Disease, Colonial America, Facts, APUSH

Disease was widespread in Early America, with malaria, tuberculosis, smallpox, and yellow fever causing significant suffering. The effects were felt in both European and Native American Indian communities. While some diseases like malaria and tuberculosis were persistent, smallpox was reduced through vaccination.

Essential Facts

Malaria, tuberculosis, smallpox, and yellow fever were common in Colonial America.
Mosquitoes spread malaria, and it was common in the Southern Colonies.
Tuberculosis, also known as “consumption,” was spread through close contact.
Smallpox declined after the introduction of “variolation,” a method of inoculation.
Yellow fever, also spread by mosquitoes, was feared in port cities.
In 1793, yellow fever killed 10% of Philadelphia’s population.
Edward Jenner developed a safer smallpox vaccine in 1796.

Significance

Diseases are important to American History because they helped shape relations between Native American Indians and European settlers and limited the growth of settlements. The spread of disease impacted society, causing high mortality and social disruption, while decimating Indian nations and tribes. Efforts to control diseases marked early attempts at medical advancement.

History

Living Conditions in England

In England, a practice known as “enclosure” displaced roughly half of the rural population, primarily peasants, between 1530 and 1630.

Displaced peasants migrated to cities in search of relief, contributing to the rapid growth of the urban population.
London’s population grew from 120,000 in 1550 to 200,000 by 1600, nearly doubling again by 1650.
Crime, poverty, and disease increased in cities, along with poor living conditions.
Cities lacked fresh water and proper sewage systems, making them breeding grounds for disease.
Parliament responded to the rise in poverty by making it a crime.
People accused of being “vagrants” were punished with public whippings, thieves were hanged, and debtors were sent to prison.

Enclosure — A legal process that restricts land access to the owner. Prior to the passage of the various Enclosure Acts, areas of land in England were often owned by the lord of a manor, but were commonly used by people living in the region, including peasants, who planted crops or grazed livestock. The English system of land ownership dates to the reign of Edward the Confessor, who ruled England from 1042 to 1066. The system was revised in 1066 by William I (William the Conqueror), who distributed English land among 180 men with the title of Baron.

England Sends the Poor to the American Colonies

English officials tried to address the growing issues in their cities by sending the poor to work in the American Colonies.

Harsh conditions in England made emigration an appealing option for both the homeless poor and the wealthy.
Promises of prosperity and a chance at a new life attracted many to the New World.
The long journey to America involved cramped ships with poor sanitation, creating ideal conditions for the incubation and spread of disease.

AHC Note — The arrival of ships in North America became one of the first clearly identifiable sources of disease for colonists and Native American Indians in the New World.

Transatlantic Ships Spread Disease

Ships from Europe carried emigrants from England and other parts of Europe, while ships from Africa transported enslaved people.

The most common diseases were smallpox, yellow fever, dysentery, and measles.
They spread easily due to the presence of human waste, poor hygiene, and contaminated water.
Lice, spiders, mice, and rats infested the ships, adding to the unsanitary environment.
Although the bodies of the dead were thrown overboard, some bodies went unnoticed for long periods in the dark, foul-smelling conditions.

Yellow fever, also called “stranger’s disease, is believed to have originated in Africa, where it is common, and spread to America through the West Indies.

The first slave ship from the Dutch West India Company arrived in America in 1626, contributing to the spread of yellow fever in the New World.

Dutch West India Company — A joint-stock company that played a key role in the development of the Atlantic economy, including the slave trade and the establishment of Dutch colonies. Despite early successes, it eventually lost dominance due to English competition, went bankrupt, and dissolved in 1794.

Poor Sanitation in the Colonies

As settlers disembarked from ships, they were unprepared for the sanitation issues they encountered in their new environments. There was no infrastructure or knowledge of proper sanitation. Because of this, poor sanitation and unhealthy drinking water contributed to the spread of disease, just as they did on ships.

As settlements matured, public health was considered the responsibility of the community and the church.
Early colonial cities were filthy, and many people discarded waste directly into the streets.
Animals like pigs, goats, and turkey buzzards were used to manage waste, but contributed their own waste.
Horses, commonly used for transportation, also added to the unsanitary conditions with their waste.

Common Diseases

From the Colonial Era through the American Revolution, Americans frequently suffered from outbreaks of disease, which contributed to shorter life expectancies.

The most common diseases were diphtheria, dysentery, malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, and yellow fever.
Smallpox and yellow fever were the most devastating diseases.
Common colds frequently led to severe complications like pleurisy or pneumonia, causing many deaths.
Diphtheria, often contracted through contaminated milk, was a deadly disease.
Dysentery and other intestinal diseases, referred to as “flux,” were common and fatal.

Smallpox

Early on, smallpox was the most feared disease in the colonies. It was a highly contagious virus causing fever, intense headaches, and the formation of dark red pustules (sores) all over the body.

The disease’s distinctive symptoms made it easy to identify and well-documented in historical records.
When smallpox first appeared in a population, it often caused death rates of 30–50% among those infected.

The process of “variolation” was introduced in the 1720s as an early method to combat smallpox. It involved inserting pus from an infected person into a small incision on a healthy person.

