The African American who introduced inoculation to the Western World
Commentary: Black Scientists, Explorers, and Inventors
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
Fears and misinformation surrounding inoculation and vaccination are old themes in American culture. One piece of information lost to history that helps counter this disinformation campaign is that the principles of inoculation were first introduced to the Western world by a enslaved black African in Boston Massachusetts. But then just as now fear, racism, and religious bias lead to inoculation’s widespread rejection in the 1700s just as with the modern antivaxxer campaigns.
Onesimus (late 1600s–1700s) was a black man instrumental in the mitigation of a major 1721 smallpox outbreak in Boston, Massachusetts. Onesimus birth name is unknown. He was at some point enslaved and given in 1706 to a New England Puritan minister named Cotton Mather, who renamed Onesimus. Mather was the Puritan minister of Boston’s North Church (he was also a prominent figure in the Salem Witch Trials). Mather renamed his slave after a first-century slave mentioned in the Bible. The name, "Onesimus" means useful, helpful, or profitable.
I first heard of Onesimus growing up near Boston, but I didn’t know much about him other than he was part of the local black folklore. It was only years later watching PBS that I learned more about him. I was recently think that maybe he should be promoted as an antidote to many antivaxxers who have wormed their way into black cultural spaces.
Little is known of Onesimus early life as he was just one of the millions of Africans kidnapped from West Africa, and forced into a perilous transatlantic slave trade. Yet from these terrible beginnings Onesimus changed the course of history by spurring the first recorded use of inoculation in the New World. Onesimus’ knowledge helped pave the way for the development of the first vaccines 75 years later.
In 1721 a terrifying news swept colonial Massachusetts, Smallpox had arrived in Boston and was spreading rapidly. The first victims, passengers on a ship from the Caribbean, were shut in a house identified only by a red flag reading “God have mercy on this house.” Meanwhile, hundreds of residents of the bustling colonial town started to flee for their lives, terrified of exposing themselves to the deadly disease.
The colony’s fear was palpable as the smallpox virus was extremely contagious, quickly spreading into large epidemics. Smallpox’s victims experienced fever, fatigue and a crusty rash that could leave disfiguring scars. In up to 30 percent of cases, the victims perished.
But this smallpox epidemic of 1721 would be different. As the virus swept the city, killing hundreds, Onesimus suggested a way to keep people from getting infected. In this time before modern medical treatment or a robust understanding of infectious disease, Onesimus was one of the few people in the city with the knowledge to slow the outbreak. Intrigued by Onesimus’ methods, a brave doctor and an outspoken minister undertook a bold experiment to try to stop the smallpox plague.
At first Cotton Mather didn’t trust Onesimus: he wrote about having to watch him carefully due to what he thought was “thievish” behavior, and recorded in his diary that he was “wicked” and “useless.” But in 1716, Onesimus told him something he did believe: That he knew how to prevent smallpox.
Cotton Mather
Onesimus, who “is a pretty intelligent fellow,” Mather wrote, told him he had had smallpox, and then hadn’t. Onesimus said that he “had undergone an operation, which had given him something of the smallpox and would forever preserve him from it...and whoever had the courage to use it was forever free of the fear of contagion.”
Onesimus introduced Mather to the principles and procedures of inoculation to prevent disease. By doing this he laid the foundation for the modern development of vaccines. After a smallpox outbreak began in Boston in 1721, Mather used this knowledge to advocate for inoculation in the population, a practice that eventually spread to other colonies.
Although Onesimus's name at birth and place of birth are not unknown, Mather referred to the ethnicity of Onesimus as "Guaramantee", which may refer to the Coromantee (the Akan people of modern Ghana). Mather described Onesimus as highly intelligent and educated him in reading and writing with the Mather family (for context, according to biographer Kathryn Koo, at that time literacy was primarily associated with religious instruction, and writing as means of note-taking and conducting business).
In 1716 Onesimus described to Mather the process of inoculation that had been performed on him and others in his African society (as Mather later reported in a letter): "People take Juice of Small-Pox; and Cut the Skin, and put in a drop." In the book, African Medical Knowledge, the Plain Style, and Satire in the 1721 Boston Inoculation Controversy, Kelly Wisecup wrote that Onesimus is believed to have been inoculated at some point before being sold into slavery or during the slave trade, as he most likely traveled from the Caribbean to Boston. The process he described, variolation method of inoculation was long practiced in Africa among sub-Saharan people. The practice was widespread among enslaved people from many regions of Africa and, throughout the slave trade in the Americas.
