Hispanic American fiistoricil Revieu: 77:4

Copyright 1997 by Duke University Press

Yellow Fever and the Late Colonial

Public Health Response in the
Port of Veracruz

ANDREW L. KNAUT

I N the late eighteenth century, public health formed an inte-

gral part of the Bourbon campaign to revitalize the Spiuiish
.colonial enterprise and reinstate Spain as one of Europe's
premier imperial powers. As frequent outbreaks of epidemic disease threat-
ened the social, economic, and military well-being of the realm, colonial
officials, medical experts, and members of the commercial elite struggled
to find ways to counter and, ideally, to prevent the devastating effects of
widespread illness. In doing so, they looked to the public health innovations
gathering momentum throughout Europe.
Throughout the eighteenth century, intellectuals and policymakers
across Europe paid increasing attention to the cameralist notion that a
state's wealth stemmed ultimately from its ability to ensure the health
and continued growth of its population. Over time, this concept meshed
with Enlightenment beliefs that nature exhibited an order capable of being
understood and. eventually, manipulated by humanity. Because epidemics
and other widespread disease outbreaks formed a part of this order, sci-
entific inquiry promised to reveal the underlying causes of illnesses that
threatened the welfare of the state and point the way to preventing their
occurrence.^
These trends sparked initiatives to improve public health in capitals and
major cities throughout Europe. Attention focused on controlling the spread
of epidemics by restricting the movement of people and goods suspected

1. George Rosen, A iistonj of Piihlic Health (New York: MD Publications, 1958), 107-14,
and "Cameralism and the Concept of Medica! Police." in From Medical Police to Social Medi-
cine: Essays on the Histonj of Health Care (New York; Science History Publications, 1974),
120-41; Ann F La Berge. Mission and Method The Early Nineteenth-Century French Pub-
lic Ht'ulth Movement (Now York: Cambridge Univ, Press, 1992), 12-13; James C, Riley, Tlie
Eighteenth-Century Campaign to Avoid Disease (New York: St. Martin's Pre,ss, 1987), 8,
620 HAHR NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

of carrying contagious illnesses and eradicating theorized environmental

causes of disease by improving sanitary conditions in crowded population
centers. While most of the measures and the concepts of disease that under-
pinned them had existed for centuries, the aggressiveness with which Euro-
pean governments pursued their implementation reached new heights after
1750.^ As a result, some scholars point to these efforts as a major cause of
the continent's eighteenth-century population boom.^
How eifectively did the new European emphasis on improving commu-
nal health carry over to New Spain? Where and to what extent did the ideas
that crossed the Atlantic affeet the lives of the viceroyalty s inhabitants?
Studies that have asked these questions have tended to focus on the imple-
mentation of public health measures in the viceregal capital, Mexico Gity.''
There, well-informed intellectuals and viceroys newly arrived from Europe
struggled at times to introduce new regulations or, more often, simply to
enforce centuries-old statutes designed to improve sanitary conditions in
the crowded urban center and proteet the city from the ravages of epidemic
disease. Even in the late colonial period such efforts usually failed, falling
victim to a populace with little interest in adhering to municipal sanitation
codes and to the lack of a specific and effective regulatory body to establish
and enforce public health standards.^ That failure has prompted the eonclu-
sion that New Spain as a whole proved unable to carry out reforms of the
type that gathered momentum in European cities in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries.^
Shifting attention away from the capital city to the port of Veracruz,
however, yields a very different picture of the campaign to improve health

2. Rosen, History of Public Health, 128-34.

3. Roy Porter, "Cleaning Up the Great Wen: Public Health in Eighteenth-Century Lon-
don." Medical History, supplement no, 11 (1991), 74-75; Riley, Eighteenth-Century Campaign,
x-xi, 115-38, i5-54>
4. Donald B, Gooper, Epidemie Disease in Mexico City. 1761-1813: An Administrative,
Social, and Mediad Study (Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies/Univ. of Texas Press,
1965); John Tte Lanning, The Royal Protomedicato: The Regulation of the Medical Professions
in tlie Spanish Empire, ed, John Ja)' TePaske (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1985), 351-86. Other
works on specific aspects of public health in the colonies include Pamela Voekel, "Peeing of the
Palace: Bodily Resistance to Bourbon Reform.^ in Mexico Ciiy," Journal of Historical Sociology
5:2 {June 1992). 183-208: Robin G. Price, "State, Church, Charit^', and Smallpox: An Epidemie
Crisis in tbe Gity of Mexico, 1797-98."/ounra/ of the Royal Society of Medicine 75 {May 1982),
356-67: Jean-Pierre Clement, "El nacimiento del Ia higiene urbana en la Amrica espaola del
siglo XVIII," Revista de Indias 43:171 (1983), 77-9.5, Hare looks at developments outside of
Mexico Gity include Michael C. Meyer. "Public Health in Northern New Spain." Estudios de
Historia Novohispana 11 (1991). 135-53: Angela Thompson, "To Save the Children: Smallpox
Inoculation, Vaccination, and Public Health in Guanajuato, Mexico, 1797-1840." The America-i
49:4 {Apr. 1993). 431-55-
5. Lanning, Royal Protomedicato 351-58; Cooper, EpidTnic Disease, 16-46, 185-200.
6. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 185-86, 198-99,
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ 621

