The African Slave Who Introduced Inoculation to America and other African Feats

In my last two posts, I did a deep dive into two areas of African scientific achievement, namely Fractal Geometry and Cosmogony. In this post I am going to briefly touch on a variety of areas. There are records of African breakthroughs in Astronomy, Mathematics, Metallurgy, Medicine, and Political Systems (There are other areas of course but this is my focus for now). For instance, there is the Dogon tribe of Mali. They are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali. They are known to possess extremely sophisticated knowledge of the field of Astronomy. So sophisticated that some western skeptics claim that they could have only come to possess this knowledge from contact with people of European descent [1]. While contact with westerners as the source of their knowledge cannot be categorically ruled out, these skeptics seem to forget that Dogon is in Mali and that during the time of the Mali Empire, the city of Timbuktu was a centre of great learning in many fields such as literature, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, Islamic jurisprudence and…astronomy. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to assume contact with Timbuktu as the source of the Dogon’s knowledge, with the knowledge passed down from one Dogon generation to another? They also seem to forget that Africans would have had the same incentive to acquire astronomical knowledge just like every other group that made the transition from the hunter-gatherer way of life to the agricultural way of life because astronomy helped to understand the seasons, which was important in helping to know when planting crops. Given that the bulk of Africa made this transition thousands of years ago like other parts of the world, there seems to me that there was enough time for some groups of Africans to have developed a fruitful astronomical system.

We also made some notable achievements in mathematics. For starters there is the case of the Ishango bones. These are carved bones located in Ishango, modern Democratic Republic Congo that are reputed to be over 9,000 years old [2]. Some archaeologists even give an age as high as 20,000 years. Irrespective of which figure is correct, it is the oldest mathematical artifact [3]. Markings on the bones suggest that it was the basis of a lunar calendar system [4]. The Yorubas of Nigeria also have a few mathematical achievements under their belts. They at some point in their history devised a numeral system, which is considered by mathematicians to be pretty intricate. It is a vigesimal system, that is, unlike the Hindu-Arabic system that is used the world over, which is a base 10 system, the Yoruba one is a base 20 system. It seems the system was inspired by the need to count cowries [5].

Mathematical innovations on the African continent weren’t all serious. Some were strictly for fun. There is a family of African strategy games known as Mancala. Mancala comes from the Arab word for “move” and refers to moving little pawns from one hole to another [6]. Mancala goes by different names in different parts of Africa. In Tanzania it is called “Bao”, In Uganda, “Omweso”, In Nigeria, “Ayo”, in Rwanda and other parts of East Africa “(Igi-)soro” [7]. R.C. Bell, a specialist in board games, classified Mancala in the top 10 of the world’s games. Nokia preprogrammed the related “Bantumi” game on its very popular cellphone model 3310.

Metallurgy is another field where Africa has made its mark. Here the achievements are pretty remarkable. Anthropological studies have revealed that as far back as 2,000 years ago, Africans were able to produce carbon steel in Tanzania. They did this using methods that were up until the 19th century technologically superior to the steel producing methods of Europe [8].

Medicine is yet another field. The surgical removal of cataracts was a routine procedure in the Malian city of Djenne during the time of the Mali empire (Between the 13th and 17th century). At this time too, scholars in Timbuktu were aware of the dangers of tobacco smoking [9]. This is significant. In America, smoking wasn’t linked to lung cancer and other diseases until the late 1940s or early 1950s. I am not saying that scholars in Timbuktu were able to link tobacco smoking to lung cancer but at least they were aware that it was a health problem, a fact that was largely unknown in 1920s America.

It is generally accepted that methods for inoculating people against smallpox existed in Africa, China, Turkey and Iran long before such practices found their way to Europe [10]. Smallpox inoculation was actually introduced to America by a West African slave who was bought and given to a Boston-based, church minister named Cotton Mather in 1706, who named him Onesimus. In 1716, possibly from witnessing several smallpox out-breaks, Onesimus informed Mather that he knew a treatment for smallpox. Onesimus explained to Mather that all one had to do was take a little pus from an infected person and rub it into an open wound and one would be protected. Mather did his research and confirmed that indeed, this was a successful practice in other parts of the world like China and Turkey [11]. Mather began to spread the word but he was met with resistance…sometimes, violent resistance. In 1721, there was a particular fierce outbreak of smallpox. A doctor named Zabdiel Bolyston decided to try out what Mather had been preaching. In all, he inoculated 242 people including his son. The death rate in the inoculated group was 1 in 40, in the general population, it was 1 in 7 [12]. It would not be till 1796 that Edward Jenner would develop an effective vaccine using cowpox to provoke smallpox immunity. Tragic now that we are the ones on the receiving end as the Covid pandemic abundantly made clear. In a 2016 Boston Magazine survey, Onesimus was declared one of the “Best Bostonians of All Time” [13]. Not bad for an African slave.

