from it: adding, That it was often used among the Guramantese”—[that is,
the Coromantee, the Akan or Twi of the Gold Coast]. Smallpox was then
killing about one in four Englishmen and even more Indians.
Lady Mary Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador to Con-
stantinople, had been severely scarred by smallpox, and she noted how the
Turks prevented the worst of its ravages. In England, she arranged to have
inoculation tested on six condemned prisoners and on children in an
orphanage. Then, in absolute terror, the princess of Wales tried it, with suc-
cess. With her endorsement, it was widely adopted. Mather had received
word of the experiment from members of the Royal Society and wrote to
tell them that he already knew about it from his slave. There was much
resistance to accepting a foreign technique, especially from a Turk or an
African slave, but the situation was desperate both in London and in
Boston. During the outbreak of 1752, one in three Bostonians contracted
smallpox and 514 died. Inoculation was then grudgingly accepted, but
those who could took to their heels when epidemics broke out. No one
wanted the refugees, though: when apprehended, neighboring colonies
treated them as “wicked and indiscreet persons,” fined them heavily, and
sent them home.
Not just the sick, but rich and poor, native and foreign, men and
women, were sharply divided. Despite what we would like to believe, those
who had so recently suffered from intolerance in Europe demonstrated in
America little tolerance for anyone else. Although sex was not so suppres-
sive as race or religion, it still restricted women’s lives. Women had few
property rights; divorce required an act of the legislature; and there were
practically no independent job opportunities for women except prostitu-
tion. Married women had much to do: cooking; cleaning; repairing or mak-
ing clothes; planting, weeding, and harvesting vegetables; and above all,
producing and taking care of swarms of children. The Reverend Charles
Woodmason remarked, “There’s not a Cabbin but has 10 or 12 Young
Children in it.” Even well-to-do women produced nearly a child a year.
Except for the recent immigrants and black slaves, Americans tended
to be better-educated than Europeans of comparable means. The standard
of education was not high, but even unskilled coastal laborers often could
read and write understandably; almost none of their English counterparts
152 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA