Description

Antebellum New Orleans sat at the heart of Americas slave and cotton kingdoms It was also where yellow fever epidemics killed as many as 150000 people during the nineteenth century With little understanding of mosquitoborne viruses a persons only protection against the scourge was to get acclimated by surviving the disease About half of those who contracted yellow fever died

Repeated epidemics bolstered New Orleanss strict racial hierarchy by introducing another hierarchy what Kathryn Olivarius terms immunocapital As this original analysis shows white survivors could leverage their immunity as evidence that they had paid their biological dues and could then pursue economic and political advancement For enslaved Blacks the story was different Immunity protected them from yellow fever but as embodied capital they saw the social and monetary value of their acclimation accrue to their white owners Whereas immunity conferred opportunity and privilege on whites it relegated enslaved people to the most grueling labor

The question of good health is always in part political Necropolis shows how powerful nineteenthcentury white Orleanians pushed this politics to the extreme They constructed a society that capitalized mortal risk and equated perceived immunity with creditworthiness and reliability