As a health teacher at the West Philadelphia High School, a culturally mixed institution with a large African-American population, I discovered that research projects covering physical diseases involving my 9th through 12th graders brought shock and oftentimes disgust when they saw the signs and symptoms that accompanied these diseases. Some of these diseases occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the signs and symptoms were alarming to the students who were unaware of the diseases and their devastating effects on the human body. I also began to realize that most students had superficial knowledge and appear to be less sensitive to slavery and the history of black people or they felt that slavery occurred in other eras and did not affect them.

It was this revelation along with my contact with my Research Fellows from the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia that spawned the thought of exploring how communicable diseases were treated (if they were) during the 17th and 18th centuries. The topic also presented an opportunity to work across the curricula, involving language arts, history, health, mathematics, computer technology, and music teachers to develop an interdisciplinary approach to view how we could better serve our students and instill in them that each subject is not an isolated entity, but one that contributes to the full intellectual development of the student.

I discovered also that students from this culturally rich institution during social gatherings began to enlighten each other about their respective social norms and ways such as food, languages, diseases, music, and dance that produces a better understanding and a more tolerable environment that stimulate intellectual growth.

In summary, this curriculum unit will provoke intellectual curiosity and provide a time for research into untapped areas that will give students an opportunity to learn about real life situations from the past. It will also generate a more tolerant classroom discussion on ethnicity and race relations.

The literature is rich in the documentation of the horrors of slavery, but very sparse on the traditional medical care of slaves. There is evidence of the practice of herbal medicine that was applied to the care of slaves in the black population. I thought that it would be interesting to research this area to determine the economic as well as the severity of slave illness on the investments of slave masters during a severe epidemic or pandemic. It seems inconceivable to me that with the amount of money spent to purchase human merchandize that there would not be some effort to care for those who became ill so that they could return to the work force and become more productive. Apart from that, the invisible microorganism does not discriminate between the rich and the poor, and with the advent of global travel these microorganisms were transmitted from one region of the world to another. The slaves who were brought from Africa harbored within them some of these pathogenic organisms of which they had developed immunity, but as carriers could pass on disease causing germs to their captors or other people. The reverse holds true that exposure to disease causing germs from their captors could result in the slaves becoming violently sick, because they had no immunity against the invading pathogens. Therefore, if a slave was purchased, it behooved the slave owner to protect his investment by providing whatever medical treatment was available.

Historical Overview

In late November 1684, just three years after the first Quakers arrived in Philadelphia, the merchant ship the Isabella out of Bristol, England, sailed up the Delaware River and docked at the infant settlement of Philadelphia. The Isabella carried no new immigrants from England or Ireland or English woolens, metal implements or finished household goods, but 150 Africans in chains.1 According to the literature, for a half century after 1684 as Philadelphia grew to a river front town of 8000, slaves continued to arrive in the city. The market for slaves, however, was never large enough to require more than an occasional shipload, and almost always the slaves came from the West Indies or South Carolina. Philadelphians did not rely so heavily on enslaved labor as their urban counterparts in New York City, but rapid economic development in the first half of the eighteenth century created a demand for labor and generated enough capital to encourage merchants, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, ship captains, tavern keepers, and artisans to import sizeable numbers of slaves and white indentured servants. By the 1740s about 15 percent of all male laborers along the wharves and in the shops of artisans were slaves, while in the kitchen black women and children scrubbed, cooked and served. By the early 1760s, slaves represented 20 percent of the population of colonial Philadelphia.