The operation Onesimus referred to consisted of rubbing pus from an infected person into an open wound on the arm. Once the infected material was introduced into the body, the person who underwent the procedure was inoculated against smallpox. It wasn’t a vaccination, which involves exposure to a less dangerous virus to provoke immunity. But it did activate the recipient’s immune response and protected against the disease most of the time.
Mather was fascinated. He verified Onesimus’ story with that of other enslaved people, and learned that the practice had been used in Turkey and China. He became an evangelist for inoculation, also known as variolation, and spread the word throughout Massachusetts and elsewhere in the hopes it would help prevent smallpox.
Mather believed Onesimus's medicinal advice because, as he wrote, "inferiority had not yet been indelibly written onto the bodies of Africans." Additionally, Mather believed that disease, specifically smallpox, was a spiritual and physical punishment, so he saw a cure as "God's providential gift", as well as a means of receiving recognition from New England society and reestablishing the influence of religious figures in politics. But when Boston experienced that smallpox outbreak in 1721, Mather promoted inoculation as protection against it. He cited Onesimus’ African folk medicine as the source of the procedure.
But Mather hadn’t bargained on how unpopular Onesimus's idea would be. The same prejudices that caused him to distrust his servant made other white colonists reluctant to undergo a medical procedure developed by Black people. His advocacy for inoculation met resistance from those suspicious of African medicine. Doctors, ministers, laymen, and Boston city officials argued that the practice of inoculating healthy individuals would spread the disease and that it was immoral to interfere with the working of divine providence
Mather “was vilified,” historian Ted Widmer wrote that “A local newspaper, called The New England Courant, ridiculed him. An explosive device was thrown through his windows with an angry note. There was an ugly racial element to the anger.” Religion also contributed: Other preachers argued that it was against God’s will to expose his creatures to dangerous diseases.
Mather was also publicly ridiculed for relying on the testimony of a slave. It was a commonly fear during colonial times that enslaved Africans would attempt to overthrow of white society. Because of this fear the medicinal wisdom of Onesimus was severely mistrusted and assumed to be a plot to poison white citizens. The fact that the Massachusetts colony had passed The Acts and Resolves which included race-based punishments and codes to prevent slave or servant uprisings was an illustration of a society highly skeptical of African medicine.
But in 1721 Zabdiel Boylston, the only physician in Boston who supported the technique, got their chance to test the power of inoculation. Boylston using Mather’s notes carried out the method Onesimus had described. Boylston stuck a needle into a pustule from an infected person's body and scraping the infected needle across a healthy person's skin. Dr. Boylston inoculated his own six-year-old son and two of his slaves. A total of 280 individuals were inoculated during the 1721-22 Boston smallpox epidemic.
Zabdiel Boylston
Smallpox was one of the era’s deadliest afflictions. “Few diseases at this time were as universal or fatal,” notes historian Susan Pryor. The colonists saw its effects not just among their own countrymen, but among the Native Americans to whom they introduced the disease. Smallpox destroyed Native communities that, with no immunity, were unable to fight off the virus.
But the population of 280 inoculated patients experienced only six deaths (approx. 2.2 percent), compared to 844 deaths among the 5,889 non-inoculated smallpox patients (approx. 14.3 percent). It wasn’t a cure but yielded hope against future epidemics. Onesimus technique also helped set the stage for vaccination. In 1796, Edward Jenner developed an effective vaccine that used cowpox to provoke smallpox immunity.
An inscription on his tomb incorrectly identifies Boylston as the "first" to have introduced the practice of inoculation into America. Recognition for Onesimus contribution to medical science came slowly. But by 2016 he was placed among the 100 Best Bostonians of All Time in a Boston magazine survey. Historian Ted Widmer of CUNY New York noted that “Onesimus reversed many of [the colonists’] traditional racial assumptions... [h]e had a lot more knowledge medically than most of the Europeans in Boston at that time.
Onesimus earned enough independent wages support a household for himself and his wife met while serving the Mather family. It is unclear whether his wife was a free woman. They had two children, both of whom died before they were ten years old. His son, Onesimulus, died in 1714.[Katy, his second child, died due to consumption. After their deaths, Mather attempted to convert Onesimus to Christianity, overtures Onesimus rejected. Mather saw his inability to convert his slave as his failure as a Puritan evangelist and head of his household, as Onesimus’ refusal was supposed to bring God's displeasure on the Mather family. Onesimus’ refusal to convert led to Mather's unhappiness with his presence in the household. Mather's diary reports "stubborn behavior" from Onesimus following the death of his children.