The recipient often suffered a milder form of the illness, providing immunity to smallpox in the future.
Despite risks, variolation significantly reduced the death rate from 10–50% to 1–5%.
Early experiments with the process sometimes triggered outbreaks.
Reverend Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin were strong supporters of variolation.

By the end of the 18th Century, smallpox was on the decline due to variolation. However, many people opposed the process because it favored the wealthy, who could afford the treatment and time away from work.

Familiar people feared that inoculated individuals might spread the disease to others.
During the American Revolutionary War, smallpox was an ongoing concern for General George Washington and the Continental Army.
Washington ordered his troops to undergo the inoculation process.
By the end of the war, with many soldiers inoculated, opposition to the process decreased.

In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered a safer vaccination using cowpox, which became widely used in the U.S. within a decade. The widespread use of his vaccine led to a further decline in the incidence of smallpox.

Malaria

In the Southern Colonies, malaria was consistently present in the population and occurred on a predictable cycle. Because of this, it was sometimes called “quartile fever” or “intermittent fever.”

Malaria caused recurring fever, chills, weakness, and shaking. It did not always cause death, but it weakened the immune system, making people vulnerable to other diseases.
The disease was spread by the anopheles mosquito, which could breed year-round.

Many American slaves carried a genetic trait that made them resistant to malaria. This contributed to the persistence and growth of slavery in the Southern Colonies.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, also known as “consumption,” was spread through close contact when a person coughed or sneezed.

The disease was prevalent in cities with densely populated housing and workplaces.
It often spread through families, leading to multiple deaths.
Tuberculosis slowly destroyed the lungs over several years.

In the 19th Century, the disease was romanticized, especially as it supposedly made young women appear beautifully pale, even though it was slowly killing them.

Yellow Fever

Yellow fever, which appeared occasionally during the Colonial Era, replaced smallpox as the most feared disease during the Early Republic Era. Yellow fever was not endemic (native) to America. It was carried from warmer climates, such as the West Indies.

Symptoms of yellow fever included sudden illness, fever, vomiting of black material, and jaundice (yellowing of the skin).
Mortality rates were high, and victims often died within days or even hours.

At the time, the link between mosquitoes and the disease was not known. However, people understood that it usually struck in the summer and ended with the first frost.

Each summer, city residents awaited reports of yellow fever outbreaks, with many fleeing at the first signs of danger.
The poor, living close to the waterfront, were often left behind to suffer.

In the 1790s, yellow fever outbreaks appeared in several U.S. port cities, causing devastating effects. However, epidemics did not happen every year.

In 1793, Philadelphia suffered the worst epidemic.
It is estimated that nearly 10% of its population died.
President George Washington and Congress fled from the city during the epidemic.

Impact on Native American Indians

European colonists were not the only ones to suffer from disease. Native American Indian populations suffered significantly from diseases carried to the Americas from Europe.

After arriving in 1607, the settlers at Jamestown came into contact with local Indians, who were part of the Powhatan Confederacy. While disease killed a large number of the original Jamestown colonists, it also spread to the Indians.

In 1587, Thomas Harriot documented the effects of disease on Indian communities in his Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.
Harriot noted that after colonists visited villages, people would become ill, and some died rapidly within days of their departure.

Indian populations experienced devastating effects from diseases introduced by Europeans.

Eastern tribes, such as the Iroquois and Susquehannock, were severely affected.
Tribes along the Sandusky River and around the southern Great Lakes, including the Huron, Chippewa, and Potawatomi, also suffered.
Southern tribes such as the Catawba, Sioux, and Cherokee faced significant population losses due to these diseases.

Just before the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620, the Indian population of New England was devastated by an event known as the “Great Dying.”

The cause of the epidemic is unknown.
It is estimated that as much as 75% to 95% of the Indian population died.
Evidence suggests that the disease was transmitted from Europeans to the Abenaki, who then spread it to other tribes with which they traded.
Speculation has been that the disease could have been bubonic plague, smallpox, or yellow fever. However, a modern theory is that it was leptospirosis, which could have been spread by rats on the European ships.
In some villages, entire populations were wiped out, and many tribes never recovered.

The disease had a devastating effect on the Algonquian People living in the eastern portion of New England, from Maine to Massachusetts. The Wampanoag were nearly wiped out by disease. Neighboring tribes were also affected, including the Abenaki, Massachusetts, Nauset, Pennacook, and Permaquid.

The epidemic decimated the Indian population in Patuxent, which is where the Pilgrims decided to establish their settlement.
When the Pilgrims arrived, they found villages and fields that appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry, along with crops and tools that were left behind. They also found the skeletal remains of the former inhabitants of the villages.
Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim Father, described the disease as being “not unlike the plague, if not the same.”

AP US History Alignment

Disease in Early America is part of the following units, topics, and chapters in the AP US History curriculum:

Unit1: 1491–1607

Unit 2: 1607–1754

2.2 — European Colonization
2.4 — Transatlantic Trade
2.5 — Interactions Between American Indians and Europeans
2.6 — Slavery in the British Colonies
2.7 — Colonial Society and Culture

Notes

Written by Randal Rust