Abstract
Studying the effects of yellow fever in the Crescent City over a period of about one hundred years, the authors of these two books have explored similar themes and presented the impact of this frightening and pervasive disease in terms of race, health, and inequality. In Yellow Fever, Urmi Engineer Willoughby argues that the study of disease and its impact can reveal the ways in which the history of science and the ideology of race, particularly in the southern United States, intersect and affect one another. By exploring the ecology of disease as a way to explain and understand the rise, spread, and continued prevalence of yellow fever in the port city of New Orleans, Willoughby makes the case that the rise of sugar cane cultivation and the need for slave laborers of African origin to produce the crop resulted in ecological and demographic changes in Louisiana. These changes led to the spread of yellow fever by mosquitos uniquely attuned to carrying the disease. Willoughby seeks to reveal the nature of environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural changes experienced in New Orleans because of this deadly disease. She also focuses on the racial prejudices surrounding exposure, susceptibility, and immunity to the disease, revealing the intersection of science and the cultural ideology of race in the United States through the history of yellow fever.
Kathryn Olivarius focuses on the same time period and disease in Necropolis but considers how and why so many white immigrants moved to New Orleans and rapidly died of yellow fever. Lacking the requisite immunity that came from acclimation to the hot, humid climate and exposure and survival of the disease, new residents succumbed to yellow fever in large numbers. Local white elites prided themselves on their immunity and prospered as a result of the many advantages this provided them. The resulting inequality was exacerbated by the lack of concern the elites had for the overall health of the city’s population and the suffering endured by the poor—immigrant whites and blacks alike. Using the term “immunocapitalism” to describe the value of being immune to yellow fever bestowed upon lucky survivors, Olivarius examines the terror an outbreak engendered, and on the callous attitude of those who were safe from infection. Olivarius explores racial inequities as well, arguing that the bogus claim that blacks were naturally immune or resistant to the disease helped justify the entrenched system of racial slavery found in Louisiana and eventually throughout the American South. The lack of medical knowledge, the economic and political value of immunity to yellow fever, and acclimation in the hot, humid climate of New Orleans are also themes examined by both authors.
A predominant theme in each book is racial inequity, for blacks, both free and slave, and the callous treatment of poor white immigrants in New Orleans. Covering more than one hundred years of history, beginning at the end of the eighteenth century through the early 1900s, Willoughby and Olivarius explore these themes in detail. Racial attitudes obviously included extreme prejudice against people of color who were held in slavery and subject to unfair so-called “Jim Crow” laws. Nativistic attitudes toward white immigrants created inequitable treatment for this group as well. The very idea and conception of race in New Orleans was fluid according to Willoughby. By 1850, the term “creole” was often used to refer to native New Orleanians regardless of the standard color-based racial definitions. This city was racially and ethnically diverse based on its history as a Spanish, then French colony, and the links of this urban port city to foreign markets and immigrants from Europe as well as the Caribbean resulted in a multicultural environment. Olivarius documents the huge numbers of immigrants who arrived in New Orleans between 1802 and 1860 with more than 550,000 people attracted to the immense wealth and economic opportunities for which the city was known despite its unhealthy climate. While most of these new residents were white, free black refugees arrived after the revolt on Saint-Domingue and a thriving slave trade for the continued labor needs of the sugar plantations. The constant influx of new residents enabled the development of a hierarchical system using health and immunity to yellow fever as a benchmark and indicator of economic success. Whites in New Orleans who had become acclimated and survived the disease with subsequent lifelong immunity were privileged in many ways.
One of the more insidious examples of racial inequity was the incorrect and unjustified belief that people of color and African descent were naturally immune to yellow fever. Based on little more than supposition and poor record keeping, this conviction led to untold misery and death for these segments of the population and careless disregard for the health of both the black and immigrant populations. Olivarius argues that the apparent black immunity resulted from previous exposure either in Africa or on slave ships, not any inherent biological difference. For white elites, preventing yellow fever epidemics did not take high priority as there was a continuous supply of workers and slaves; whether they were blacks supposedly immune by birth or whites who acquired immunity by surviving the disease was of little concern to those in charge of the government and economy.
