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his drinking water came from the side of the ship where all the filth and refuse were thrown historians dispute this claim however as the water would be too salty but historians agree it is entirely possible that this water filled with filth and refuse was probably used to boil and prepare the prisoners food historian john ferling writes they tried to eat in this environment too cooking their food in a large kettle filled with water gathered from alongside the vessel the very site where the previous day s excrement was dumped each morning not surprisingly disease was rampant lice ticks and other vermin flourished in the dark dank bellies of the hulks typhus dysentery yellow fever and smallpox were common and caused more than a dozen deaths each night especially on the hms jersey many who managed to avoid or survive those diseases often succumbed to the scurvy which made their teeth fall out and caused their gums and eyes to bleed incessantly it was not uncommon to hear of prisoners who were so hungry or malnourished that they ate their own clothing sometimes they ate their own shoes rotten food and unclean water caused intestinal illnesses that resulted in tubs overflowing with human waste some survivors told of prison ships whose decks were slippery with excrement historian edwin burrows describes the mortality rate of those held aboard the british prison ships by comparing them to events better known to the general public the mortality rate among american soldiers who fought in the korean war was approximately thirty three percent the mortality rate among union soldiers in andersonville georgia was a bit higher around thirty five percent andersonville was the notorious prisoner of war camp run by the confederates during the american civil war designed to hold 10 000 prisoners andersonville recorded a prisoner population of more than 32 000 only six months into operations food and water supplies were insufficient medical care was nonexistent those who died had suffered from either disease exposure malnutrition or a deadly combination of each david swain calls andersonville a humanitarian disaster adding that incarceration in the andersonville prison camp was probably as miserable but statistically less lethal than life aboard the prison ship jersey however during the revolution when the entire american population hovered around only three million people the mortality rate among prisoners held aboard the british prison ships was nearly forty percent some historians believe it is possible that as many as 16 000 died aboard the prison ships if that is true then mortality rates among prisoners could be as high as fifty percent every person held aboard the prison ships was considered a traitor against the british since britain had yet to acknowledge america s independence anyone charged with fighting for the colonists or aiding them in any way ran the risk of being imprisoned on board a ship festering with filth and disease in wallabout bay the thousands who died aboard these floating prisons were often given another chance at freedom by promising to enlist in the royal army or navy a prisoner could buy his release with his newfound loyalty to the british most however chose not to and instead faced certain death by remaining true to the american cause those who died were buried haphazardly along the brooklyn shoreline on the banks of the wallabout prisoners looking for a means to leave the ship temporarily volunteered for burial duty dring writes the prisoners were always very anxious to be engaged in the duty of internment not so much from a feeling of humanity or from a wish of paying respect to the remains of the dead for to these feelings they had almost become strangers as from the desire of once more placing their feet upon the land if but for a few minutes british guards were present as the prisoners on burial duty dug into the ground and heaved the bodies into a trench with little time to reflect dring recalled having been the only man in his detail to have worn shoes at the internment of one mr carver he removed his shoes at one point just to feel the earth against his feet in his memoir dring also wrote that he and a small group of other prisoners petitioned general henry clinton then the commander of the british forces in new york and requested to leave the ship in order to transmit a memorial to general washington describing our deplorable situation and requesting his interference on our behalf the petition was approved the prisoners included information in written form however the individual charged with delivering the message was also instructed to verbally inform general washington of squalid living conditions and treatment being endured by the prisoners washington received the messages and shared his interest in working to mitigate their sufferings to the best of his ability unfortunately there was little washington could do directly the continental congress was repeatedly unable to improve conditions on board the prison ships especially as they were unable to offer the exchange of british prisoners being held by the patriots even george washington personally met with british officials in the hopes of keeping the situation from deteriorating but to no avail while the cruelty administered by the british encouraged colonists to continue fighting those incarcerated aboard the ships were never considered prisoners of war the treatment shown to them was more in line with the british exacting a sort of revenge against the colonists and those who aided them as traitors however it was not until after the revolutionary war had ended that congress sent american diplomats benjamin franklin thomas jefferson and john adams to negotiate such treaties with foreign powers these treaties would ensure humane treatment of pows in the event of future conflicts the men and women who died aboard the british prison ships moored in wallabout bay became known as the wallabout dead or even the jersey dead regardless of their ship of imprisonment the jersey had been known to nearly all prisoners simply as hell and represented the brutality inflicted upon those who lived and died later the wallabout dead came to be known simply as the prison ship martyrs a name still used today as remains continue to wash ashore over the following decades the idea of a memorial has been proposed numerous times by locals by influential community members and by organizations who believe the prison ship martyrs were an integral part of america s victory in the war of independence while there is no denying the role the prison ship martyrs played in the revolution there is also no denying that their story has been largely neglected in the pages of history yet another more widespread story of neglect continues to exist there is no federally recognized memorial to the prison ship martyrs the monument pictured above is maintained by the new york city parks department and is funded entirely by private donations redemption april 26 2020 dena leave a comment between 1721 and the signing of our declaration of independence smallpox inoculations saved some of the men we now call our founders that group of revolutionaries considered unmatched in their political diplomatic and ideological talents although george washington survived his brush with naturally acquired smallpox he recognized inoculation was a wartime necessity benjamin franklin