According to the literature, for a half century after 1684 as Philadelphia grew to a river front town of 8000, slaves continued to arrive in the city. The market for slaves, however, was never large enough to require more than an occasional shipload, and almost always the slaves came from the West Indies or South Carolina.2 Philadelphians did not rely so heavily on enslaved labor as their urban counterparts in New York City, but rapid economic development in the first half of the eighteenth century created a demand for labor and generated enough capital to encourage merchants, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, ship captains, tavern keepers, and artisans to import sizeable numbers of slaves and white indentured servants. By the 1740s about 15 percent of all male laborers
along the wharves and in the shops of artisans were slaves, while in the kitchen black women and children scrubbed, cooked and served. By the early 1760s, slaves represented 20 percent of the population of colonial Philadelphia.3

From the earliest years, the slaves brought together in Philadelphia were a polyglot population. Almost all came from the kingdoms on the west coast of Africa.4

In Philadelphia no equivalent existed to the gang labor used on southern tobacco, rice, cotton, and indigo plantations. Rather, the urban slave toiled alongside a slave master who was a sail maker, baker, carpenter or tailor; sailed with seagoing master as a cabin boy or deck hand; worked for small manufacturer in a brickyard, ropewalk, shipyard, brewery, or tannery; performed domestic service in the house of a merchant or professional master; or cleaned the stables and performed common labor for a tavern keeper. Throughout the colonial era about two fifths of Philadelphia slaves worked for mariners, artisans, and proprietors of small manufactories. Hence, nearly as many slaves acquired artisan’s skills as performed domestic service.5 It is unlikely that slaves entered the city at more than a trickle after the arrival of the Isabella. This was due to a few antislavery prophets as well as to the high import duties imposed after 1712. Yet attacks on slavery in the English colonies by Quakers such as Roger Williams, Morgan Goodwin and Richard Baxter had little effect to abort the slave trade. These men gave fiery speeches against slavery, and Baxter admonished slaveholders in one of his writings that to his mind African slavers were “pirates” engaged in the “worst kinds of thievery” in the world. He criticized the colonist who purchased Negroes, using them as beasts, treating them as commodities and betraying, destroying and neglect their souls. “Incarnate devils,” he called them, worse savages than the infidels whom they enslaved.6 The painfulness of slavery was very distasteful to these early Abolitionists, but their primary focus was attending to the spiritual side of these unfortunate creatures.

The beginning of the Seven Years War in 1756 marked the onset of a decade in which slavery and slave trading reached their height in colonial Philadelphia. This can be explained by the sudden drying up of the supply of indentured German and Scotch-Irish laborers who had disembarked at Philadelphia in record numbers between 1749 and 1754.7 Historians have never made clear the reasons for this stoppage, although most have implied that the wartime disruption of transatlantic traffic put an end to the Palatine and Scotch-Irish emigration.8

The shift to black slave labor is reflected both in the shipping records and in the annual bills of mortality in Philadelphia. Importation of slaves, which according to a recent study averaged only about twenty a year in the 1740s and about thirty a year in the early 1750s, began to rise sharply. Although precise figures are not available it appears that at least one hundred slaves entered Philadelphia in1759. By 1762 which was probably the peak year of slave importations in the colony’s history, as many as 500 slaves may have arrived, many of them from Africa.9 The rapid wartime growth of the slave trade ended as fast as it had begun. By the beginning of the 1760s, with the war subsiding, the influx of the German and Scotch-Irish indentured servants recommenced and concurrently the
slave trade tapered off.10 As importations of black slaves subsided following the reopening of the white indentured servant trade, the slave population in Philadelphia entered a period of substantial decline. Between 1767 and 1773 the number of slaves between twelve and fifty years old in Philadelphia decreased from 905 to 669 and the approximate total number of slaves from 1392 to 945.11

Searching through the Archives at the Hospital of Pennsylvania at the recommendation of my professor, Dr. Walter Licht, I stumbled upon a wealth of evidence that showed evidence of medical care of black slaves in Philadelphia during the eighteenth century. Thoughtful and compassionate physicians such as Dr. Thomas Bond were instrumental in caring for the small pox victims and those afflicted with mental disorders in1751. Dr. Benjamin Rush and others were instrumental in caring for the poor and indigent blacks and whites during the yellow fever epidemics in Philadelphia in 1793 and 1798. These gentlemen attended their patients without respite and were pioneers in leading the medical community to new challenges to combat prevailing and new diseases.