In 1716, Onesimus attempted to buy his freedom from Mather, raising funds to "purchase" another enslaved man, named Obadiah, to take his place. But Mather placed conditions on Onesimus release, requiring that he remain available to perform work in the Mather household at their command and return five pounds that Mather claimed that Onesimus had stolen from him.. Historians at first attributed Onesimus’ release to Mather’s distrust after the alleged theft, but Mather's diaries better support Mather's inability to convert Onesimus as his primary motivation to allowing Onesimus to purchase his freedom.
In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox entirely eradicated due to the spread of immunization worldwide. It remains the only infectious disease to have been entirely wiped out.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Black-owned firms showed a revenue growth of 66%, going from an estimated $127.9 billion in 2017 to $211.8 billion in 2022. Even with that growth, revenue from Black-owned firms was still only 1% of gross revenue from all businesses.
Black people made up just 14.4% of the total U.S. population in 2023, with 48.3 million people identifying as Black. This number includes people who identify as Black only or Black “in combination with other racial backgrounds,” according to Pew.
So why is this data important to note now?
The Trump administration is actively dismantling every policy that gives Black people a semblance of equal footing in this country. Edward Blum launched a successful crusade against affirmative action, and he continues to file lawsuits to put a stop to programs that seek to provide a leg up for Black people in this country.
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Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were often flawed. Here’s how to fix them. VOX: What comes after the DEI backlash?
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In recent months, the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies have been unrelenting. Since Donald Trump’s win in November, several major companies — including McDonald’s, Target, Amazon, and Meta — have announced that they’re either scaling back or outright ending their DEI programs. And since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has been dismantling all DEI programs across the federal government.
The assault has been so aggressive that at one point the Trump administration seemed to just be scrapping all references to the words “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” on government websites and handbooks, even in cases where they don’t actually refer to DEI programming. According to the Wall Street Journal, that included deleting references like the “inclusion” of identification numbers on tax forms.
But despite the efforts of Republicans to turn DEI into a battlefront for the culture wars, DEI practices are nothing new. In fact, they trace their roots to the civil rights movement and have long been a part of corporate America, let alone organizations in the public sector. Their goal is to build fairer workplaces by focusing on things like diversity in hiring or reducing discrimination — creating opportunities that otherwise might not exist for qualified people from marginalized backgrounds.
The backlash against DEI has had measurable consequences. In 2023, for example, the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, and since then, enrollment of Black and Latino students at universities has declined. Republicans have also started using the phrase “DEI” as a slur.
Understanding the history of DEI — how it came to be, as well as its strengths and weaknesses — can help us figure out how we got to this point, and, for organizations that are actually still interested in promoting diversity and fairness in the workplace, where we can go from here.
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"I am so proud and excited to take on this glorious honor," actress Cynthia Erivo said in response to her hosting ht 2025 Tony awards The Grio: ‘Wicked’ choice: Cynthia Erivo will host the Tony Awards in June
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“Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo, who has been earning awards left and right, will next be handing them out — she’s been picked to be the host of the Tony Awards.
“I am so proud and excited to take on this glorious honor,” Erivo said in a statement. “I am looking forward to ushering the theater community at large through a night that celebrates the wonderful performances we have witnessed throughout the year. I hope I can rise to the occasion.”
Erivo has won a Grammy, Emmy and a Tony, as well as a Golden Globe, SAG Award and three Academy Award nominations.
This season’s Tony Awards will take place on June 8 at its familiar home of Radio City Music Hall. They will air live on CBS and stream on Paramount+.
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The young men – gathered for a chance to play a musical instrument or record music – welcome visitors with the awkward smile of youth. They are seated under the oldest fig tree, where the dream of building a place for the creative young people of Bidi Bidi to commune and nurture their talents was born.
“People always gathered under this tree to sing and dance,” says Edward Byemba, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who moved to Uganda seven years ago and now teaches music at the centre. “This tree represents the place that sheltered us until we grew and built the centre.”
His students nod in agreement as they look around the building, construction of which began in 2022, with enduring awe. Ceaser Godfrey, 21, jumps in with a confession.
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