conditions in New Spain. Concern over health conditions in New Spain's

most important link to the Atlantic resonated forcefully in Mexico City and
Madrid as the town's e.xponential growth in demographic, economic, and
military importance in the late eighteenth century lent an unprecedented
urgency to taming the region's notoriously vicious disease environment.
Widespread sickness in the port .slowed the movement of goods across its
docks, hurting commerce and depressing royal revenues. At the same time,
the disease threat frustrated military planners forced to counter repeated
warnings o an imminent British invasion but loath to condemn troops drawn
mcstly from the highlands to the ravages of ailments endemic to the coastal
zone. The specter of illness in Veracruz also prompted fears that epidemics
might surface in the wel!-trafficked port and from there engulf all of New
Spain, devastating the viceroyalty's economy in the process.
.\ided by a medical community well versed in the emerging European
public health innovations, government officials and the commercial elite
in Veracruz implemented programs and erected an administrative struc-
ture designed to improve health conditions in the port. As a result, in the
closing decades of the colonial period, Veracruz stood in the vanguard of
the campaign to preserve communal health in New Spain.

Trade and Growth in a Warm Climate

For most oi'the colonial period, the lowlands edging New Spain's Atlantic
coast remained sparsely populated. The region's Amerindian peoples were
the first on the Mexican mainland to suffer the full efi"ects of contact with
Europeans advancing beyond their colonial toehold in the Caribbean in the
first quarter of the sixteenth century. Consequently, the native population
dwindled rapidly as once-prosperous communities succumbed to imported
Old World pathogens or simply vanished as their inhabitants fied an un-
wanted but unstoppable Spanish colonial expansion.
Hot, humid, disease-ridden, and soon devoid of an exploitable Indian
populace, the lowlands failed to attract a meaningful number of European
settlers over the course of the next two-and-a-half centuries. Newcomers
gravitated instead toward the more hospitable climes and brighter economic
prospects of the central highlands. Still, the lowlands separated the more
temperate, mountainous interior of the continent from the gulf and thus the
sea routes that tied the viceroyalty to Spain and the Atlantic economy. As
the region's only serviceable port, Veracruz arose not as a desirable point of
settlement for European immigrants, but as a necessary link between New
Spain and the outside world.
This changed dramatically with the surge in Atlantic commerce sparked
by Charles Ill's liberalization of colonial trade laws and the declaration of
 I HAHR I NOVEMBER ANDREW L. KNAUT

comercio libre in ly/S.' Soaring trade levels in Veracruz in the following

decades invigorated the town's economy and gave rise to a new commer-
cial elite. As early as 1781, leading comerciantes in Veracruz petitioned the
crown for permission to establish a consulado, or merchant guild, for the
port, a concession eventually granted by a royal cdula of January 17, 1795,
Like its older counterpart in Mexico City, the Veracruz guild served as the
judicial body in disputes involving commerce in the town and ts surround-
ing rural districts. It financed its activities by collecting a half percent duty
on all goods entering or leaving its jurisdiction, supplemented by fines im-
posed in judgments made by its tdbunal. In return for these concessions,
the crown expected the consulado to foment commerce in the region by
publicizing new technologies, improving harbor facilities, and constructing
and maintaining roads between Veracruz and the interior,* Over the ensuing
decades, furthermore, the consulado focused on public health as a matter
vital to the port's continued economic growth.
At the same time, comercio libre and the economic opportunities it be-
stowed on Veracruz attracted newcomers from both sides of the Atlantic in
search of employment and the chance for profit. After 1778, thousands of
comerciantes, petty traders and peddlers, artisans, day laborers, muleteers,
and sailors from Spain, the interior of Mexico, and the surrounding coastal
lowlands poured into the hot, mosquito-infested port. In 1784, the director
of the Hospital de San Juan de Montesclaros complained that his facility
open to the poor of the town and financed primarily by community a l m s -
was incapable of caring for a population that had expanded rapidly as a result
of the liberalization of trade in the port,"
By 1791, the resident population of Veracruz numbered more than 8,000,
more than double the census figure given for the town at midcentury.^"

7, For an overview of (he late eighteenth-century tran.sformation of the .Atlantic economy,

see C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (New York: Oxford Univ, Press, 1947), 341-
47; D. A. Brading, "Bourbon Spain and Its American Empire," in The Cambridge History of
Latin America, vol, i, Colonial Latin America, ed- Leslie Betheil (C;ambridge: Cambridge Univ,
Press, 1984), 409-26; John R. Fisher. "Imperial 'Free Trade' and the Hispanic Economy, 1778-
1796," Joumal of Latin American Studies 13:1 (May 1981), 21-56; Alexander von Humboldt,
Ensayo politico .sobre el reino de la Nueva Espaa., 5 vols, (Mexico City; Robredo, 1941 [1811]),
4:95-96; Javier Ortiz de la Tabla Ducasse, Citercio exterior de Veracruz. 1778-1821: crisis de
dependencia (Seville: Escuela de Estudies Ilispanoamericanos, 1978), 19-22.
S. Ortiz de !a Tabla Ducasse. Comercio exterior. 69-84,
9, Archivo General de la Naein, Mexico City (hereafter AGN), Hospitales, vol. 3, exp. 1.
10. Veracruz, Archivo y Biblioteca Histricos de Veracruz (hereafter ABH-V), caja 40. Fols.
421-513. This detailed, nonmilitary census of Veracruz is unfortunately incomplete, with only
four of the eight returns for districts in the town mentioned elsewhere in tbe surviving munici-
pal records (ABH-V, caja 41, fol. 96). The total population of tbe four reported districts was
4,154. This figure has been doubled to provide die citywide estimate offered in the text. For
a discussion of the growth in the comerciante sector of the populace after conwrcio libre, see
Jackie R, Booker, "The Veraeruz Merchant Community in Late Bourbon Mexico: A Preliminaiy
Portrait, 1770-1810," The American 45:2 (Oct. 1988), 187-99.
YELLOW FEVER IX COLONIAL VERAGRUZ

