books on Boston history and took a copy from the publisher in exchange for a review.