The callous disregard for the health of the citizens of New Orleans by those in control of the economy and government is evident in both books. New white arrivals were often encouraged to stay in the city in the face of an epidemic, in the hope that they would survive and acquire the economic and political capital of immunity, which raised their status and marketability. If their “seasoning” in the hot, humid, unhealthy climate did not go well, there were always more immigrants on the way. Olivarius concept of “immunocaptialism” describes the value being immune to yellow fever bestowed upon one in New Orleans, and indeed throughout Louisiana during this period. Elite white and Creole residents established their dominance, even if immune to the catastrophic impact of yellow fever, and had little regard for the poor whites, free and enslaved blacks who suffered and died because of recurring epidemics. By virtue of their immunity, elites avoided the fear and terror of an epidemic which often led to mass evacuations of the city. In my research on smallpox and the cycle of epidemics which plagued colonial America, I did not find a similar disconnect or uncaring attitude toward the suffering of the poor, though the impact of the disease and recurring epidemics on society was similar. In most cases where smallpox threatened Americans, government officials made every attempt to contain and control the disease in the interest of greater societal needs and often offered inoculation against the disease gratis to the poor. 1 Both authors document the disregard for human life exhibited by the ruling class in New Orleans as they capitalized on their own immunity to yellow fever to the detriment of the larger population.
Willoughby and Olivarius spend considerable time documenting the search for a definitive cause of yellow fever, which was finally established as a virus spread by the female Aedes aegypti mosquito, native to Africa. Known to have existed for more than 3,000 years, this virus flourished in New Orleans for a variety of reasons, including the hot and humid climate, a robust mosquito population, and a dense population of nonimmune people. The devastation caused by epidemics in New Orleans was intensified by the lack of adequate precautions as well as other environmental and economic causes. According to Willoughby, recurring outbreaks of yellow fever were tied to maritime activity, the growth of plantation agriculture and the slave trade, urban growth, migration as well as ecological changes. Aedes aegypti was uniquely suited to thrive in conditions present in New Orleans, which included deforestation from the increased number of plantations, which reduced the number of birds to eat the insects; the rapid growth of the port city; multiple convenient breeding spots for the mosquito; and their preference for feeding on blood and sugar. Having adapted to this welcoming urban environment, the mosquitos spread the infection, which flourished and spread in the hot humid climate, among an ever-shifting population of refugees, immigrants, and newly imported slaves, all of whom were particularly susceptible to the disease.
While less focused on the environmental and ecological changes that encouraged the spread of yellow fever, Olivarius emphasizes the higher percentage of fatal cases during the period being studied and believes that unhealthy diets and lifestyles choices like the use of tobacco and alcohol as well as crowded and unsanitary living conditions led to increased mortality. Willoughby documents the large numbers of immigrants attracted to New Orleans and describes their success in the city as predicated on their survival of yellow fever. Most foreigners who took jobs as laborers or worked on canals and railroads contracted the disease. The mortality rate of new arrivals was often seen as related to socioeconomic and labor conditions. One French immigrant informed Alexis de Tocqueville that “of ten foreigners who live wisely and allow themselves no excesses of any sort, but two die.” She also clarified, however, that working-class immigrants doing hard labor would have a 70 to 80 percent chance of death.
Given the recurring incidences of yellow fever epidemics in the city, elite residents became accustomed to the pattern of sending the wealthy and vulnerable (typically white) residents out of New Orleans to safety. New immigrants, free and enslaved blacks and the poor, by contrast, were left to carry on in the face of the dangerous virus all around them. Those elites left in the city either had acquired immunity from an earlier case of yellow fever or were expected to succumb to the disease. With mortality rates of between 40 and 50 percent, it was very likely that a large percentage of those afflicted would die a miserable death, suffering first aches, chills, and fever progressing to the toxic phase which included abdominal pain, jaundice, hemorrhaging black bile, and ultimately kidney failure. The fortunate lower-class survivors became more marketable as laborers due to their hard-won immunity while the elite who survived yellow fever had multiple advantages from becoming acclimated through surviving yellow fever. White survivors prospered economically by earning more and being promoted, gaining access to lines of credit and insurance, and experiencing increased social standing allowing for better marriages and networking ability. Unlikely to die during an epidemic, the elite New Orleanians capitalized upon their good fortune and were viewed as good risks, of good character, and worthy of investment in various ways. This scenario encapsulates Olivarius’s definition of immunocaptital, whereby surviving yellow fever provided financial, social, and cultural rewards. Tellingly, blacks, although they were incorrectly assumed to be immune, did not reap any of these benefits as the ruling class mobilized to use the disease to their own advantage.
Although New Orleans was a vibrant and busy port city with many employment and political opportunities, many Americans refused to consider relocating there, even for lucrative government customs jobs, due to their understandable fear of contracting a deadly case of yellow fever. Olivarius argues that this resulted in a lack of qualified public servants with local men often serving in multiple positions creating backlog opportunities for corruption. The inability to attract judges resulted in a chaotic legal system which was resolved by hiring Creoles and shutting down the government during the dangerous summer season when epidemics raged in the city. Without effective leadership willing to address the health concerns of residents appropriately, yellow fever was allowed to establish itself as a seasonal scourge. Willoughby does not address the lack of qualified politicians or city leaders but focuses on the huge increase in sugar production due to technological improvements, including steam powered mills and standardized processes, which led to increased profits for white elites. The development of new plantations, canals, and water management needed for sugarcane led to deforestation, all of which created a nurturing environment for the mosquitos which spread yellow fever and malaria.