Jn 1800, cabildo officials pointed with alarm to the extreme overcrowd-

ing within the city walls and unsuccessfully petitioned the crown for funds
to extend the town's fortified perimeter." When Alexander von Humboldt
visited the port in 1804, consulado and town officials informed him that
more than 16,000 permanent residents lived in crowded conditions in the
town or camped among the dunes and swamps beyond the city walls.'^ By
1806, the Veracruz population had increased to 20,000, not including the
estimated 7,500 muleteers, 3,230 sailors, and 5,500 miscellaneous travelers,
merchants, visiting officials, and military personnel who had resided in the
town temporarily during the previous year.'^
A myriad of ailments crept into the daily lives of these newcomers to the
gulf lowlands, but the febrile illnesses that claimed so many victims in the
coastal zone year after year stood out as the region's most serious disease
threat. Si.xteenth-century writers dubbed the port at Veracruz la tnmha de
los espaoles. They identified the fevers that killed disproportionate num-
bers of recent immigrants to the coast while seemingly sparing those who
had spent their lives in the lowlands with only the most general of descrip-
tive terms, such as calenturas ptridas or fiebres imdgnas. By the eighteenth
century, though, travelers and residents alike blamed one illness consistently
for the deaths: uomito prieto, or, as it came to be known in the late colonia]
period, fiebre amarilla.
An acute viral illness, yellow fever is contracted via the bite of an infected
mosquito most commonly the female of the species Aedes ae^,ijpti. Many
adults infected with the virus either show no symptoms at all or experience
only mild fever, headache, and malaise. Among children, even greater per-
centages of those afflicted may escape with these minor manifestations of the
illness. In such cases, those stricken usually recover unaware of having con-
tracted yellow fever but afterward enjoy a lifelong immunity to the disease."
Less fortunate victims, though, suffer the more life-threatening complica-
tions o the sickness recognized as classic yellow fever. High fever, chills,
bodyaches, nausea, and severe headache usually signal the onset of the more
serious form of the disease three to six days after the initial infection.
As the illness progresses, damage to the liver causes the two most dis-
tinctive manifestations of yellow fever: jaundice and hemorrhaging of the
gums, nasal passages, and stomach lining exacerbated by the liver's inability

11. Jos Antonio Caldern Quijanu, Historia de las fortificaciones en Nueva Espaa (Seville;
Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1953), 168-71; ABH-V, eaja 65, fol. 372.
12. Humboldt, Ensayo poltico. 3:309.
13. "Balanza de Gomercio de Veraciuz . . , 1805," reprinted in Apuntes histricos de
la heroica ciudad de Veracmz. hy Migue! Lerdo de Tejada, 3 vols, (Mexieo Gity: Imprenta
de 1. Gumplido, 1850-58), appendix, doc. 19.
14. Thomas P, Monath, "Yellow Fever," in Infectious Diseases: A Modem Treatise of Infec-
tious Processes. 4th ed., ed. Paul D. Hoeprich e( al. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1989), 795.
 624 I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

to produce factors essential to the body's blood-clotting system. As gastro-

intestinal bleeding becomes more pronounced, frequent and at times violent
hematemesis (vomiting of blood) follows, and in the colonial period it was
this complication that earned the sickness the epithet of vmito prieto, or
"black vomit." Among these more severe cases mortality exceeds 50 per-
cent, with death following the development of renal failure, convulsions,
and cardiovascular collapse seven to ten days after the onset of symptoms.'^
In tropical zones, yellow fever is a disease complex that involves virus,
I the mosquito vector, and both human and primate host populations. The
offending pathogena small RNA virus of the family Flaviviridae cannot
pass directly between mammalian hosts and is therefore not contagious in
the classical sense of spreading by person-to-person contact. Instead, vic-
tims contract the illness through the bite of an infected mosquito, which has
' usually acquired the vims by feeding on the blood of an aSlicted human or
monkey. Several species of mosquitoes can harbor the yellow fever virus,
but in Latin America only Aedes aegypti and a few members of the genus
Haemagogus play a significant role in transmitting the disease. A peridomes-
tic mosquito. A, aegypti thrives in urban areas and, as a result, is the primary
vehicle for the spread of yellow fever in areas of concentrated human settle-
ment. In rural zones, Haemagogus predominates as the vector, passing the
virus among susceptible primates and infecting any human victim who strays
I into this "jungle" or sylvan cycle of the disease (see figure 1).'^
) Each element in the life cycle of the yellow fever virus is essential to the
survival and propagation of the microorganism, and the overall prevalence or
' absence of the illness in any given area depends on an intricate interplay of
factors affecting the availability of every component of the disease complex.
I The vector population is far more susceptible to variations in environmental
conditions tiian either human or primate hosts. Yellow fever is thus limited
to those regions where ecology and weather patterns allow A. aegypti and, in
) the sylvan cycle of the disease, Haemagogus mosquitoes to thrive. A. aegijpti
I breeds preferentially in small bodies and containers of water. The mosquito
' therefore flourishes in the urban centers of regions where heavy annual rain-
I fall can form and frequently replenish the small ponds and street puddles
, essential to the insect's multiplication,^'^ Temperature and altitude also limit
1 the range of A. aegypti and therefore the potential spread of yellow fever:

