Free blacks played a crucial role in the epidemic. Thousands of formerly enslaved people had come to Philadelphia to exercise their newfound freedom. Gamble estimates that in 1790, some 2,100 free black people made their home in the city, while an additional 400 were enslaved. One of the most prominent slaveholders was President George Washington—even though Pennsylvania had essentially outlawed slavery in 1780.
As yellow fever began ravaging Philadelphia, people were dying by the dozens daily. With much of the city’s officials and the wealthy fleeing the contagion, “there were not enough people willing to tend to the sick or bury the dead,” says Barnes.
Rush put out a call for help from Allen and Jones and their Free African Society, in part because he and others believed Africans were immune to yellow fever, says Gamble. This theory was integral to a broader view of black bodies that was used to support slavery—that they were less susceptible to certain illnesses.
The Free African Society was established to help blacks, not whites. And yet Allen and Jones answered Rush’s plea. “They wanted blacks to take care of their white brethren so they’d be seen as human beings,” says Gamble.
It turned out to be a deadly duty. Statistics from the time are not reliable, but it is estimated that as many as 5,000 died including 200 to 400 black Philadelphians, during the six-month epidemic. Allen got the disease himself, but survived.
In his pamphlet, Carey had damning words for George Washington and other officials, but heaped praise on the handful of white citizens—merchants, clergy and physicians who did not flee and often died even as they attempted to meet the needs of the poor. He observed that the poor were disproportionately sickened and more likely to die, but that newly-settled French citizens had somehow been spared.
Despite the Free African Society’s many volunteer efforts, Carey devotes just one paragraph to the black population, repeating the claim they were immune to yellow fever, with a caveat. “They did not escape the disorder; however, there were scarcely any of them seized at first, and the number that were finally affected, was not great,” he writes. While black Philadelphians eagerly volunteered for nursing, as the white population cowered, Carey claimed that black nurses took advantage of whites with exorbitant fees. “Some of them were even detected in plundering the houses of the sick,” he reported. Still, not all were bad, Carey acquiesced. Services provided by Allen, Jones, he wrote, and “others of their colour, have been very great, and demand public gratitude.”