7 - Morbidity and mortality

Summary

All the numerous chronic diseases which arise from a scanty or an excess of vegetable diet, are common among the slaves in the West Indies. This evil, I have been well informed, cannot be remedied while slavery remains on its present footing; for very accurate calculations have made it evident, that the whole profit of a sugar estate, as it is now conducted, is saved from the necessary food and cloathing of the slaves.

Benjamin Rush, M.D., 1788

It is our task in this chapter to show how the patterns of morbidity and mortality were related to age, sex, occupation, and mode of life, as well as to the physical environment. We analyze the relationships between malnutrition and disease and how contemporary and modern authors have contributed to our understanding of these interrelationships. Separate sections are devoted to the diseases and disease patterns of infants, children, and adult slaves.

“Disorders peculiar to the Negroes”

Slave morbidity and mortality were the most vital and sensitive issues that confronted the West Indian planter class. Bryan Edwards admitted that the “grand and most plausible” accusation against the general conduct of the planters arose “from the necessity they find themselves under of having an annual recruit of slaves from Africa, to fill up the numbers that perish in the West Indies.”