Talk:Arabanoo
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Alleged "immunization" of the colonists against the disease that killed Arabanoo
[edit]In the version of this page as of 12 December 2024 there is an unsourced and probably impossible claim that: "All of the colonist population, bar one Native American who had accompanied the First Fleet, had been immunised against the disease and had no symptoms whatsoever." If this is not a practical joke, it may be a case of someone inventing a narrative that in their opinion best covers the facts.
There is no record of such a mass immunization. Indeed, there was in that era no form of immunization that could have had this effect. Governor Phillip could perhaps have ordered mass variolation. But variolation involved actually infecting patients with smallpox via a cut. This would make them very ill, but usually did not kill them, because smallpox is not normally a blood-borne disease and it tends to proceed more sluggishly when introduced in this way. (About 1% mortality rather than the usual c. 30%).
Had Phillip taken this step, much of the settlement would have been laid up with disease, and there would have been several deaths. Both the decision and its consequences would have been much discussed, and certainly recorded. Similarly, the claim that the North American sailor who succumbed did so because he was the only colonist not immunized, appears to be an unsourced speculation.
I suspect that whoever made these claims was seeking to resist the argument by profs. Carmody and Hunter and some historians that the 1789 disease cannot have been smallpox and must have been some disease to which Europeans were immune, probably varicella. Since the fate of Arabanoo (along with the Native American sailor) is often cited as evidence for this, perhaps a more neutral account of the issue would belong here. But for the moment I have simply reverted to something close to this page's earlier text (prior to 13 April 2024). viz.
In 1789, smallpox broke out amongst the Indigenous people around Sydney. Having no immunity, an estimated 2000 died. No cases were reported among the European colonists, though one sailor, a Native American, caught the disease and died. . . Marcasella (talk) 01:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
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