15. Ibid.; Margaret Humphreys, Yelhu: Fever and the Scruth (New Brunswick: Rutgers
I Univ, Press, 1992), ,5-6; David K. Patterson, "Yellow Fever Epidemics and Mortality in the
' United States. 1693-1905," Social Science and Medicine 34:8 (Apr. 1992), 855.
I 16. James S, Ward, Yellow Fever in Latin America: A Geographical Study (Liverpool: Cen-
I tre for Latin American Studies, Univ. of Liverpool, 1972), 1-2; Jean Slosek, "Aedes aegypti
I Mosquitoes in the Americas: .\ Review of Their Interactions with the Human Population,'"
I Social Science and Medicine 23:3 (1986). 249,
I 17. Ward, Yellow Fever in Latin America, 18.
YELLOW EEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ 625

Aedef Haemagogus

Urban ^ ^^ Sylvan ^
Human Cvcle Human Primate Cycle Primate

Aedes Mosquito
Mosquito

FIGURE l: Yellow Fever Transmission in Latin Ameriea

Source: Adapted from Slosek, "Aedes aegypfi Mosquitoes," 250^ and Monath, "Yellow Fever:
Victor, Victoria?" 30,

the mosquito rarely ventures above one thousand meters, and cooler tem-
peratures kill both the adult arthropod and its larvae. A. aegypti prospers
instead in low, tropieal climes with little seasonal variation in temperature,^"^
Even in those areas where environmental conditions favor the existence
o the vector population, however, the yellow fever virus does not in its nor-
mal life cycle pass directly from mosquito to mosquito. Transovarial passage
of the pathogen from the adult female to her offspring can help to maintain
the virus among successive generations o arthropods over the short term,
but ultimately the long-term survival of the disease complex depends on
the ready availability of susceptible human or other mammalian hosts. Once
bitten by an infected vector, the yellow fever suHerer can then pass the virus
ou to uninfected mosquitoes that subsequently feed on the vietim as the
illness runs its course. In jungle areas, that survival is ensured by the wide
variety of primate species that can harbor the disease.^"*
Among human population groups, though, yellow fever appears in spe-
cific regions or communities in patterns that depend as much on the im-
munological history o the people potentially at risk as on the seasonal
prevalence of mosquitoes bearing the deadly virus. Communities inhabited
predominantly by persons native to the region and situated in zones where
yellow fever is prevalent are normally unlikely to see dramatic outbreaks of
the disease, simply because most residents viill have received exposure to

18. Ibid., 11-18: Robert Shope. "Global Climate Change and Infectious Diseases," Envi-
ronmental Health Perspectives 96 {Dec. 1991), 171-72.
19, Thoma.s P. Monath, "Yellow Fever: Victor, Victoria? Conqueror, (Conquest? Epidmies
and Research in the Last Forty Years and Pro.spects for the Future," American Journal of Tropi-
cal Medicine und Hygiene 45:1 {July 1991). 26-28: idem,, personal communication. Oct. 15,
1993; Slo,sek, "Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes," 249,
626 HAHR NOVEMBER ANDREW L. KNAUT

the virus at some earlier time in their lives and will thus be immune to fur-
ther infection. From year to year, newborns, the occasional visitor, or those
indigenous inhabitants who have fortuitously escaped infection in previous
seasons might host the virus and thereby contribute to its continued survival
in the area. But because most of this relatively small number of cases will
exhibit few or none of the more severe symptoms of the illness, the disease
would attract little attention as a killer among the local populace,
Instead, a dramatic upsurge in the number of clinically apparent cases
of yellow fever is likely only when a largely nonimmune population sud-
denly comes into contact with a disease-bearing mosquito population. Such
a confiuence generally occurs when one of three factors is present: a large
number of nonimmune persons migrate into an endemic yellow fever zone
from areas where the disease is rare or nonexistent; weather and migratory
opportunities allow infected mosquitoes to spread into populated regions
that otherwise rarely experience the illness; or ecological conditions in en-
demic areas depress the infected vector population for a period o years,
allowing the number of nonimmune native children and immigrants to build
to the point that a return of the virus touches oF a high number of first
exposures.
The phenomenon that most native and long-term residents of endemic
regions enjoy their immunity to the illness unaware of having been exposed
to the virus earlier in fife has colored historical perceptions of which sec-
tors of a given populace are most susceptible to the disease. Southerners
in the nineteenth-century United States called yellow fever the "stranger's
disease" because it seemed to strike newcomers from the northern states
or Europe while inexplicably sparing many long-term white residents and,
especially, the black population of afflicted communities.^^ In doing so they
echoed perceptions of vmito prieto that had predominated for centuries
in Veracruz; only recent arrivals on incoming ships or highlanders descend-
ing to the coastal plain could contract the illness. Lifelong residents of the
region had little to fear from the disease.^^
Veracruz offered ideal conditions for the long-term survival of the yel-
low fever complex. The region's heavy rainfall and warm year-round tem-
peratures supported the large and highly varied mosquito population noted
in the writings of observers in the lowlands from the time of Corts on-
Haemagogus species thrived in the rainforest extending across Cen-

