Social history of medicine : the journal of the Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Historical Article
Slavery, smallpox, and revolution: 1792 in Ile de France (Mauritius).
In 1792 a slave-ship arrived on the french Indian Ocean island of Ile de France (Mauritius) from South India, bringing with it smallpox. As the epidemic spread, a heated debate ensued over the practice of inoculation. The island was in the throes of revolutionary politics and the community of French colonists were acutely aware of their new rights as 'citizens'. ⋯ Eighteenth-century colonial medicine was largely geared to keeping the bodies of slaves and workers productive and useful, but formal medicine never had a monopoly. Slaves on Ile de France brought with them a rich array of medical beliefs and practices from Africa, India, and Madagascar. We have little direct historical evidence for these, but we do know that many slaves came from areas in which forces of smallpox inoculation were known and practised.