You know, there was a period when like any stock market, the price of slaves shot up. This could only be credited to only one slave, Onesimus the Bostonian. In the early 1700 way before Edward Jenner developed the first smallpox vaccine, small pox was ravaging through American colonies. This became concerning when smallpox was carried by cargo ships to Boston causing an outbreak. All the authorities could do was to quarantine the patients and this changed in 1706 when Cotton Mather, an influential minister bought Onesimus. In a conversation Mather had with Onesimus, he inquired whether the West African slave had encountered small pox before to which Onesimus replied, “yes and no”. “ I'm guessing there is a valid reason as to why he gave such a crazy answer to his master given as they were whooped for just about anything”, Ada said. Hmm yes he had a scar where he was inoculated with the small pox virus. This process was called variolation and involved obtaining infectious fluids from the blisters of an infected person and placing them on a cut of a healthy person. The person would then contract the virus but the symptoms would've milder than a naturally infected person and would also provide some kind of immunity against the virus. Cotton Mather then carried out research and found that the method was practiced in many continents and not just Africa such as Asia. So in 1721 when half of Boston was infected, Mather pushed for variolation and it wasn't surprising that his proposal was rejected. Some thought the practice would spread small pox further and others couldn't stomach the the idea that a negro had suggested something that could cure smallpox. No wonder they threw a bomb through Mather’s window and accused him for having a negroish thinking. Today that wouldn’t have been perceived as an insult but rather a compliment as we have achieved more things than we are given credit for. Anyway, Zabdiel Bolyston, a physician who believed Onesimus and Mather inoculated ted his son and his slaves. The result was that one in forty people inoculated died of smallpox and one in seven people that acquired it naturally died. The practice was so effective that African slaves who bore the scar of variolation were deemed more valuable. While the prices on our heads were hiked, they were still meager but we held onto the hope that they could now see our brains worked too and not just our hands. Like Martin Luther King said, “ Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better”, we get to see yet another black man make the world better with Morgan Garrett and his beautiful mind.