20. Ward, Yellow Fever in Latin America. 6-9. 28-29.

21. Patterson, "Yellow Fever Epidemics," 855-6Z; Humphreys. Yelow Feverandthe South.
6-7-
22. Humboldt. Ensatjo politico. 4:137-41: AGN, Frotomedicato, vol. 1, exp. 6, fo!. 336.
23. See, e.g.. Bernai Daz de! Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva
Espaa [1551], facsimile (Havana: Casa de las Americas. 1983), chap, 41, p. 93; Fr. .\lonso de
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ 627

tral America, the Yucatn, and the coastal plains of the southern guH?" Vera-
cruz itself provided the perfect breeding environment for Aedes aegijpti.
Drainage in the rain-soaked town was notoriously poor. Heavy showers left
alleyways and plazas inundated with water for days, even weeks," Street
puddles combined with household pots and vases and the large cisterns that
stored drinking water in wealthier homes to give the peridomestic mosquito
ample opportunity to spawn during the wet summer months. In July 1817,
one visitor to the port noted after one soaking rain that in little more than
a week, "such an abundance of mosquitoes resulted . , . that all the walls of
the houses and those on the outside facing the street appeared black,"^^
At the same time, Veracrnzs central role in Atlantic commerce guaran-
teed a frequent infusion of people from Europe or central New Spain who
lacked prior exposure to the yellow fever virus. Each/oa and, later, each
group of merchant vessels entering the port hrought hundreds, even thou-
sands of nonimmune sailors, comerciantes, and immigrants to the Indies,
These newcomers and the cargadores, merchants, and other highland resi-
dents who descended to the coast to meet incoming or outgoing vessels
provided a ready host population for the yellow fever complex. Even in years
when little traffic passed through the port, the disease could smolder almost
unnoticed among the newborns and yoimg of the resident populace who had
yet to catch the illness. In the early sixteenth century, for example, infants
in the lowlands reportedly acquired fevers and died more frequently than
those in the central plateau.^"^ Alternatively, the disease could retreat into
nearby rural areas until conditions favored a resurgence of its urban cycle.
The confluence of yellow fever virus, mosquito vectors, and vulnerable
human hosts followed a seasonal rhythm in Veracruz, one with which resi-
dents and visitors alike became all too familiar over the course of the colonial
period. While isolated cases of yellow fever could and did appear in any
month of a vear in which the illness was active in the region, significant

la Mota y Escobar. Memoriales dvl hispo de Tlaxcalu: un recorrido por cl centro de Mxico a
principios del siglo XVII [1609-23] (Mexico City: SEP, 1987), 51; Giovanni Francesco Cemelli
Carreri, Viaje a la Nueva Espaa [1700]. ed, Francisco Perujo (Mexico City: UNAM, 1976),
book 3, chap. 3; Miguel de Corral, "Relacin de los reconieimientos [del sur de Veraeruz] por
el coronel . . . D, .Manuel [sic] del Gorral, Tlacotalpa, 1777." in "El sur de Veracruz a finales del
siglo XVTII; un anlsis de la relacin de Corral," by Alfred H, Siemens and Lutz Brinckmannn,
Historia Mexicana 26:2 (Oct.-Dec. 1976), 292-324.
24, Ward, YeUoiu Fever in Latin America. 19-21.
25, Antonio de Herrera, Historia general de los hechos dc los castellano.^ en la.s islas y
tierra firme de! mar ocano. 4 vols. (8 dcadas) (Madrid, 1601-15), -(th dcada, book 9, chap. 6;
Gemelli Carreri, Viaje a la Nueva Espaa, 3:3; Informe del ingeniero Pedro Ponce, Nov, 15,
1764, Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter AGI), Mxico 2459.
26, "Veracniz en 1S16-1817: fragmento del diario de Antonio Lpez Matoso," ed. Jim C,
Tahii, Historia Mexicana 19:1 (July-Sept. 1969), 121.
27, Herrera, Historia general, 4th dec, 9:8,
628 HAHR NOVEMBER ANDREW L. KNAUT

100
90
80
70
60
/
7
50 \ 7 \
40 _i \
30 \
20 \
10 \
0 MM
Jan. Fab. Mar. April May Juna July Aug. Sapl. Oct. Nov. Dec.

I j Admissions
^ Deaths

FIGURE 2: Yellow Fever Admissions, Hospital de San Sebastin. Veracruz.

