Onesimus was a slave for at least 11 years between 1706 thu 1717and was a medical pioneer. Few details are known about the birth of Onesimus, but it is assumed he was born in Africa,  in the late seventeenth century, although the precise date and place of his birth are unknown, before eventually landing in Boston. 

Onesimus first appears in the historical record in the diary of Cotton Mather, a prominent New England theologian and minister of Boston’s Old North Church. Reverend Mather notes in a diary entry for 13 December 1706 that members of his congregation purchased for him “a very likely Slave; a young Man who is a Negro of a promising aspect of temper” (Mather, vol. 1, 579). Mather named him Onesimus, after a biblical slave who escaped from his master, an early Christian named Philemon.

When asked if he’d ever had smallpox, Onesimus answered “Yes and No,” explaining that he had been inoculated with a small amount of smallpox, which had left him immune to the disease. Fascinated, Mather asked for details, which Onesimus provided, and showed him his scar. 

Onesimus told Mather about the centuries old tradition of inoculation practiced in Africa. By extracting the material from an infected person and scratching it into the skin of an uninfected person, you could deliberately introduce smallpox to the healthy individual making them immune.

Onesimus was one of about a thousand persons of African descent living in the Massachusetts colony in the early 1700s, one-third of them in Boston. Many were indentured servants with rights comparable to those of white servants, though an increasing number of blacks–and blacks only–were classified as chattel and bound as slaves for life.

Excited, he investigated among other Africans in Boston and realized that it was a widespread practice; indeed, a slave could be expected to fetch a higher price with a scar on his arm, indicating that he was immune. 

Mather's writings suggest that, more than most of his contemporaries, he admired Africans, but he also accepted slavery, and had raised no objections when his congregation presented him with a young slave in 1706. 

What Onesimus thought of Mather’s opinions the historical record does not say, nor do we know much about his family life other than that he was married and had a son, Onesimulus, who died in 1714. Two years his son's death, Onesimus gave the clearest indication of his attitude toward his bondage by attempting to purchase his release from Mather. To do so, he gave his master money toward the purchase of another black youth, Obadiah, to serve in his place.

Mather probably welcomed the suggestion, since he reports in his diary for 31 August 1716 that Onesimus “proves wicked, and grows useless, Froward [ungovernable] and Immorigerous [rebellious].” Around that time Mather signed a document releasing Onesimus from his service “that he may Enjoy and Employ his whole Time for his own purposes and as he pleases” (Mather, vol. 2, 363). However, the document makes clear that Onesimus’s freedom was conditional on performing chores for the Mather family when needed, including shoveling snow, piling firewood, fetching water, and carrying corn to the mill. This contingent freedom was also dependent upon his returning a sum of five pounds allegedly stolen from Mather.

Little is known of Onesimus after he purchased his freedom, but in 1721 Cotton Mather used information he had learned five years earlier from his former slave to combat a devastating smallpox epidemic that was then sweeping Boston.

Considered extremely dangerous at the time, Cotton Mather convinced Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to experiment with the procedure when a smallpox epidemic hit Boston in 1721 and over 240 people were inoculated. Opposed politically, religiously and medically in the United States and abroad, public reaction to the experiment put Mather and Boylston’s lives in danger despite records indicating that only 2% of patients requesting inoculation died compared to the 15% of people not inoculated who contracted smallpox. Boylston successfully variolate 300 patients with only six of them dying. By contrast, 1,000 of the 6,000 people who acquired smallpox naturally died during the same period.

In a 1716 letter to the Royal Society of London, Mather proposed “ye Method of Inoculation” as the best means of curing smallpox and noted that he had learned of this process from “my Negro-Man Onesimus, who is a pretty Intelligent Fellow” (Winslow, 33). Onesimus explained that he had

undergone an Operation, which had given him something of ye Small-Pox, and would forever preserve him from it, adding, That it was often used among [Africans] and whoever had ye Courage to use it, was forever free from ye Fear of the Contagion. He described ye Operation to me, and showed me in his Arm ye Scar.” (Winslow, 33)

Reports of similar practices in Turkey further persuaded Mather to mount a public inoculation campaign. Most white doctors rejected this process of deliberately infecting a person with smallpox–now called variolation–in part because of their misgivings about African medical knowledge. Public and medical opinion in Boston was strongly against both Mather and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, the only doctor in town willing to perform inoculations; one opponent even threw a grenade into Mather’s home. A survey of the nearly six thousand people who contracted smallpox between 1721 and 1723 found, however, that Onesimus, Mather, and Boylston had been right. Only 2 percent of the six hundred Bostonians inoculated against smallpox died, while 14 percent of those who caught the disease but were not inoculated succumbed to the illness. Boylston traveled to London in 1724. There he published his results and was elected to the Royal Society in 1726.

