1841 New Orleans: The racist fever

Throughout the 19th century, New Orleans was the hub of slave trades— during this time, more women, children, and men were sold in the New Orleans slave markets than anywhere else. New Orleans was also winning the majority in another realm: the presence of the ruthless yellow fever. Yellow fever wiped out 10% of the city’s population each year, and contributed to more than 150,000 deaths; however, this epidemic did not stop there. Yellow fever additionally scapegoated immigrants and upheld white supremacy— two defining ideologies for 19th century New Orleans. Thus, the yellow fever epidemic exemplified the role of racism in assimilation in order to physically survive; in other words, in order to survive the yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans, one must adopt racial biases. 

New Orleans had to fight off the yellow fever and simultaneously keep the economy flourishing, even if that meant trifling with the facts. The immigrants and slaves were responsible for the hazardous labor, and thus the city had to lure in as many as was feasible. Accordingly, testimony to its ongoing economic vitality, New Orleans experienced an influx of predominantly Irish immigrants from 1837 to 1860. The Irish had no immunities for fighting off yellow fever, but with the Irish Potato Famine in Ireland and the simultaneous downplay of yellow fever in New Orleans, they had every incentive to immigrate. 

Excerpt regarding the health of 1837 New Orleans
                     (From the Times-Picayune, July 1837)

In 1837, The Times Picayune stated that “At present no city in the union is more healthy or more pleasant than New Orleans.”  The truth, however, was that this city had seen some of the worst outbreaks, which happened almost annually. The Times Picayune also wrote that “October will find us without having been scourged with yellow fever or any epidemic.” This was their way to lure immigrants to New Orleans in order to dig canals and levees, which kept the white inhabitants safe from the dangers of manual labor during a lethal epidemic. Additionally, the upper and middle-class occupants of New Orleans were able to flee in the summer, when yellow fever cyclically peaked. This left everyone else behind— African American slaves and Irish immigrants— who kept the economy going for the white, wealthy Orleanians. This media coverage exemplifies New Orleans’ priority over the state of its economy and its disregard for the city’s minorities, who were essentially thrown into the fire.

Yellow fever both killed and created. It produced an unofficial social structure based on who survived and had immunity, who was likely to survive and obtain immunity, and those who would die. This social structure had everything to do with race and immigration in lieu of actual health factors. For example, the job market in New Orleans was extremely competitive at this time, and therefore the Irish immigrants tried to contract the virus in order to climb the social ladder and enter the booming cotton industry. Even Dr. Edward Hall Barton, president of New Orleans’ 1841 Board of Health, proclaimed that “the value of acclimation is worth the risk!” This statement, however, was directed towards the immigrants and slaves whose lives were deemed insignificant to the elite, white class of New Orleans. In other words, the deaths of immigrants and slaves meant nothing as long as the cotton and sugar industries were prospering.

The city of New Orleans had its own standard of “whiteness” and were angry with the Irish immigrants for not conforming to their pigmentation norms, which is why they suffered the most. It was rumored that many African Americans developed immunity to the virus due to their inhabitation of the region for many generations. Thus, they spent their time doing manual labor in the outdoors— the place most susceptible for obtaining the disease. Another myth was from advocates of slavery, stating that God made them immune in order to advance the economy, and save white people from the fever. Due to poverty and identical living conditions, Irish immigrants worked alongside African Americans and were being wiped out with infection. In the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Dr. Samuel Cartwright suggested that Irish immigrants work safely indoors. By doing this, he is pushing his racist agendas onto a mass group of people [the Irish immigrants] in order to keep the mortality rate of white people the lowest, who have been deemed racially superior throughout antiquity. In other words, he was essentially telling the African American slaves to fend for themselves and continue to work to benefit the white people, including the Irish immigrants.

It is clear that Antebellum Orleanians prioritized money and social status over the health of minorities. As long as the economy was favorable, it did not matter what it took to get there— not even the deaths of those responsible for its success. Thus, the Irish immigrants felt the societal pressure to choose race over class, which they did by eventually adopting racist attitudes towards the African American slaves in order to better assimilate with the white natives of New Orleans. The Irish immigrants left the African American slaves to risk their lives in order to further the cotton industry. It’s hard to say whether the Irish immigrants knew that the African American people were not actually immune to the yellow fever, but their actions reflected a racial bias either way since they were receiving a monetary benefit at the expense of the slaves’ lives.

The 19th century in New Orleans was a time of sickness, lies, racism, and greed. In order to survive the yellow fever, one must think about what is best for the white inhabitants of New Orleans. While rumors spread regarding the immunity of African American slaves, Irish immigrants were forced to act “more white” and leave the slaves to do their work. However, that is how they survived in masses— by adopting racist ideologies, just as the native Orleanians had done. Survival of the whitest, right?