¹ Quoted by Robert, E. McGrew, ‘The First Cholera Epidemic and Social History’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 34 (1960), pp. 61–2.Google Scholar

² José, Antonio Saco, Colección de papeles científicos, historícos, políticos …sobre la Isla de Cuba… 3 vols. (Paris, 1858), II, 173, 242.Google Scholar

³ Jorge, LeRoy y Cassa, Estudios sobre la mortalidad de la Habana durante el siglo xix… (Habana, 1913), pp. 13–14;Google ScholarRamón, de la Sagra, [Tablas necrológicas del cólera-morbus en la ciudad de la Habana… (Havana, 1833)] asserts that 8,253 deaths occurred between 26 02 and 15 03.Google Scholar

⁴ Captain General Ricafort to the First Secretary of State, 31 Dec. 1833, Archivo Hist´rico Nacional, Madrid (abbreviated hereafter as AHN), Estado, leg. 6374, no. 181. Enclosed was a ‘Resumen general que manifesta los cadáveres coléricos sepultados en los cementerios de esta Isla desde el 25 de fev. ultimo hasta el 30 de set. inclusivo’ (hereafter referred to as ‘Resumen general’).

⁵ Calculated from data contained in ‘Resumen general’ and in the appendix of Kenneth, F. Kiple, Blacks in Colonial Cuba, 1774–1899 (Gainesville, Fla., 1976).Google Scholar

⁶ Manuel, Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio… (Habana, 1964), p. 145;Google ScholarDavid, Turnbull, Travels in the West: Cuba: with Notices of Porto Rico, and the Slave Trade (London, 1840), p. 85.Google Scholar

⁷ For this struggle see Arthur, F. Corwin, Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, 1817–1886 (Austin, Texas, 1967)Google Scholar and David, Murray, Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain and the Abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade (Cambridge, C.U.P., 1980).Google Scholar

⁸ Franklin, W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba During the Nineteenth Century (Madison, 1970), 54–5.Google Scholar

⁹ Captain General Ricafort to the First Secretary of State, 27 08 1833. AHN, Estado, leg. 6374.Google Scholar

¹⁰ José, Garcia de Arboleya, Manual de la Isla de Cuba… (La Habana, 1852), p. 51.Google Scholar

¹¹ LeRoy, y Cassa, Mortalidadd de la Habana, p. 14.Google Scholar

¹² This conforms to a contemporary estimate which suggested that three-quarters of the dead were blacks. See ‘Cholera in Havana’, The Medical Magazine, I (1833), 673. According to rumor, however, the cholera epidemic may also have helped in making up these losses. For on the island at the time there were a few thousand emancipados or contraband slaves captured mostly by the British and placed under the patronage of the Cuban government. The latter, it was alleged, used the cholera epidemic to claim that most emancipados had died, whereupon they were ‘hurried away into the interior’ and re-enslaved. For details of the emancipados, see Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, pp. 34–5 and passim. For details of the rumor, see the diary entry of Cary Harriet Carmichael Smyth, 4 August 1836, in the Smyth Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Manuscript Dept. Duke University. Rumors of the disappearance of emancipados for one reason or another were absolutely rife for years. For example see Corwin, Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, pp. 40–3, 82–3 and passim.

¹³ For the beginning of cholera's worldwide rampage, see Roderick, E. McGrew, Russia and the Cholera, 1823–1832 (Madison, 1965); see also his look at ‘The First Cholera Epidemic and Social History,’ passim.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Charles, E. Rosenberg, ‘The Causes of Cholera: Aspects of Etiological Thought in Nineteenth Century America,’ Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 34 (1960), 331. For the use of the term cholera or ‘cholera morbus’ prior to the nineteenth century see, for example,Google ScholarDonald, Monroe, Observations on The Means of Preserving the Health of Soldiers… (2 vols., and 2nd ed., London, 1780), 11, 1–6.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Nathaniel, F. Pierce and Arabindo, Mondal, ‘Clinical Features of Cholera,’ in Dhiman, Barua and William, Burrows (eds), Cholera (Philadelphia, 1974), pp. 212–13;Google ScholarArthur, Gale, Epidemic Diseases (Baltimore, 1960), p. 66;Google ScholarCharles, E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849 and 1866 (Chicago, 1962), pp. 2–3. The above all provide clinical descriptions of cholera which are progressively less technical.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Letter of Mrs Walter Raleigh Lenoir, 1852 (Lenoir Family Papers), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.

¹⁷ Jerome, Handler and Frederick, W. Lange, Plantation Slavery in Barbados (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), p. 70;Google ScholarUttley, K. H., ‘The Mortality and Epidemiology of Typhoid Fever in the Colored Inhabitants of Antigua, West Indies over the Last Hundred Years,’ West Indian Medical Journal, 9, (1960), 114–16.Google Scholar

¹⁸ LeRoy, y Cassa, Mortalidad de la Habana, pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

¹⁹ August, Hirsch, Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology (3 vols., London, 1883–1886), 1, 401, In Puerto Rico, however, it was reported that cholera had invaded the islands of Dominica and Santa Lucia, [Archivo general de Puerto Rico (abbreviated hereafter as AGPR), ‘Actas del cabildo de San Juan’, 20 January 1834, folio 11] and from Jamaica came word of cholera in Port Royal and among Jamaican troops [Jamaica Physical Journal, I (1834), 62, 161.[ It seems that these were simply jittery reports from physicians who had not yet faced the disease.Google Scholar For scenes of the epidemic in Havana, see John, George Wurdemann, Notes on Cuba… (Boston, 1844), p. 170.Google Scholar

²⁰ Rosenberg, , Cholera Years, p. 104;Google ScholarLeRoy, y Cassa, Mortalidad de la Habana, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

²¹ García, de Arboleya, Manual de la Isla de Cuba, p. 59;Google ScholarLeRoy, y Cassa, Mortalidad de la Habana, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

²² García, de Arboleya, Manual de la Isla de Cuba, p. 61.Google Scholar

²³ Philip, D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: a Census (Madison, 1969), pp. 37–42.Google Scholar

²⁴ Kennedy, J. to Viscount, Palmerston, Havana, , 22 02 1851, in Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, Sessional Papers, Accounts and Papers, LVIA (London, 1851), 183–212, 188, 192–3;Google ScholarMurray, , Odious Commerce, p. 246.Google Scholar

²⁵ Basil, Rauch, American Interest in Cuba: 1848–1855 (New York, 1948), pp. 277–8. Rauch unfortunately provides no source for his figure although the context suggests the source was British Foreign Office correspondence.Google Scholar The 1846 census may be found in Kiple, , Blacks in Colonial Cuba (appendix).Google Scholar

²⁶ Richard, Henry Dana, To Cuba and Back: A Vacation Voyage (Carbondale, III., 1966), p. 61;Google ScholarFredrika, Bremer, The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America… (tr.) Mary, Howitt (2 vols., New York, 1853), 11, 297;Google ScholarJosé, Antonio Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de la raza africana en el nuevo mundo y en especial en los paises Américo-Hispanos, (4 vols., Habana, 1938–1940), 111, 153. Saco's assertion, however, may have been tainted with wishful thinking, for he was an outspoken advocate of free labor for Cuba.Google Scholar See Corwin, Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, pp. 83–4, note 49.

²⁷ LeRoy, y Cassa, Mortalidad de la Habana, p. 20.Google Scholar

²⁸ Adolfo, de Hostos, Ciudad Murada. Ensyo acerca del proceso de civiliación en la ciudad española de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico, 1521–1898 (Habana, 1948), p. 456;Google Scholar AGPR, ‘Actas del cabildo de San Juan’, 4 Nov. 1833, folio 205.

²⁹ AGPR, Municipio de Aguadilla, ‘Actas 1849’, 5 Feb. 1849, caja 1, esp. 4, folio 106.

³⁰ Watson, J., ‘Cholera in Jamaica; An Account of the First Outbreak of the Disease in that Island in 1850’, Lancet, 1, (1851), 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ Ibid..

³² Gavin, Milroy, ‘The Report on the Cholera in Jamaica,’ cited in George, W. Roberts, The Population of Jamaica (Cambridge, C.U.P., p. 177.Google Scholar

³³ Ibid., pp. 256, 177.

³⁴ James Bowen Thompson, ‘Cholera in Jamaica,’ loc. cit., p. 532; John, Parkin, Statistical Report of the Epidemic Cholera in Jamaica (London, 1852), p. 1.Google Scholar

³⁵ Philip, D. Curtin, Two Jamaicas; The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony 1830–1865 (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), p. 160;Google Scholar Parkin, Statistical Report, p. 6.

³⁶ Bowerbank, L. Q., ‘Lessons from the Cholera at Jamaica,’ Medical Times and Gazette, 19 (1866), 399–401.Google Scholar

³⁷ Roberts, Population of Jamaica, p. 15; Thompson, ‘Cholera in Jamaica,’ p. 532; Bowerbank, ‘Lessons from the Cholera at Jamaica,’ p. 401. See also Esteban, Montejo [The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave ed. Miguel, Barnet (New York, 1968)] for the phenomena of cholera victims buried alive in Cuba as well.Google Scholar

³⁸ Roberts, Population of Jamaica, p. 257; Farre, F. J., ‘Cholera in the Bahamas,’ Medical Times and Gazette, 6 (1853), 300;Google Scholar H., N. Chipman, ‘Cause ofthe Outbreak of Cholera in the Bahamas’, Associated Medical Journal (1853), p. 335.