Onesimus’ traditional African practice was used to inoculate American soldiers during the Revolutionary War and introduced the concept of inoculation to the United States and variolation remained the most effective means of treating the disease until the development of vaccination by Edward Jenner in 1796.

It is unclear when or how Onesimus died, but his legacy is unambiguous. His knowledge of variolation gives the lie to one justification for enslaving Africans, namely, white Europeans’ alleged superiority in medicine, science, and technology. This bias made the smallpox epidemic of 1721 more deadly than it need have been. Bostonians and other Americans nonetheless adopted the African practice of inoculation in future smallpox outbreaks.

Further Reading

Herbert, Eugenia W. “Smallpox Inoculation in Africa.” Journal of African History 16 (1975).
Mather, Cotton. Diary (1912).
Silverman, Kenneth. The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (1984).
Winslow, Ola. A Destroying Angel: The Conquest of Smallpox in Colonial Boston (1974).

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Part of the Court.rchp.com 2017 Black History Month Series

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Compiled under fair use exemption, from material originally published by Harvard's Hutchins Center for African & African-American Research and PBS.

The Greek physician Hippocrates is known as the father of modern medicine, but a Black Egyptian, Imhotep was practicing medicine and writing on the subject 2,200 years before Hippocrates. Were Ancient Egyptians Black?

In ancient Egypt, there was a ‘Medicine God’ known as Imhotep. Imhotep was a real person that lived in service to a pharaoh during the third dynasty. Imhotep was a polymath (a genius in multiple subjects). He excelled as a mathematician, priest, a writer, a doctor, and he founded the Egyptian version of the studies of architecture and astronomy. He is credited with building the first pyramid created entirely with stone by human hands – the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, near Memphis.

Egyptians, not Greeks were true fathers of medicine

The research team from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at The University of Manchester discovered the evidence in medical papyri written in 1,500BC – 1,000 years before Hippocrates was born. Imhotep writings are generally considered the source that the Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text, which contains almost 100 anatomical terms and describes 48 injuries and their treatment. The text may have been a military field manual and dates to c. 1600 BCE, long after Imhotep's time, but is thought to be a copy of his earlier work.

Scientists examining documents dating back 3,500 years say they have found proof that the origins of modern medicine lie in ancient Egypt and not with Hippocrates and the Greeks.

"Classical scholars have always considered the ancient Greeks, particularly Hippocrates, as being the fathers of medicine but the KNH research team findings suggest that the ancient Egyptians were practicing a credible form of pharmacy and medicine much earlier," said Dr. Jackie Campbell.

"When KNH compared the ancient remedies against modern pharmaceutical protocols and standards, they found the prescriptions in the ancient documents not only compared with pharmaceutical preparations of today but that many of the remedies had therapeutic merit."

The medical documents, which were first discovered in the mid-19th century, showed that ancient Egyptian physicians treated wounds with honey, resins, and metals known to be antimicrobial.

Imhotep is also touted as being the only ascended mortal in the Pharaonic pantheon— an advisor to kings, builder of pyramids, and paragon of knowledge who rose to become the god of healing and science. For 3000 years he was worshiped as a god in Greece and Rome. Early Christians worshiped him as the "Prince of Peace."

Imhotep, in ancient Egyptian, is translated to mean “the voice (or mouth) of Im”; however, there is no record of a god in Egypt called ‘Im.’ Many are familiar with the “I AM”: EXO 3:14 

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”

Unlike the Egyptian god, Thoth who is not generous with his knowledge, Imhotep insisted that knowledge was only useful if it was applied for the good of all. His most important doctrine is that knowledge, science, and magic should be used to help humanity. Magic and the use of herbalism were the first forms of ‘medicine’ though Imhotep practiced surgery and cured people from over 200 diseases – ailments as varied as tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout, and arthritis. He practiced dentistry and could look at the hair, nails, skin, and tongue to make diagnoses.

Imhotep was practicing medicine and writing on the subject 2,200 years before Hippocrates, the so-called Father of Modern Medicine was born. Imhotep is generally considered the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text, which contains almost 100 anatomical terms and describes 48 injuries and their treatment. The text may have been a military field manual and dates to c. 1600 BCE, long after Imhotep's time, but is thought to be a copy of his earlier work.

The team also discovered prescriptions for laxatives of castor oil and colocynth and bulk laxatives of figs and bran. Other references show that colic was treated with hyoscyamus, which is still used today, and that cumin and coriander were used as intestinal carminatives.

Further evidence showed that musculoskeletal disorders were treated with rubefacients to stimulate blood flow and poultices to warm and soothe. They used celery and saffron for rheumatism, which are currently topics of pharmaceutical research, and pomegranate was used to eradicate tapeworms, a remedy that remained in clinical use until 50 years ago.

"Many of the ancient remedies we discovered survived into the 20th century and, indeed, some remain in use today, albeit that the active component is now produced synthetically," said Dr. Campbell.

"Other ingredients endure and acacia is still used in cough remedies while aloes forms a basis to soothe and heal skin conditions."

