Meadow Magee:

Slaves had a hard time surviving for many reasons. One main reason is that the conditions they were working in weren’t very healthy. Many were working out on the fields. The sun would be up and beaming heat down on you. This would be a problem because the slaves could get heat stroke which meant that your brain was slowly being cooked. This would result in light-headedness and vomiting. Now if you’re a slave you wouldn’t want to be dizzy and trying to work while your master comes up. They also had a lot of hard labor. Depending on the work, this could injure your muscles and mean you had to stop working, which wasn’t allowed. If you worked in the house then you could caught an illness from cleaning out the chamber pots. On top of that there were bugs and diseases getting passed around. Without proper treatment they could kill you. In 1840, there was a huge Cholera epidemic. Cholera is a disease caused by unclean water. You start vomiting and having diarrhea. All of Hill Carter’s slaves  a  were affected. Hill Carter inherited the Shirley Plantation at a young age and he owned many slaves. He was a very rich man. His father, Robert Carter, did not approve of the whole slavery thing, but he died before he could make a change. Hill Carter, now the new owner of all of his father’s slaves, did not release them, but he did try to have a more humane approach. He was one of the rare slave owners that highered doctors during this epidemic. Taking care of these slaves was very important because if they were sick or dead it would be working time, and money lost. The owners only needed them to stay healthy enough to work. If a slave was badly injured they would do different work that was easier so that they could heal quicker. If one of them broke their arm out in the field then they might do work in the house so that they would still work. Either another slave or the mistress would help treat the sick or injured slave. The mistress believed that it was her duty as a christian to help slaves. If the mistress couldn’t help any more, they would call a doctor to come over to their house. American slavery was the worst form of slavery because they were greedy and had so much racial hatred. The slaves hated it so much that they would fake or prolong an illness so that they could stay in hospital as long as possible or continuing working in their easier job. If they really hated it, which most of them did, they would try to poison their owners. “Domestic female slaves were sometimes able to poison their slave owners. The drum was used to transmit messages to other enslaved people on other plantations.” They would come up with this whole plan and communicate with other slaves to try to kill their owner. That’s how bad it was. People would risk their lives to escape slavery. They would even kill their babies so that they didn’t have to grow up into slavery. So many slaves died and it didn’t just affect the higher class because even the lower classes would have slaves. Sadly everyone had slaves and it was horrible and some people didn’t agree with it, but most did. They just didn’t see what was wrong about it. It was a horrendous thing that should have never happen.

Olivia Bagan:

Although the Europeans, the Native Americans, and the Africans all had their differences, they all came together for one cause: to help the people in their town or village stay healthy. They all shared a common interest in their separate communities by using herbal remedies exchanged between each other. Without the religious aspects of Native American medicine, the scientific aspects of European medicine, and the traditional aspects of African medicine, we wouldn’t have the remedies we have today. Without the first medical exams in Connecticut, we wouldn’t have the same quality of care that we have today. Without women bringing new ideas to their local apothecaries and colleagues, we might not have had all the medical advances we have today. If none of these events happened, we wouldn’t be able to reach into our medicine cabinet and take a dose of Tylenol to reduce our fevers or have treatments for HIV and  some cancers. Because of the trials and the errors documented in colonial medical books, we have the advanced medication that was never even thought of in the Colonial Era. If there were never any attempts at curing illnesses, would a common cold still be deadly?