1803
Source: ABH-V, caja 67, fols. 6-7.

outbreaks of the disease usually occurred only after the onset of summer
rains in May. A one-montb maturation period for the new generation of
mosquitoes, followed by more breeding and an average six-month lifespan,
would push the yearly vector population peak into the late summer.
As a result, peak morbidity and mortality from yellow fever did not
come until late summer and early fall (see figure 2). August and Septem-
ber marked the time not only when the Aedes infestation was worst, but
also when commercial activity in the port and, therefore, the influx of new-
comers to Veracruz was highest. Ylota officials and, after the declaration
Q comercio libre, independent ship captains timed their arrival to avoid as
much of tbe port's cruel and disease-ridden summer as possible. But with
October came prevailing northern winds {nortes) that made navigation in
the gulf treacherous, so ships could not delay their entry into Veracruz for
too long.^ The conjuncture of nonimmune newcomers and a large, infected
Aedes vector population sparked horrific outbreaks of the disease, making
August and September the months most feared by visitors passing through
the port.^^
As they gathered strength throughout the fall, the same winds that forced

8. Humholdt, Enaayo politico. 1:371-72, Eor shipping patterns after the declaration of
comercio libre, see Ortiz de la Tabla Ducasse, Comercio exterior, 57.
29. ABH-V, eaja 48, Ibis. 141; AGN, Hospitales, vol. 3, exp. 33, fol 424; Humboldt, Ensayo
poltico. 4:133.
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ 629

ships to dock at Veracruz in the deadly months of late summer literally swept
the disease threat from the port altogether. Throughout the colonial period,
observers on the coast marked the arrival of the iiortes as the time when the
number of vmito cases declined dramatically, and many averred that the
winds transformed Veracruz into a town as healthful as any in the sierras
during the winter months despite its continued warm temperatures,'''" Mod-
ern understanding of the yellow fever complex explains the phenomenon:
Aedes aegypti is a weak flier, and ,sustained winds can push the mosquito
kilometers away from its preferred habitat,^^ As northerly gusts prevailed
every fall in Veracruz, high winds forced the vector population south and
inland, away from the port community. At the same time, the tapering off
of the rainy season kept breeding among any remaining mosquitoes at a
minimum until a new cycle could begin the following spring.
As the colonial period wore on, each summer in Veracruz brought re-
newed fears as to whether and how severely the vmito would strike. In the
early eighteenth century, respect for the illness prompted royal officials to
choose the nearby mountain town of Xalapa over Veracruz as the site for the
intercontinental trade fairs that took place between 1722 and 177S, Families
in the port community who could allbrd to spend extended periods away
from the coast flocked to Xalapa during the deadly months of August and
September to escape the heat and humidity of the lowlands and the horrors
of yellow fever's assault on the town.'^ But the disease proved unpredictable.
Years, even decades could pass in which no apparent outbreak of yellow
fever occurred in Veracruz. When such respites inevitably came to an end,
though, any illusions of Veracruz as a healthful community quickly faded as
summer death tolls from vmito prieto soared once again.
Not surprisingly, the years of highest mortality from the disease corre-
sponded to those in which large numbers of Europeans or highland resi-
dents entered the port. In 1799, fears of a British efbrt to capture Veracruz
prompted Viceroy Miguel Jos de Azanza to commit thousands of highland
troops to the coastal town's defense. In doing so, Azanza disregarded the
advice of both his military advisers and his immediate predecessor, the Mar-
qus de Branciforte: vjnito prieto killed soldiers sent into the lowlands from
the central plateau with a cold-blooded efficiency that no foreign invader
could match.^'^
During the summer of 1799, more than half the 600 troops camped at

30. Herrera, Historia general. 4th dec. 9:6; Humboldt, Ensayo poh'tico, 4:133,
31. Ward. Yellow Fever in Latin America, 15.
32. ACN. Epidemias, vol, 10,1'xp. 11. fol, 435.
33. Instruccin del virrey Marqus de Branciforte a su sucesor, D. Miguel Jos de Azanza,
Mar, 16, 1797, in Instrucciones que los virreyes de Nueva Espaa dtfjaron a sus sucesores
(Mexico City: Imprenta Imperial, 1867), 129-43.
630 I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

Arroyo Moreno, a few kilometers outside Veracruz, reportedly died of yel-

low fever. Over the course of the year, 938 deaths among the 4,000 troops
stationed in and around the port were attributed to the disease. Hundreds
more chose to desert their units rather than risk contracting the horrifying
illness,'*
In 1802, deaths attributed to yellow fever peaked again, as record levels
of trade brought unprecedented numbers of people affiliated with trans-
atlantic trade into the port. The number of yellow fever cases quickly over-
whelmed the city's hospitals. As the death toll rose, the year's especially
heavy rains flooded the city's cemeteries and allowed a distressing number
of newly interred cadavers "to bloom to the surface" from their shallow and
hastily dug graves.^^ By summer's end, the heav\- mortality brought trade in
the port to a complete standstill, as muleteers from the highlands refused
to descend to the disease-infested lowlands until the vmito season had
passed.^^ In all, almost two thousand people perished from the illness, high-
liehtine the 1802 yellow fever season as the most vicious in the memories of
resident Veracruzauos,^"
Experience with the vinito aud its predilection for newcomers discour-
aged settlement in the region and taught travelers to minimize their days
spent on the coast. Those who arrived in Veracruz from overseas wasted
little time in the town before setting out for the higher elevations and the
recognized safety of the sierras. As they wouud their way up the rugged,
75-kDometer trail that linked Veracruz to nearby Xalapa and the central
Mexican plateau, travelers kept an anxious lookout for the two indications
that they had at last ascended above the yellow fever zone: the appearance
of mountain oaks marking the transition from the low, tropical environment
to the more temperate air of the sierras; aud the sign for the Hacienda
del Encero, a longtime way station along the mountain road situated at an
altitude of 928 meters,^"
Ofteu, however, those who reached this point believing that they had
escaped the yellow fever threat fell ill nevertheless, from mosquito bites re-
ceived days, even hours earlier during their passage through the lowlands,
In Xalapa, some residents claimed the ability to divine which recent arrivals
from the coast would develop the vmito even before its symptoms became
manifest. At the turn of the nineteenth century, one Indian barber in the