³⁹ ‘Cholera in the Island of Nevis, West Indies’, Associated Medical Journal (1834), pp. 493–5; John, Davy, The West Indies, Before and Since Slave Emancipation (London, 1854), p. 482.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Robert, H. Shomburgk, The History of Barbados (London, 1848), p. 444;Google ScholarJackson, J. B. S., ‘Diseases of the Island of Barbados,’ British Medical and Surgical Journal, 76 (1867), 448;Google ScholarClaude, Lévy, Emanciation, Sugar, Federalism: Barbados and the West Indies, 1833–1876 (Gainesville, Fl., 1980), p. 115;Google Scholar ‘Cholera in Barbados,’ Lancet, II (1854), 93.

⁴¹ Guyon, M., ‘Note sur le cholera de la Soufrière, petite population de Sainte-Lucie, l'une des Antilles,’ Garetie Médicale de Paris, 26 (1866), pp. 445–6.Google Scholar

⁴² John, Furlonge, ‘The Cholera in the West Indies,’ Lancet, 2 (1854), 470. For vessels that were quarantined, see the records of the Spanish governors of Puerto Rico in the AGPR, Caja 225, and others for the early 1850s.Google Scholar

⁴³ AGPR, ‘Actas del Cabildo de San Juan’ (1854), folios 9−10; see also AGPR, Archivo Municipio de San Juan, documentos inéditos, Acuerdos Municipales (1854); Hostos, Ensayo…San Juan, 456–7.

⁴⁴ Luis, M. Díaz Soler, Historia de esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico (Madrid, 1953), p. 122.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ AGPR, ‘Actas del cabildo San Juan, 1855’ 20 and 28 11, folios 150v and 158v.

⁴⁶ Hostos, Ensayo…San Juan, pp. 136–7.

⁴⁷ Manuel, Quevado y Béez, Historia de la medicina y cirugia de Puerto Rico (2 vols., Puerto Rico, 1946–1949), I, 176; see also 1, 167, 173, 180, 208, 210, 295, 360.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ ‘Estado clasificativo del número de defunciones causadas por la epidemia del cólera morbo en esta Isla,’ AHN, Ultramar, leg. 5082; D. J. Jimeno Agius, ‘Población y comercio de la Isla de Puerto Rico,’ Boletín Histórico de Puerto Rico (1981), p. 284; Berta, Cabanillas de Rodríguez, Orígenes de los h´bitos alimenticios del pueblo de Puerto Rico (Madrid, 1955 ), p. 291;Google Scholar Díaz Soler, Historia de la esclavitud, pp. 122–3.

⁴⁹ For examples, see Thompson, ‘Cholera in Jamaica,’ pp. 532–3; ‘Cholera in the Island of Nevis, West Indies’, pp. 394–5; Watson, ‘Cholera in Jamaica,’ pp. 40–1; Bowerbank, ‘Lessons from the Cholera at Jamaica,’ pp. 399–401.

⁵⁰ Hirsch, Handbook, I, 471; de J. Melero, M., ‘Reseña estadística acerca de la mortalidad en la Isla de Cuba,’ Anales de la Real Academia de Ciencias Médicas, Físicas y Naturales de la Habana, 14 (1878–1879), 292–3.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Oscar, Felsenfeld, The Epidemiology of Tropical Diseases (Springfield, Ill., 1966), p. 116. For the complexity of cholera's immunology,Google Scholar see Rolf, Freter, ‘Gut-Associated Immunity to Cholera,’ in Barua, and Burrows, (eds), Cholera, pp. 315–33.Google Scholar

⁵² For the social history of cholera in different locales, see McGrew, ‘The First Cholera Epidemic and Social History’; Rosenberg, Cholera Years; and Asa, Briggs, ‘Cholera and Society in the Nineteenth Century,’ Past and Present, 19 (1961), 76–96.Google Scholar

⁵³ ‘Estado que manifiesta los atacados del colera morbo…’ AGPR, Sanidad (1823−62), Caja, 183.

⁵⁴ Farre, ‘Cholera in the Bahamas,’ p. 300; Ramon, de la Sagra, Cuba en 1860… (Paris, 1863), p. 35.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Kenneth, F. Kiple and Virginia, H. King, Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora: Diet, Disease and Racism (New York, 1981), pp. 147–57.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For cholera treatment in the West Indies, see Hostos, Ensayo…San Juan, pp. 456–7 and Farre, ‘Cholera in the Bahamas,’ p. 301.

⁵⁷ Norman, Howard-Jones, ‘Cholera Therapy in the Nineteenth Century,’ JHM, 27, (1972), 373 and passim;Google Scholar see also Frederick, Eberson, ‘A Great Purging – Cholera or Calomel?,’ Filson Club History Quarterly, 50 (1976), 28–35.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Bowerbank, ‘Lessons from the Cholera at Jamaica,’ p. 401.