Fellow researcher Dr. Ryan Metcalfe is now developing genetic techniques to investigate the medicinal plants of ancient Egypt. He has designed his research to determine which modern species the ancient botanical samples are most related to.

"This may allow us to determine a likely point of origin for the plant while providing additional evidence for the trade routes, purposeful cultivation, trade centers or places of treatment," said Dr. Metcalfe.

"The work is inextricably linked to state-of-the-art chemical analyses used by Metcalfe's colleague Judith Seath, who specializes in the essential oils and resins used by the ancient Egyptians."

Professor Rosalie David, Director of the KNH Centre, said: "These results are very significant and show that the ancient Egyptians were practicing a credible form of pharmacy long before the Greeks.

Were Ancient Egyptians Black?

European colonialism has distorted or destroyed the history and historical accounts of Africa. In order to justify the enslavement of African people, a false narrative was promoted that Africa was a backward land, full of barbaric primitive people with no history. It would have been difficult to justify slavery if the world knew about the great empires and accomplishments of various groups of African people.

Growing up, I didn't even realize Egypt was on the continent of Africa, it was never mentioned. The ancient Egyptians always painted themselves with dark skin and they literally left images of themselves carved in stone with what are today considered black facial features.

Hollywood through propaganda has contributed to the distortion of black history, such as depicting Egyptians as white or at least anything other than black. Charleston Heston portrayed Moses and Elizebeth Taylor portrayed Cleopatra.

The only black images that were ever presented in media concerning Egypt were those of slaves. Unfortunately, even the greatness of Imhotep has been distorted and fictionalized as an evil character in the movies "The Mummy" in 1932 play by Boris Karloff and in the 1999 version played by Arnold Vosloo. A clip of Vosloo's role as Imhotep is below.

Eye Witness Accounts of Sphinx 

Count Constantin de Volney, a French nobleman, philosopher, historian, orientalist, and politician, embarked on a journey to the East in late 1782 and reached Ottoman Egypt where he spent nearly seven months. Constantin de Volney was troubled much by the institution of slavery. His expressed opinion that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans much departed from the typical European view of the late eighteenth century, but it gave many people cause for reflection.

During his visit to Egypt, he expressed amazement that the Egyptians – whose civilization was greatly admired in Europe – were not White!

"All the Egyptians," wrote de Volney, "have a bloated face, puffed-up eyes, flat nose, thick lips – in a word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key to the riddle.

On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says:

'As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair…

"When I visited the Sphinx, I could not help thinking that the figure of that monster furnished the true solution to the enigma (of how the modern Egyptians came to have their 'mulatto' appearance) "In other words, the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans. That being so, we can see how their blood, mixed for several centuries with that of the Greeks and Romans, must have lost the intensity of its original color, while retaining nonetheless the imprint of its original mold.

"Just think," de Volney declared incredulously, "that this race of Black men, today our slave and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, and even the use of speech! Just imagine, finally, that it is in the midst of people who call themselves the greatest friends of liberty and humanity that one has approved the most barbarous slavery, and questioned whether Black men have the same kind of intelligence as whites!

"In other words the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same stock as all the autochthonous peoples of Africa and from the datum one sees how their race, after some centuries of mixing with the blood of Romans and Greeks, must have lost the full blackness of its original color but retained the impress of its original mould."

Sixteen years after Count de Volney visit, another Frenchman, Dominique-Vivant Denon gave a similar description of the Sphinx.

Dominique-Vivant Denon was a diplomat and artist who Napoleon invited to join the Egyptian expedition in 1798. Denon was the first European artist to discover and draw the temples and ruins at Thebes, Esna, Edfu, and Philae. Many of us have heard the disputed tale that a cannonball fired by Napoleon’s soldiers hit the nose of the Sphinx and caused it to break off. Many believe that Napoleon shot off the nose and lips of the Sphinx because he did not like its black features. Denon made the following statement about the Sphinx in the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, 

"Though its proportions are colossal, the outline is pure and graceful; the expression of the head is mild, gracious, and tranquil; the character is African, but the mouth, and lips of which are thick, has a softness and delicacy of execution truly admirable; it seems real life and flesh." 

Racial identity based on skin color is a relatively modern concept created during the slave trade. Prior to the 16th century, people did not view themselves in the context of black verse white, so the ancient Egyptians or any other group of ancient people would not have viewed themselves from the perspective of being black or white. 

It is estimated that the average person did not travel more than 30 miles from home during their lifetime, so it's hard to imagine that the ancient Egyptian people were a mixture of European and African people. People assume that the current population is representative of what the population looked like during ancient times. The United States is a predominately white country, however, if you were to arrive on this continent 500 years ago, you wouldn't have found any white people. They came later, decimated the indigenous native population, took over their land and claimed it as their own. 

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Part of the Court.rchp.com 2017 Black History Month Series