34. ACN, Protomedicato, vol. i. exp. 6, fol. 352: Christon I. Archer, "The Key to the
Kingdom: The Defense of Veracruz. 1780-1810," The Ameiicas 27:4 {Apr, 1971). 438,
35. ABII-V, caja 70, fol. 418.
36. Humboldt, Enmyo poltico, 4:116-17; ABH-V. caja 67. fol. 7,
37. Humboldt, Ensayo poltico, 4:145-47,
38. Ibid,. 2:300, 4:197; Alfred H, Siemens. "The Persistence, Elaboration, and Eventual
Modification of Humboldt s View of the Lowland Tropics," Canadian Journal of Latin American
and Caribbean Studies 14:27 (1989), 90.
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ 631

mountain town offered a rationale for his predictive power: 20 years of shav-
ing Europeans and others en route from Veracruz to the interior had taught
him that when the soapy lather he applied to his customer's face dried im-
mediately, the imlucky patron stood a three-in-five chance of falling ill with
the disease before the end of the day.^''
Those journeying from the sierras to Veracruz also recognized Encero
as the last safe refuge before the yellow fever zone, and travelers often
congregated there as they steeled themselves for the plunge into the disease-
ridden tropical air. Muleteers, commercial agents, and others with business
in the port often waited until nightfall before making the final descent in
the hope that the lower temperatures of evening and early morning would
ease their transition into the lowland environment and thereby lessen their
chance o contracting the illness. Those planning to embark on ships leaving
Veracruz adopted a similar strategy, but usually waited for word that their
vessel would depart the following morning before striking out on the final
leg of the overland voyage. As the disease-wary travelers arrived in the port
early the next day, they boarded the ship directly as it made ready to sail,
comfortable in the knowledge that they had limited their time in the coastal
lowlands to less than a day.""'

Public Health Initiatives in Veracruz

Thus, in the late colonial period, officials and citizens anxious to improve
health conditions in Veracruz pointed to yellow fever us the ports most
serious disease threat. Yellow fever inflicted wide.spread suffering and death
with distressing frequency, damaging the all-important movement of people
and goods. It therefore stood as an ob\'ious obstacle to economic growth on
both sides of the Atlantic, forcing colonial officials and the commercial elite
to look for means of preventing widespread outbreaks. Consequently, yellow
fever played a fundamental role in shaping public health initiatives in New
Spain's most important port.
At that time, no effective therapies were in use to aid yellow fever sui-
ferers. Hospitals had existed in the port since the sixteenth century, but they
ofiered little more than food, shelter, and basic nursing care. The general
prosperity of the revitalized settlement and its expanding resident popula-
tion enticed more than a few European physicians and surgeons to settle
in Veracruz, but in terms of direct efforts, these formally trained and li-
censed practitioners known collectively -s facultativoscontrihutt'd only
marginally to improving health in the town. Eew outside of the community's

39. Humboldt, Ensayo poltico, 4:143.

40. Ibid . 4:142.
 632 I MAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

elite looked on the facultativos' proffered cures as anything more than impo-
tent and expensive; in times of illness, most Veracruzanos turned to popular
home therapies or the more affordabie services of folk healers (curande-
ros). Alexander von Humboldt noted in 1804 that Veracruzanos shunned
facultativos' treatments for yellow fever, which included chinchona bark,
mercurials, or Brownian drug therapies mostly opium-baseddesigned to
stimulate the body out of its diseased state. The curanderos, by contrast,
pushed less aggressive regimens that often included pineapple juice, olive oil
rubs, ice baths, and massaging the epigastric region to calm any irritation.^^
But Veracruz's licensed medical comniunity exerted a crucial influence
nevertheless. In the final decades of the colonial period, the majority of
the town's facultativos boasted training in one of Spain's most innovative
learning institutions, the College of Surgery in Cdiz. Many of these prac-
titioners therefore possessed both a background and an ongoing interest
in the ground-breaking medical concepts and techniques emanating from
academic centers throughout Europe.*^
The Cadiz-trained/ta//i:)s who settled in Veraeruz turned the low-
land community into a testing ground for innovative ideas and techniques
imported into New Spain, In Mexico City, the editors of the Gazeta de
Mexico frequently touted the accomplishments of Veracruz practitioners as
they successfully performed surgical procedures hitherto unattempted in
the viceroyalty,*^ At least one Cdiz graduate who practiced in Veracruz
after 1799, Florencio Prez y Comoto, actively translated European medical
papers. A forum existed in Veracruz for presenting such literature in the
Sociedad Mdica de Emulacin de Paris, Extracts of Comoto y Perez's work
appeared from time to time in the Gazeta de Mxico."^* As yellow fever re-
sumed its seasonal assault on the port in 1794, local practitioners conducted
trials in the military hospital of San Carlos of therapeutic regimens bearing
the latest endorsements of European academe.*^

41, Ibid.. 4:149-52.