Samples of entries taken from the records of the Hospital of Pennsylvania from 17541756 include: • Negro – George admitted to the Service of Dr. Shippen in the 6 month 26th day. (Entry did not indicate diagnosis or treatment, but he was discharged the 1st of the 7th month) • Plato- a Negro boy, a lunatick belonging to captain Dowers admitted a pay patient to the Service of Dr. Shippen in the 7th month, 19th day, 1755. • George Sing- a servant to James Coultas was admitted under the care of Dr. Redman on the 21st of May 1755. Diagnosis: Gunshot wound. (Treatment was not indicated) • Negro Sam was admitted as a pay patient on the 19th May 1755 under Dr. Thomas Bond, his master Thomas Coates being his security. His diagnosis: Severe Swelling of the Throat. (Treatment was not indicated)

See figure 1 and 2 in appendix for sample of ledger record.12

Pennsylvania Hospital, located at 3 Pine Street East in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the first hospital erected and was chartered by the colonial government to care for the poor and indigent. However, during the brutal outbreak of yellow fever in 1793, the hospital did not admit any patients with contagious diseases.

From the “Narrative of the proceedings of the Black People during the late awful calamity in Philadelphia in the year 1793,” Absalom Jones and Richard Allen (both preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ) gave compelling descriptions of the manner in which black people were treated during the epidemic of yellow fever. Advertisements appeared in public papers asking people of color to come forward and assist the distressed, perishing, and neglected sick with a kind of assurance that the people of color would not be infected with the disease.13 This misnomer was based upon the observation that the black people contracted the disease less frequently than whites and experienced much milder cases with fewer fatalities than their white-skin neighbors.14 Absalom Jones
and Richard Allen stated in the same article that “we found freedom to go forth, confiding in him who can preserve in the midst of a burning fiery furnace; sensible that it was our duty to do all the good we could to our suffering fellow mortals.” This group of benevolent people were both lauded for their humanitarian efforts in burying the dead and providing for the sick and denounced as charlatans charging too much for their services and stealing properties and articles belonging to the deceased (to the contrary, they were operating at a loss and at the same time being exposed to the malignant fever that subsequently caused a number of their deaths).15

Yellow fever was the largest epidemic in Philadelphia in the year 1793 in which 4000 died and approximately 20,000 citizens fled the state, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other members of the Federal and local governments. The Federal government was located in Philadelphia at this time.16

Plant medicines, whether in the form of foods, teas, or poultices, formed the core of rural American household health care. Though no official documentation of the administration of herbal medicine in the care of the slaves in Philadelphia were found, it is believed that slaves brought with them to Philadelphia as they did elsewhere a host of herbal recipes that are now part of the American heritage. It is a documented fact as healers and sufferers enslaved African- Americans significantly influenced the herbal repertoire of southern white households.17 The Atlantic slave trade also fostered an exchange of Old World and New World plants. Some West African captives may have worn strings of red and black wild licorice seeds and thus brought the licorice plant to the Caribbean. The roots of the licorice plant served as a common medicine aboard slaving vessels, and the West Indian descendants in the Caribbean continued to use wild licorice medicinally for coughs and fevers.18

Historian Shala M. Fett has documented that certain African grasses crossed the Atlantic with slavers who discarded on American shores the straw used to line the putrid holds of slave ships. In addition, benne (sesame) yams, okra, and black-eyed peas originated in Africa and were later grown by enslaved Africans for food. Some of these cultivated foods served medicinal purposes in the New World as well. Africans in the Americas employed okra leaves as poultice, Jamaican senna pods as a laxative, Surinam poison as a cure for chronic sores, and kola seeds for belly pains.19 By the eighteenth century the herbal medicines of enslaved Africans included not only native African plants but also indigenous American plants, such as Jerusalem oak and capsicum (red pepper), which had circulated in the Atlantic world for over a century.20

Native American knowledge of medicinal plants may also have influenced African herbal medicine, though the exact historical processes of this exchange are difficult to identify.21 Africans and Native Americans enslaved alongside one another under the harsh conditions of early English and French colonization would have ample time to blend their botanical traditions. Native American towns that offered refuge for fugitive slaves and fostered intermarriage between Africans and Indians also provided context for exchange of herbal knowledge.

