Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

==Diseases==

[[File:Bottle of 100 anti-malarial pills, London, England, 1891-194 Wellcome L0060511.jpg|thumb|These anti-malarial pills were used by travelers or people living in areas where malaria was common. This photo is a bottle of 100 anti-malarial pills from London, England in 1891.]]

Many diseases, each capable of killing a large minority or even a majority of a new human population, arrived in the Americas after 1492. They include [[smallpox]], [[malaria]], [[bubonic plague]], [[typhus]], [[influenza]], [[measles]], [[diphtheria]], [[yellow fever]], and [[whooping cough]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Epidemics and enslavement: biological catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492–1715 |first=Paul |last=Kelton |date=2007 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |isbn=978-0-8032-1557-3 |location=Lincoln |oclc=182560175}}</ref> During the Atlantic slave trade following the discovery of the New World, diseases such as these are recorded as causing mass mortality.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |title=Epidemics in the modern world |last=Krieg |first=Joann P. |date=1992 |publisher=Twayne Publishers |isbn=0-8057-8852-2 |location=New York |oclc=25710386 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/epidemicsinmoder0000krie}}</ref> Due to the many diseases in the African continent, Europeans nicknamed Sierra Leone in West Africa "white man's grave" because of the number of European deaths from diseases.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Curtin |first1=P.D. |title="The White Man's Grave:" Image and Reality, 1780-1850 |journal=Journal of British Studies |date=2017 |volume=1 |issue=1 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/abs/white-mans-grave-image-and-reality-17801850/3D5A35C18B1B4D2A4956641007FB4572 |access-date=15 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Africa and Europe 1800-1914 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/11generic1.shtml |website=BBC World service |access-date=15 August 2024}}</ref>

From 1819 to 1836, the regions of Africa that had the highest European deaths from malaria were Sierra Leone and Senegal. Out of European deaths per 1,000, 164.66 whites died from malaria in Senegal, and 483 whites died from malaria in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone had the highest number of whites dying from malaria accounting for 40 percent of deaths each year, because of this it was nicknamed "white man's grave."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Curtin |first1=Philip |title=The End of the "White Man's Grave"? Nineteenth-Century Mortality in West Africa |journal=The Journal of Interdisciplinary History |date=1990 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=63, 65, 67 |doi=10.2307/204918 |jstor=204918 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/204918 |access-date=15 August 2024}}</ref> The phrase white man's grave was coined in the 1830s. However, Europeans prior to the creation of the phrase considered Africa a dangerous environment due to tropical heat and the high death rates of people dying from diseases, which was why the phrase was created in the 19th century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alpern |first1=Stanley |title=Abson & Company Slave Traders in Eighteenth-Century West Africa |date=2019 |publisher=Hurst |isbn=9781787382336 |pages=1–3, 122 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Or-PDwAAQBAJ&q=white%20man%27s%20grave}}</ref>

Malaria thrives in warm and humid climates. In North America malaria did not spread as much because certain climatic regions were not conducive to the disease's survival. European American slaveholders preferred Africans who had immunity to malaria be trafficked to the slave ports. The price of Africans born in regions where malaria was dominate were higher. Historian Elena Esposito explains: "By looking at the historical prices of African slaves in the United States, we find evidence of a malaria premium granted by resistance to the disease. In fact, we show that on Louisiana plantations, more malaria resistant individuals - those born in regions of Africa with a higher prevalence of malaria - commanded significantly higher prices."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Esposito |first1=Elena |title=The Side Effects of Immunity: Malaria and African Slavery in the United States |journal=IRIS Aperto |date=2020 |pages=1–2 |url=https://iris.unito.it/retrieve/c2b2253b-a625-4540-81e9-7f6495d78f1d/esposito_aejapp_slavery_acceptedversion.pdf |access-date=15 August 2024}}</ref>

Evolutionary history may also have played a role in African people's resistance to diseases in the contitent, and [[Native Americans in the United States|Indigenous peoples/Native Americans]] lack of resistance to African borne diseases. Compared to Africans and Europeans, New World populations did not have a history of exposure to diseases such as malaria, and therefore, no genetic resistance had been produced as a result of adaptation through [[natural selection]].<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |title=When Disease Makes History: Epidemics and Great Historical Turning Points |last1=Diamond |first1=Jared |author1-link=Jared Diamond |last2=Panosian |first2=Claire |author2-link=Claire Panosian |publisher=[[Helsinki University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=951-570-640-8 |editor-last=Hämäläinen |editor-first=Pekka |location=Helsinki |pages=18–19, 25}}</ref>

Levels and extent of immunity varies from disease to disease. For smallpox and measles for example, those who survive are equipped with the immunity to combat the disease for the rest of their life in that they cannot contract the disease again. There are also diseases, such as malaria, which do not confer effective lasting immunity.<ref name=":5" />

===Smallpox===
Epidemics of smallpox were known for causing a significant decrease in the Indigenous population of the New World.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |title=Epidemics and history: disease, power, and imperialism |last=Watts |first=S. J. |date=1997 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=0-585-35620-3 |location=New Haven |oclc=47009810}}</ref> The effects on survivors included [[Acne scarring|pockmarks]] on the skin which left deep scars, commonly causing significant [[disfigurement]]. Some Europeans, who believed the plague of [[syphilis]] in Europe to have come from the Americas, saw smallpox as the European revenge against the Natives.<ref name=":3" /> Africans and Europeans, unlike the native population, often had lifelong immunity, because they had often been exposed to minor forms of the illness such as [[cowpox]] or [[variola minor]] disease in childhood. By the late 16th century, there existed some forms of inoculation and [[variolation]] in Africa and the Middle East. One practice features Arab traders in Africa "buying-off" the disease in which a cloth that had been previously exposed to the sickness was to be tied to another child's arm to increase immunity. Another practice involved taking pus from a smallpox scab and putting it in the cut of a healthy individual in an attempt to have a mild case of the disease in the future rather than the effects becoming fatal.<ref name=":4"/>