⁵⁹ Thompson, ‘Cholera at Jamaica,’ p. 532; see also Hirsch, Handbook, I,471–2, and James, Christie, ‘Notes on the Cholera Epidemics in East Africa,’ Lancet, 1 (1871), 113–15, 186–8. There is no question today that immunity to cholera can be acquired. See, for example,Google ScholarJan, Holgren and Ann-Mari, Svennerholm, ‘Mechanisms of Disease and Immunity in Cholera: A Review,’Journal of Infectious Disease, 136 (1977), 107–8.Google Scholar On the other hand, the general notion that all ‘coolies,’ including Chinese, were relatively immune was not apparent in their experience with the disease in a Cuban hospital. See the study of cholera in the hospital of San Juan de Dios from 30 September to 8 December 1867 in Anales de la Real Academia de Ciencias Médicas, Físicas y Naturales de la Habana, IV (1867), p. 342.

⁶⁰ Robert, Pollitzer, ‘Cholera Advances in Historical Perspective’ in Proceedings of the Cholera Research Symposium (Washington, D.C., 1965), pp. 380–7;Google ScholarRichard, A. Cash, Jamiul, Alam and Toaha, K. M., ‘Gastric Acid Secretion in Cholera Patients,’ Lancet, 2 (5 12 1970), 1192;Google ScholarHornick, R. B. et al. , ‘The Broad Street Pump Revisited: Response of Volunteers to Ingested Cholera Vibrios,’ Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 47 (1971), 1181–91;Google ScholarPubMedEugene, J. Gangarosa, ‘The Epidemiology of Cholera: Past and Present,’ Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 47 (1971), 1148–9;Google ScholarEugene, J. Gangarosa and Wiley, H. Mosley, ‘Epidemiology and Surveillance of Cholera,’ in Barua, and Burrows, (eds.), Cholera, pp. 381–403;Google ScholarCharles, C. J. Carpenter, ‘Treatment of Cholera – Tradition and Authority versus Science, Reason and Humanity,’ Johns Hopkins Medical Journal, 139 (1976), 153–63;Google Scholar and Holgren and Svennerholm, ‘Disease and Immunity in Cholera,’ p. 105 and passim.

⁶¹ Rosenberg, I. H., Greenough, W. B., Lindenbaum, J. and Gordon, R. S., ‘Nutritional Studies in Cholera; The Influence of Nutritional Status on Susceptibility to Infection,’ in Proceedings of the Cholera Research Symposium;Google ScholarCharles, C. Carpenter, ‘Cholera,’ in George, W. Hunter, William, W. Frye and Clyde Swartawelder, J. (eds.), A Manual of Tropical Medicine (4th ed., Philadelphia, 1966), p. 169.Google Scholar

⁶² Myron, Winick (ed.), Hunger Disease: Studies by Jewish Physicians in the Warsaw Ghetto (New York, 1979), p. 41;Google ScholarAncel, Keys et al. , The Biology of Human Starvation (2 vols., Minneapolis, 1950), I, 592–7;Google ScholarHornick, et al. , ‘Broad Street Pump,’ p. 190.Google Scholar

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⁶⁴ John, D. Kirschmann (ed.), Nutrition Almanac (New York, 1979), p. 137;Google ScholarSirStanley, Davidson et al. , Human Nutrition and Dietetics (6th ed., Edinburgh, 1975), p. 475.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ For the damage that rancid fish did to black health in the Caribbean quite apart from rendering them susceptible to cholera, see Kiple, The Caribbean Slave.

⁶⁶ Cash, Alam and Toaha, ‘Gastric Secretion,’ p. 1192.

⁶⁷ Cabanillas de Rodríguez, ‘Orígenes’, p. 291.

⁶⁸ Díaz Soler, Historia de la esclavitud, pp. 122–3.

⁶⁹ See Snow, J., On the Mode of Communication of Cholera (London, 1849) and the second edition of 1855.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ See the documents from Barbados and Puerto Rico in the AGPR, Medicina y Cirurgia, Box 384.

⁷¹ Roberts, Population of Jamaica, pp. 256–8; Levy, Emancipation, Sugar and Federalism, pp. 115–16.

⁷² LeRoy y Cassa, Mortalidad de la Habana, p. 20.

⁷³ Ibid; ‘Estadística de la epidemia del cólera, llevada por distritos, barrios rurales y hospitales desde que recrudeció el zo de junio hasta su declinación favorable el 31 de julio próximo pasado’, Anales de la Real Academia de Ciencias, Médicas, Físicas y Naturales de la Habana, V (1868–1869), 163–5.