Enslaved black practitioners also carefully guarded their herbal recipes, occasionally exchanging a cure for precious freedom. Significantly, this avenue to manumission was offered only to enslaved men. In 1729 Virginia authorities freed one aging herbal practitioner by the name of Papan in return for a venereal disease remedy that he had kept as a most profound secret until that time. The Virginia burgesses judged the exchange a good bargain. They hoped that Papan’s recipe of roots and barks would save the lives of a great number of Slaves afflicted with yaws and other venereal diseases.

Botanical science motivated some elite whites to investigate what they termed Negro remedies. A South Carolina surgeon and botanist, Francis Peyre Porcher, often alluded to herbal medicines used by enslaved men and women in his publication. Reflecting the common prejudice of white physicians who viewed their own systems of training as superior, Porcher saw his research as elevating to a scientific level the plant lore of charlatans and herb doctors who know only by memory the name of the plant and the disease which it is said to suit.22 Nonetheless, this member of a wealthy plantation family displayed a keen interest in the herbal medicines of enslaved practitioners.

Enslaved African Americans put their extensive botanical knowledge to every imaginable use. Whether for clothing, games, visual arts, food or medicines, they found in local plants the answer to a broad spectrum of human needs. Children fashioned stick games out of twigs and whistles out of cane.23 Young women perfumed their bodies with honeysuckle and rose petals hidden in their bosoms. When courting, they adorned themselves with strings of dried chinaberries painted with dye. Men and women used the strong skin (bark) of fresh mulberry saplings for belts and tying up loose clothing while they worked.24

Students will have opportunities to investigate health practices from the past as they pertain to slavery and health care of Blacks in Philadelphia. The main objectives are:

• To determine how slaves were cared for medically during the epidemics and pandemics of the 17th and 18th centuries in Philadelphia
• To share in the use of oral traditions such as folklore, music and dance during the 17th and 18th centuries
• To gain appreciation of folk medicine practices
• To gain a better understanding of slavery through role-playing
•  To appreciate the vast number of inventions such as vaccine, the microscope and other medicines in the treatment of disease
• To engage in the writing process
• To understand the English Alphabet of 1774, as the alphabetic principles make literacy easier, allowing readers to pronounce words from their spelling and writers to spell words from their sounds.
• To understand from the lyrics of music the message of the soul that tells the suppressed anxieties of history and human perplexities
• To study the inhumanity of slavery by creating digital imagery

Standards

This unit will help high school students fill the Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Health, Safety and Physical Education. They are listed in the appendix and are available online.25

To implement this unit, various formats will be used to accommodate different learning styles. All other teachers who work with these students will be included within the overall lesson plans. Some teachers maybe involved with just one lesson, while others will incorporate a few lessons related to examining the extent of African influence in health with regards to diet and nutrition or the death rate of slaves during the epidemic of the yellow fever or small pox and also the efficacy of herbal medicine in maintaining homeostasis. The history/social studies teachers will examine the impact of re-settlement in a foreign environment and the survival techniques implemented such as Negro spiritual and their faith in God to sustain them through horrific ordeals. The language arts and music teachers will focus on researching narratives, folklore, and lyrics that relates to the slaves homeland and how this sustained the slaves despite the hardship that they had to endure. The teachers of mathematics and computer technology will focus on the economic competencies and the statistical element as it applies to financial loss during non-treatment of an illness versus adequate care of an illness.

The lessons in this unit will enable students to become sensitized to the richness of black heritage, and show how the contributions of African-American played a vast role in building the foundations of the United States of America. The pacing of the lessons will run for duration of three weeks with five periods per day in health classes and four periods per week in other classes. Each period will last for fifty minutes.

