In Contagion's Wake: Black Writers and the Development of Modern Outbreak Narratives

An examination of early American literature that highlights how racial divides exacerbated-and were exacerbated by-the spread of infection

In April of 1721, the HMS Seahorse arrived in Boston from the West Indies, causing a smallpox epidemic that would plague the city for the next year. Of its 12,000 inhabitants, nearly fifty percent were infected, and 900 people died. Like the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020, the outbreak also brought to the surface deep divides in the social fabr...