Another impressive medical feat was the routine performance of caesarian sections by the Bunyoro of Uganda in the late 19th century. Caesarian sections were relatively rare in Europe at the time [14].

There was political innovation as well. The Oyo Kingdom, in what would today be south-west Nigeria had an elaborate system of check and balances that is rather similar to Montesquieu’s concept of separation of powers. Montesquieu was a French lawyer who lived in the 18th century and was one of the most influential figures in the intellectual movement known as the “The Enlightenment”. I briefly describe the Enlightenment in a previous post. He is widely and rightly regarded as one of the most important political philosophers of all time and his ideas form a crucial part of the intellectual foundation of the modern world. He made his name for articulating the concept of separation of powers in government, which is implemented in many constitutions around the world. His classic book, The Spirit of the Laws, served as the basis on which American founding father and former U.S President James Madison drafted the U.S constitution.

The Alaafin of Oyo, who was basically the executive, had a council of nobles that had judicial powers [15]. The Alaafin’s rule was checked by this council because he had to submit his decisions to it, which is somewhat reminiscent of the relationship between the executive and legislative arms of government in a democracy. It doesn’t stop there, the council itself was also checked by notables of various great families [16] and this system of checks and balances was replicated throughout the kingdom on a smaller scale (You could call it fractal government. If you know, you know). The system enabled the Oyo Kingdom to dominate trade along the river Niger but fell short of uniting all of Yoruba land under one central authority [17]. The Oyo Kingdom reached its peak in 1650, Montesquieu would not be born for another 39 years after that.

In 1725 AD, Fulani settlers in Futa Jallon, which today is in modern Guinea formed a theocratic state whose head was known as the Almamy. They drew up a constitution based on the Quran, which recognized the equality of all Muslims in law and duty [18]. There was also a grand council, which was the Almamy’s principal advisory body, which had the power to relieve an Almamy of his duties if he was mentally or physically incapable of carrying out his job or if he failed to rule in accordance with the Quran or the constitution [19]. I think it is easy to see that this is essentially an Islamic version of the rule of law.

While Ancient Greece is recognized as the birthplace of direct democracy, the Igbos of Eastern Nigeria are known to have developed a tradition of direct democracy of their own. Theirs was characterized by the existence of the council of elders and the village assembly [20]. The council of elders consisted of the heads of family units but any adult male could participate. At the village assembly, the elders presented issues to the people. Everybody had the right to speak and decisions had to be unanimous. This unfortunately caused decision-making to be time consuming but ensured greater individual participation [21].

In my opinion, that peoples from different parts of the world came up with such similar ideas isn’t too surprising. Each and every group on earth is tasked with achieving the same goal…survival. From a similarity of ends, a similarity of means is probably bound to happen from time to time.

Most of the intellectual achievements I have discussed up to this point were home grown. In my next post, I will discuss the African achievements that came about as a result of Arab influence.

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References:

1. Dogon People Article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_people#Astronomical_beliefs

2. Sertima, Ivan et al. 1998 Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers

3. Huylebrouck, Dirk. 2019 Africa and Mathematics: From Colonial Findings Back To The Ishango Rods Switzerland Springer Nature

4. Sertima, Ivan et al. 1998 Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers

5. Ibid

6. Huylebrouck, Dirk. 2019 Africa and Mathematics: From Colonial Findings Back To The Ishango Rods Switzerland Springer Nature

7. Ibid

8. Sertima, Ivan et al. 1998 Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers

9. History of Science and Technology in Africa Article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa

10. Inoculation Article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation

11. Blakemore, Erin. Updated Apr 2021 ‘How an Enslaved African Man in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox’ history.com: https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-onesimus-slave-cotton-mather

12. Ibid

13. Wikipedia Article on Onesimus, the African that Introduced Smallpox Inoculation to Colonial Boston, America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onesimus_(Bostonian)

14. Sertima, Ivan et al. 1998 Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers

15. Harris, Joseph E. 1987 Africans and their History Revised Edition. New York: Mentor

16. Ibid

17. Ibid

18. Ibid

19. Ibid

20. Ibid

21. Ibid