The recommended reading in addition to the Health Text Books that will be incorporated in this unit: Gary B. Nash, Slaves and Slave Owners in Colonial Philadelphia; Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, The Narrative of the proceedings of the Black People during the late awful calamity in Philadelphia in the year 1793; Thomas E Drake, Quakers & Slavery in America; Gary B Nash, Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community; and Shala M Fett, Working Cures: The Sacred Plants.

My health class will start off this unit by reading for the first ten minutes on alternate days one of these text books as a pre-class warm up followed by questions and answer for an additional five minutes before the health lesson, as well as specific chapter assignments for homework

The classroom activities will be structured around the designed lesson plans for Grades 912.

Lesson Plan One: Slaves and Traditional Medicine in Philadelphia

Time Frame: Five days

Objectives

• That students will recognize the value of research and how to identify trends in medicine
• That students will understand the benevolence of slave masters in the treatment of their chattels not only from a financial point of view, but also one of human compassion

Procedures:

• Teacher led discussions, video presentation and overhead projection of the harshness of slavery and the health management as a universal treatment to all humankind
• Field trip to the Archives of the Hospital of Pennsylvania (at least two) and to the College of Physician in Philadelphia (at least once) to validate records and to allow students to research ledgers to see admission dates and methods of treatment for admitted patients
• Allow students to research data on how the hospital treated contagious diseases and what were the motives for not admitting them

Activities:

Students will be able to:

• Work in groups of four with a designated recorder, a reporter, a cameraperson and a liaison between the group and the teacher
• Do daily journal writing or Pre-class work involving assigned reading and reporting followed by a brief question and answer period
• Do web research on slaves and traditional medicine in Philadelphia in the 18th century and share their findings with the class
• Use Power point in their presentations
• Role-play scenes from reading assignments depicting the function of slaves, slave owners, medical doctors, and herbal practitioners

Lesson Plan Two: The English Alphabet of 1754

Objectives:

• That students decipher the long S sounds found in books and articles during the 18th century
• That students determine how information was communicated and the manner in which inventions and discoveries were documented

Time Frame: 1 Day

As mentioned earlier, The Alphabetic Principle makes literacy easy, allowing readers to pronounce words from their spelling. However, during my research on the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, and reading the article, “The Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia” by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, I initially thought the article was nonsensical until I was informed of the long S which was shaped like the letter f except the cross of the f was made to the left of the letter. Recognizing the importance of this insight prompted this lesson plan for my students.

Procedures:

• Teacher led discussion and demonstration of the long S on the over head projector, and video presentation
• Sample writing utilizing the long S in narrative or persuasive format
• Determine when the long S became obsolete from the literature
• Use PowerPoint in an oral presentation
• Activities: Students will be able to:
• Practice reading several articles that include the long S sound
• Visit either the Library Company of Philadelphia or the College of Physician in Philadelphia to research historical documents to authenticate the manner of writing during the 18th Century
• Determine how information was communicated and the manner in which inventions and discoveries were documented
• Determine whether the long S was preserved in musical writings

Lesson Plan Three: The Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793

Objectives:

• That students identify and assess the catastrophic effect of an epidemic or pandemic on a population
• That students will know how to identify trends by researching signs and symptoms of yellow fever and also the causative agent and mode of infection
• That students can visualize documents from the 18th century that authenticate evidence of medical care of the black slaves

Time Frame: 3 Days

Procedure

• Teacher led discussion, video presentation and overhead projection of the etiology and signs and symptoms of yellow fever and small pox in the population.
• Role play scenes from the article, “A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People,” showing how the elite were able to flee the scene at the height of the epidemic and how Black people were able to give of themselves sacrificially to aide those that were ill and bury the dead.
• Use a PowerPoint for oral presentation
• Tour and lecture by Archivist with regards to the care and handling of delicate historical documents.
• Compare and contrast how benevolent masters paid the medical costs of the very poor and indigent in 1754 – 1793 as compared to the governmental welfare system today.

