History of Smallpox - African Epidemics

African Epidemics

One of the earliest records of what may have been an encounter with smallpox in Africa is associated with the elephant war in 568 AD when after fighting a siege in Mecca, Ethiopian troops contracted the disease which they carried with them back to Africa. Arab ports in Coastal towns in Africa likely contributed to the importation of smallpox into Africa, as early as the 13th century, though no records exist until the 16th century. Upon invasion of these towns by tribes in the interior of Africa, a severe epidemic affected all African inhabitants while leaving the Portuguese spared. Densely populated areas of Africa connected to the Mediterranean, Nubia and Ethiopia by caravan route likely were affected by smallpox since the 11th century, though written records do not appear until the introduction of the slave trade in the 16th century.

The slave trade continued to spread smallpox to the entire continent, with raiders pushing farther inland along caravan routes in search of slaves. The effects of smallpox could be seen along caravan routes, and those who were not affected along the routes were still likely to become infected either waiting to board or on board ships.

Smallpox in Angola was likely introduced shortly after Portuguese settlement of the area in 1484. The 1864 epidemic killed 25,000 inhabitants, one third of the total population in that same area. In 1713, an outbreak occurred in South Africa after a ship from India docked at Cape Town, bringing infected laundry ashore. Many of the white population suffered, and whole clans of the Hottentot tribe were wiped out. A second outbreak occurred in 1755, again affecting both the white population and the Hottentots. The Hottentots spread the disease further among their tribes, and completely eradicating several tribes, all the way to the Kalahari desert. A third outbreak in 1767 similarly affected the Hottentots and Bantu tribes, but the whites settlers, having practiced variolation, were not affected nearly to the extent that they were in the first two outbreaks. Continued slaving operations brought smallpox to Cape Town again in 1840, taking the lives of 2500 people, and then to Uganda in the 1840s. It is estimated that up to eighty percent of the Griqua tribe was exterminated by smallpox in 1831, and whole tribes were being wiped out in Kenya up until 1899. Along the Zaire river river basin were areas where no one survived the epidemics, leaving the land devoid of human life. In Ethiopia and the Sudan, Six epidemics occurred in over the 19th century as follows: 1811–1813, 1838–1839, 1865–1866, 1878–1879, 1885–1887, and 1889–1890.