By the 1850s, yellow fever was connected to social and environmental conditions existing in New Orleans and tied to the stagnant water and filthy conditions found there. Local officials did little to remediate these problems; rather, they attempted to work around them by taking advantage of the constant flow of immigrant laborers and the privileged status of those acclimated and no longer susceptible to the disease. During the Civil War, Union officers enforced sanitation and quarantine of yellow fever victims, which drastically reduced the number of cases and deaths. Medical knowledge about the impact of bacteria became more widespread and public health reforms began to mitigate the dangers of this deadly disease. Still, combating yellow fever continued throughout the nineteenth century with multiple epidemics breaking out in New Orleans. Olivarius discusses how the lack of knowledge about how yellow fever spreads engendered great fear and uncertainty as the summer season approached. Some doctors refused to diagnose their first case regardless of the symptoms to avoid panicking an already nervous population, yet this allowed the disease to spread more quickly and widely. Practices became more lucrative for those doctors who were acclimated and immune; funeral and burial costs exploded along with a need for lawyers to administer the estates of those who died. Physicians also opened hospitals to care for plantation slaves sick with yellow fever and charged high rates for care. Rather than work to reduce infection or discern the causes of epidemics, medical professionals took advantage of the situation. As New Orleans elites held a fatalistic attitude toward yellow fever during the first half of the nineteenth century, Olivarius argues that public health concerns did not exist in the city as the system of immumocapitalism depended on epidemics to exist and thrive. Most politicians and leading citizens in New Orleans felt it was impossible to try to stop yellow fever with public health initiatives and chose to cynically rely on acclimation rather than prevention. This strategy actually worked in favor of the elites as they profited from the fines, fees, and taxes they levied upon new residents who were not yet immune to yellow fever. Perversely, the system of racial slavery was justified by the false belief that blacks were not susceptible to the disease and therefore were the only labor force available for the vast sugar plantation industry that fueled the economy.
With the discovery and documentation of the “germ theory” of disease beginning in 1867, physicians increasingly focused on bacteriology resulting in a search for the cause of yellow fever here rather than relying on ecological and miasmic patterns. 2 This led to a transformation in human social behavior in many places as the spread of disease could now be traced more effectively by Americans. New Orleans elites, however, were unwilling to accept scientific evidence that upended their system of immunocapitalism and objected to rules imposed by the National Board of Health, newly formed in 1878 after a devastating yellow fever epidemic. Refusing to impose federally administered quarantines designed to stop the spread of this infectious disease, leaders and medical professionals in the city preferred to protect the economic system in place rather than the citizens of the Deep South.
Cuban physician and medical researcher Carlos Finlay ultimately established that the mosquito carried and spread the yellow fever virus. Nevertheless, he presented racially based and inaccurate data comparing black and white mortality similar to the evidence being used by southern doctors to interpret levels of immunity to the disease. The racial prejudices around the impact of yellow fever were varied and disparate and challenged conceptions of race and the importation of the disease to the United States. Willoughby asserts that while the disease originated in sub-tropical Africa and appeared in the Caribbean sugar islands in the 1650s, the frightening epidemics emerged with the growth of a maritime economy and the emergence of a plantation economy based on slave labor in the American South.
By 1900, collaboration between medical and military authorities led to mosquito eradication programs and public health campaigns to end the scourge of yellow fever. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, New Orleans was in economic decline. Having lost much of its cotton market to other southern cities, trade had been reduced significantly, and by the 1880s, just a quarter of all U.S. cotton came through the city, and very little sugar or tobacco. While many postwar factors were in play, Olivarius quotes a Supreme Court Justice as crediting the persistence of yellow fever and the reliance on immunity and acclimation for newcomers with the end of prosperity there. Immigrants and visitors were no longer willing to risk death to do business in New Orleans when business opportunities existed elsewhere.
Both books reviewed here are meticulously researched, and Willoughby and Olivarius present valid and compelling evidence to prove their assertions. Olivarius makes a solid case for the existence of immunocapitalism in the Crescent City and Willoughby effectively describes the intersection between race and environment there. As the world attempts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in the history of disease and its impact on society has become more relevant than ever, and these books provide a fascinating and detailed look into the ways that yellow fever shaped events in the southern states, and in New Orleans in particular.