Activities:

Students will be able to:

• Work in groups of four with a designated recorder, a reporter, a camera person and a liaison between the group and the teacher
• Do daily journal writing or pre-class work involving assigned reading
• Calculate profits ($) from a well-slave population versus one devastated by the malignant fever by determining the cost price of a slave, the earning power of a healthy slave, and the errands that a healthy would perform in comparison to a sick slave
• Determine what make some people give of themselves sacrificially
• Develop research on Dr. Benjamin Rush and Dr. Thomas Bond with regards to leeding technique in the yellow fever and the small pox vaccine respectively
• Research the number of “lunaticks” (mental disease cases) that were admitted to the hospital between 1754 and 1793 when the yellow fever epidemic was at its peak

Lesson Plan Four: Slaves & Herbal Medicine

Objectives:

• That students will realize the legacy of the slave population and their contributions to the healing arts as well as to diet and nutrition in the Americas
• That students will determine whether evidence exists as to the partnership in sharing botanical secrets between the Native Americans and enslaved Africans

Time Frame: 3 Days

Procedures:

• Teacher led discussion, video presentation and over head presentation of samples of herbal plants, such as the aloe vera (which is involved in skin care and anti-inflammatory care of dermatitis), and the herbal tea chamomile (which can be use as a mild sedative to induce sleep)
• Role-play scenes as a herbal practitioner giving advice and treatment to both the sick black population and their white slave owners
• Use PowerPoint in oral presentation

Activities:

Students will be able to:

• Work in groups of four with a designated recorder, a reporter, a cameraperson and a liaison between the group and the teacher
• Do daily journal or pre-class writing involving reading assignments.
• Do web research on the efficacy of herbal medicine in the care of wound healing and as an adjunct to general medicine in caring for the general organ systems.
• Use as an adjunct in weight management to monitor eating disorders such as obesity, anorexia nervosa and bulimia
• Use as an alternate to general medicine for skin care and as a sedative to induce sleep without the side effects of prescription medicine.
• Use experimentally as a purgative such as the senna pods to relieve constipation and to regulate bowel movements with the consent of parents or medical doctor.
• Use as a lubricant for the skin and hair care.
• Use as a healing balm for colds and high fevers.

Andrew, Charles M. The Colonial Period of American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). This book deals with the Colonial period and the founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams and his views against Puritan orthodoxy.

Aptheker, Herbert. A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States (New York: Citadel Press, 1994), Vol. 1, pp. 169- 173. This section gives a detailed account of African Americans in the United States of America.

Aptheker, Herbert. “The Quakers and Negro Slavery,” Journal of Negro History, 25 (July, 1940). This article deals with the ensnarement of pacifist Quakers in the institution of slavery.

Blassingame, John. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977). This book gives insightful and detailed testimonies on the treatment of slaves by their masters and mistresses.

Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Law, 1850-1860 (New York: Norton and Company, 1970). This book details how runaway slaves were hunted down by the slave catchers, with dogs, and when captured, were beaten and often left with scars and mangled bodies.

Crellin, John. Herbal Medicine Past and Present (North Carolina: Duke University Press: 1997). This book deals with the general use of herbal medicine in treating all types of ailments.

Curtin, Philip. “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade,” Political Science Quarterly (October, 1997): pp. 15-45. This article offers statistical data on disease and the transportation of slaves.

Drake, Thomas E. Quakers and Slavery in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950). This book showed that not all Quakers were disciplined about the holy experiment in which all people should worship according to the dictates of their hearts.

Fett, Shala, M. Working Cures-The Sacred Plants (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2002): pp. 60-83. The author relates the efficacy of herbal medicine in both the black and white populations.

Galt, John M. “Asylums for Colored Persons,” American Psychological Journal, 1 (1853): pp 82-83. This article showed how some people were compassionate about the general welfare of the mentally disturbed individual and provided the needed medical care rather than lock them away in some closet.

