Bio: The enslaved man that helped save Bostonians during a smallpox epidemic: University of Toronto By Manisha Kabi
"In the history of inoculation, the contributions of the slave Onesimus are often neglected.
Onesimus was an African man sold into slavery to the Boston Puritan minister Cotton Mather. According to Mather’s records, Onesimus was from “Guaramantee,” which was likely an anglicized reference to Kormontse, a town in present-day Ghana.
While there are no records that indicate his birth name, we do know that Onesimus was not the name he was born with.
In a 1716 letter to the Royal Society of London, Mather wrote that when asked if he had contracted smallpox, Onesimus responded with a cryptic “yes and no.” He further went on to disclose that after experiencing smallpox, he had undergone an operation that provided him with a form of immunity. He asserted that those who dared to undergo this process would be permanently free from the fear of contagion..." MORE
Rev. Cotton Mather, also INTERRED at CoPP's Hill Burying Ground IMAGE: Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Enquiring of my Negro-man Onesimus, who is a pretty Intelligent Fellow, Whether he ever had the Small-Pox; he answered, both, Yes, and No; and then told me, that he had undergone an Operation, which had given him something of the Small-Pox, and would forever preserve him from it, adding that it was often used among the Guramantese, & whoever had the Courage to use it, was forever free from the Fear of the Contagion. He described the Operation to me, and showed me in his Arm the Scar." — Reverend Cotton Mather, in a 1716 letter to the Royal Society of London, on his introduction to inoculation from his enslaved servant, Onesimus.
An historical account of the small-pox inoculated in New England ... : With some account of the nature of the infection in the natural and inoculated way, and their different effects on human bodies / [Zabdiel Boylston]. Source: Wellcome Collection.