Overlooked: Onesimus

Based on how our history is generally told, one is led to the conclusion that there have been little to no significant contributions in American history by people of non-European descent. There are a handful of exceptions such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. I know this reality is probably true in most places, but our nation has consisted of numerous races, ethnicities, and cultures more so than probably any other. With that in mind, I would simply like to shed light on some significant contributions by non-Europeans to the arts, sciences, philosophy, and other fields. This is not driven by white guilt; I do not have that. I just believe it is good and just to honor all people and cultures where it is deserved, and that we have done an inadequate job of doing so. I wish to honor those who I believe have been overlooked.

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The first person that I would like to recognize is a slave by the name of Onesimus. He lived in the Massachusetts colony in the early 18th century and was owned by a Puritan minister named Cotton Mather. Larger due to his inability to convert him to Christianity, Mather mistrusted Onesimus. Mather did however recognize his intelligence and noted that he (Onesimus) told him that he once had smallpox, but had been forever cured.

There was a reason that Mather would remember and notate this. Smallpox is one of history's most feared diseases. Spreading like wildfire throughout populations during outbreaks, the disease would start with a fever and be followed by mouth sores and skin rashes that turned to fluid-filled bumps. The disease left disfiguring scars and had a death rate of around 30%. Based on its highly contagious nature, outbreaks frequently turned into terrifying epidemics. 

In 1716, Mather wrote that his slave, Onesimus, indicated that he knew how to prevent smallpox so that one could be "forever [freed] of the fear of contagion." Onesumis had gone undergone a procedure in which he was exposed to smallpox in a way that prevented him from acquiring the disease again. Pus from an infected person was rubbed on an open wound on his arm. He claimed that this was a common practice in his African homeland (precise location unknown) which protected people from the disease most of the time. 

Fascinated, Mather verified the story with other slaves and became an advocate for inoculation. People largely resisted his ideas out of racism and fear. An exception was physician Zabdiel Boylston, and a chance to test the technique came about when a smallpox epidemic reached Boston in 1721. Boylston began to inoculate people by purposely exposing them to the disease before the outbreak reached them. The results were undeniable. One in seven Bostonions who contacted the disease in that outbreak died. But, among over 240 people inoculated by Dr. Boylston, only six died-a rate of about one in 40, or less than three percent!

This epidemic killed about 14% of Boston's population, but established hope for the future. The stage was set for vaccination, and at the end of the 18th century a vaccine for smallpox was developed. Eventually, in 1980 smallpox would become the first infectious disease to be globally eradicated. This is one of the biggest achievement in the history of medicine. Though history does not generally give any credit to Onesimus, it cannot be disputed that the information he gave eventually saved future populations from the scourge of smallpox and other diseases as the science behind vaccination advanced. It is unclear if Onesimus ever received credit in his lifetime for his contribution, and so it is my desire to do so now.