s four year old son died of the disease soon after franklin decided against inoculating the young boy franklin carried this burden of guilt for the rest of his life john adams and his wife abigail chose inoculation at different times and for different reasons thomas jefferson opted for inoculation as well and experienced no lasting effects except perhaps a newfound belief in the evolution of practical medicine jefferson was a true skeptic of physicians he believed doctors killed more people than they saved in fact it s been said that whenever jefferson encountered a group of physicians he would look toward the sky in search of circling vultures jefferson was of the belief that the body could mostly heal itself as physicians treated and killed patient after patient with mercury infused milk and regular bloodletting a favorite of washington s and the very treatment he requested just before his own death jefferson opted to take one for the team and arranged to get himself a smallpox inoculation he soon became an enthusiastic supporter of inoculations even insisting his slaves be given the same preventative treatment speaking of slaves onesimus whose name means useful in latin and cotton mather had quite the slave and master relationship mather considered onesimus to be extremely likable and intelligent and onesimus felt secure enough with mather to purchase his freedom onesimus still came back to shovel mather s walkway perform various manual labors and eventually paid mather back for a bunch of stuff he d stolen back in the day even though mather once wrote that onesimus was becoming pretty lazy and useless their working relationship was one of respect and dare i say affection after onesimus introduced mather to the practice of smallpox inoculation in 1721 which had been performed in parts of west africa for generations mather was smitten both with the concept and with his former slave mather was gracious enough to give credit to onesimus when he wrote to the royal society about onesimus s groundbreaking crash course on how to prevent smallpox but does the name cotton mather sound even vaguely familiar to you it should and not because mather was partly responsible for saving thousands of lives with his support of inoculation mather was in fact also partly responsible for the deaths of quite a few others back in salem massachusetts that s right it s the same guy cotton mather ultimate kind of witch hunter but also vax pioneer mather also had issues with pirates and the evils they embodied but that s something i ll have to delve into another time mather was one of inoculation s earliest supporters decades before the revolutionary war and this may have been why his neighbors were initially against the practice considering the reputation he d only recently made for himself in his witch hunting wake a lot of people simply believed that mather just wanted to infect everyone with smallpox and kill them can you blame them mather s witch hunting story can be confusing though historical documents tell us that mather did and did not believe in spectral evidence they tell us that mather did and did not condone the use of spectral evidence in the trials the only thing i ve managed to gather from it all is that mather one of the most influential puritan ministers of his day was a big fan of speedy executions he believed that the execution of every witch in new england was a miracle from god and new england s cup runneth over with god s miracles some say mather s work with the promotion of smallpox inoculations was his redemption though it took decades for that to even cross people s minds mather like adams washington franklin and jefferson was a complicated character mather lost most of his loved ones to smallpox leaving him to often feel displaced and alone he was hated by multiple communities and got into sermon wars with other ministers he even survived a botched firebombing attempt on his house once it s no wonder this guy battled so much internal conflict it sometimes turned mather an absolute train wreck one boston newspaper called the new england courant was extremely critical of smallpox inoculations and made it a point to publish stories about attacks on those who supported the practice mather s assassination attempt made the news of course another early and staunch supporter zabdiel boylston the town doctor had been threatened with bodily harm if he even tried to leave his property these stories all made it into the hands of the newspaper s sixteen year old apprentice benjamin franklin in his autobiography franklin wrote in 1736 i lost one of my sons a fine boy of four years old by the smallpox taken in the common way i long regretted bitterly and still regret that i had not given it to him by inoculation this i mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it my example showing that the regret may be the same either way and that therefore the safer should be chosen historically even the men and women we revere the most have had to be convinced not by science but by death by personal loss and the idea that they could have done better could have done more perhaps like washington and jefferson we can give value to the lives of those who society tells us are undeserving like adams we can finally adhere to the advice of experts and implore our families to do the same like franklin we can admit our failures and work to save other people s children even if we couldn t save our own and like cotton mather we can again be presented with opportunities to redeem our former selves to colonize april 4 2020 april 4 2020 dena 4 comments when french explorers landed upon nova scotia in 1617 it is believed they brought with them the smallpox virus that nearly obliterated the indian population of what would later become known as new england in 1633 another smallpox epidemic raged this time across the boston area it infected colonists and indians alike approximately 1 000 indians became sick with smallpox and more than 950 died native peoples had virtually no natural protection against the disease leaving them more susceptible yet as unknowing hosts they gave the virus the very fuel it needed to continue spreading across the north american continent this region of new england better known as the massachusetts bay colony would endure a half dozen more outbreaks some quite significant before the end of the seventeenth century but going into the eighteenth century boston was different the city had a number of quarantine regulations in place the people who lived there were now better protected than they had ever been colonists endured as an unquestionable reality of life a barrage of infectious diseases their children and their children s children were also familiar with sickness and death smallpox and yellow fever influenza and diphtheria cholera and typhoid before it was even understood how diseases were spread quarantine measures were often imposed new york city was the first american city to enact a localized quarantine order during a cholera outbreak in 1663 boston went on lockdown in 1783 to halt the spread of yellow fever philadelphia only ten years later lost over 10 of its population to a smallpox outbreak officials only managed to slow the spread of the disease by imposing isolation orders on those who remained in the city history shows us that most of the time isolation has worked in our favor viruses such as influenza and smallpox and bacteria...