Dante Learns New Black History: Onesimus

I have written about Famous Black Firsts. Cool Shit Black People Invented. And Random Civil Rights Moments. I have not done any posts about Black History Month in a few years. No particular reason other than being a lazy ass. By the time I finish this I'll come up with some title for it. Until then let me talk a little bit about a guy named Onesimus. I have never heard of this guy and am not sure how to even pronounce his name. One-Si-Mus? O-Knee-Suh-Miss? Either way no one is sure when he was born or where. All's we know is that he was born in the late 1600's. He was first documented as a slave living in the colonies in 1706. Onesimus was given as a gift to a Puritan minister named Cotton Mather. Read that sentence again. A human was given as a gift. This Mather fellow was also a big part of the Salem Witch Trials. I'm not gonna even get into that. Mather saw something special in Onesimus and taught him to read and write though at the time that was associated with religion and business so he learned but it was likely for note taking and work. Sounds fun. Also, he was named after a slave in the bible. That's some bullshit.

In 1721 Boston got a taste of the smallpox. Mather's got the idea to inoculate people based off of what he learned from Onesimus. It is said that before being sold into slavery that Onesimus was once inoculated based off of a long practice of doing so back in Africa by sub-Saharan folks. As Mather put it when reporting what Onesimus told him “People take Juice of Small-Pox; and Cutty-skin, and Putt in a Drop.” Mather and Onesimus thought that this disease was a punishment from God and that this cure was a gift. Mather also wanted more religion in politics. People were skeptical because racism and did not trust African methods and thought they would try to overthrow White people. There was even a thing called The Acts And Resolves that was passed in Boston that had race based punishments. Eventually the medical community got tired of watching people just die because they were being stubborn. Out of 242 patients only 2 died compared to 844 out of 5,899 that were not inoculated. It wasn't until 1796 that someone else made a vaccination for smallpox By 1980 smallpox was no longer a thing. Until one of you people decide to not vaccinate your kid and all that weird old school shit returns. If you don't know what smallpox looks like don't look that shit up.