Geiser, Karl F., Redemptioners and Indentured Servants (Cambridge: Elliots Books, 1901). This book discusses white laborers who came to the American colonies as indentured servants.

Jones, Absalom and Richard Allen. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Awful Calamity in Philadelphia in the year 1793, accessible at <http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/allen.html>. This is a primary source document that discusses the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 the call for African Americans to come forward to assist the white people who were infected with the deadly virus, as black people were presumed to be immune to the deadly disease. Meanders, Daniel. “Kidnapping Blacks in Philadelphia: Isaac Hoppers Tales of Oppression,” Journal of Negro History, 80 (Spring, 1995): pp. 47-65. This article focuses on the horrific treatment of slaves as related by eye-witness accounts of episodes that occurred during the First and Second Continental Congresses in which the Congresses failed to protect the wayward fugitive or the unlawful seizure of blacks.

Nash, Gary B. “Slaves and Slave Owners in Colonial Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 2 (April, 1973): 223-256. This is an investigative article that showed that despite the absence of data, other kinds of evidence were available to indicate that slaveholding in Philadelphia was far more extensive than had been assumed.

Nash, Gary B. Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community 1720-1840 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1991). This book deals with the arrival of the ship Isabella that brought the first 150 Africans
in chains to Philadelphia, and how quickly the pacifist Quaker settlers purchased the newly arrived laborers whom they set to work clearing trees and erecting crude houses in the budding city.

Smith, C. Henry, The Mennonite Immigration to Pennsylvania in the Eighteenth Century, (Pennsylvania: Norristown Press, 1929) and Pennsylvania-German Society: Pubs, XXXV.

Taylor, Richard, “Epidemiology” in George Strode, ed. Yellow Fever (New York: 1951).

Turner, Edward R. “The Negro in Pennsylvania: Slavery- Servitude-Freedom, 1639 1861,” Pennsylvania Magazine 92 (1969). This article provides a complete account of the legal, social and economic history of Pennsylvania African Americans from their enslavement to emancipation.

Voeks, Robert, Sacred Leaves of Condomble (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997).

Wax, Darold D. “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720-1766,” Pennsylvania History 32 (1965), pp. 254-287. This article provides figures on the growth of the slave population in colonial Philadelphia.

Wax, Darold D. “A Philadelphia Surgeon on a Slaving Voyage to Africa, 1749-1751,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 4 (1968): 465-493. This article relates the journey of William Chancellor of Philadelphia who sailed as the ship’s surgeon aboard the sloop Wolf bound from New York on a slave ship to the coast of West Africa. His account was recorded daily in a diary.

Resources:

Stacy Peeples Archivist at Pennsylvania Hospital: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania peeples @ pa hosp.com.

Videos

The Miracle of Life Skeleton Slavery and the Making of America Slave Memories

Student Bibliography

Nash, Gary B. “Slaves and Slave Owners in Colonial Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 2 (April, 1973): 223-256.

Fett, Shala, M. Working Cures-The Sacred Plants (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2002): 60-83.

Jones, Absalom and Richard Allen. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Awful Calamity in Philadelphia in the year 1793, accessible at <http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/allen.html>.

Wax, Darold D. “Negro Imports into Pennsylvania, 1720-1766,” Pennsylvania History 32 (1965), pp. 254-287.

Web Sites for Students:

www.healthwell.com www.cancer.org www.ecb.org/surf/blackhis.htm http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm?loc=en_gb&term=slaver

Standards Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Health, Safety and Physical Education describe what students should know and be able to do by the end of the ninth and twelfth grade. The standards reflect the increasing complexity and rigor that students are expected to achieve:

• 10.1 Concepts of Health (A-E)

• 10.3 Safety and Injury Prevention (A)

• 10.2 Healthful Living (A-E) • 10.4. Physical Activity (A, F)

• 10.5 Concepts, Principals and Strategies of Movement (A, E)

Records: Records from the Managers Account at the Hospital of Pennsylvania in 1793

Figures 1 and 2