42. At least 6 of tbe town's 11 licensed practitioners who presented tbeir credentials to the
I Veraeruz cabildo in 1809 had received their degrees at Cdiz and had setded in the gulf port
I alter service in tbe Real Armada. ACN, Pro tome die ato, vol. 1. exp. 6, fols. 280-303. On the
' coUege of surgery at Cdiz and its progre.ssive curriculum, see Michael E. Burke. The Royal
I College of San Carlos: Surgenj and Spanish Medical Reform in the Late Eighteenth Century
(Durham: Duke Univ, Press, 1977), 43-63.
' 43. See, e.g., Gazeta de Mxico (Mexico City) (hereafter GA) i:20 (Oct, 6. 1784), 170;
I 4:37- 38 (July 12. 26, 1791), 349-51- 357-60'
44. Von Humboldt presented a paper to the society when he passed through Veracruz in
I 1S04. Prez y Comoto's translation appears in CM 12:16 (June 30, 1804), 134-36.
I 45, For trials of Spanish physieiim Tadeo de la Fuentes yellow fever therapy, which
stressed massive dosing with chinchona bark in tbe early stages of the disease, see GM 12:56
(Dec. 18, 1805J, 469-75; 13:69 (Aug, 23, 1806), 558-60. For earlier trials of yelow fever regi-
mens, .see ibid, 6:51 (Aug, 18, 1794), 422; 7:21 (Apr, 17, 1795), 183; io:z6 (Nov, 4, 1800), 207;
' 12;24 (Oct, 27, 1804), 212, In 1804, the Veracruz medical community helped cabildo and vice-
YELLOW EEVER IN GOLONIAL VERAGRUZ 33

Colonial officials and the port's commercial elite turned to this source
of medical knowledge as they searched for the means to prevent yellow
fever outbreaks in Veracruz. Both sectors, moreover, deemed it worth fund-
ing these tests of the latest European theories with significant amounts of
money. Coloniid officials knew that virtually all goods passing between Spain
and New Spain had to move through Veracruz, and that widespread sickness
impeding such movement could cost the crown dearly in lost revenue. They
also knew that foreign enemies, frequently Britain, likewise recognized the
importance of Veracruz; but respect for the vmito tempered the zeal with
which strategists committed highland militia units to bolster the town's de-
fenses. Policymakers therefore faced a difficult decision: either find some
way of improving health conditions in Veracruz or abandon the defense of
the port altogether.'*'^
Similar concerns motivated tbe commercial elite to support public health
initiatives in and around the port. After its founding in 1795, the Veracruz
consulado channeled political and financial resources into efforts to mini-
mize the impact of disease on trade through tbe region. At the same time,
the merchant guild's members were keenly aware that the fertile soils and
abundant produce of the tropical lowlands were valuable resources that had
gone untapped for centuries. The region needed settlers to foment its agri-
culture and industry, but clearly few could be lured onto the coastal plain
until its reputation as a disease-ridden zone had been reversed. Consulado
secretary Jos Mara Quirs highlighted the problem in 1807 when he noted,

the principal cause of [the lowlands'] underdevelopment stems from

underpopulation; without competent hands it will never progress. If one
looks at the coastal expanse from the Rio Coatzacoalcos to Tampico,
points that mark the northern and southern limits of this province [of
Veraciiiz], one finds that over an expanse of 146 leagues there are no
more than nine pueblos that merit the name.''"
Still, despite the recognized need to improve health conditions in the
port, opinions varied as to how best to achieve that goal. Among those con-

regal authorities introduce smallpox vaccination into New Spain. See Michael M. Smith, "The
'Real Expedicin Martima de la Vacuna' in New Spain and Guatemala," Transactions of tJie
American Philosophical Society 64 (1974), pt. 1.
46. For a detailed discussion of the military strategies employed in the defense of New
Spain's Atlaiitie eoast, see Archer, "Key to the Kingdom," 426-49.
47. "Memoria sohre el fomento agrcola de la intendencia de Veracruz," Jan, 12. 1807,
in Javier Ortiz de la Tabla Ducasse, ed.. Memorias polticas y econmicax del consulado de
Veracruz, 1796-1822 (Seville: E.scuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos. 1985), 137. Three years
earlier, von Humboldt had ealculated the population density of the entire coastal plain, from
Tampico to the Laguna de Trminos, at 38 persons per square league. In comparison, Hum-
boldts figures for the intendaneies of Mexico and Puehla were 255 and 301 persons per square
league, respectively. Humboldt. Ensayo poltico, 2:171.
 634 I HAHB I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

cerned about public health in Europe and its colonial holdings circulated a
I plurality of views as to the best means of safeguarding communities from
widespread sickness. Certain diseases smallpox, for example had for cen-
turies been universally accepted as contagious entities, capable of spreading
from person to person.*^ Efforts to protect populations from such scourges
in the late eighteenth century therefore centered on refining and strictly
! enforcing age-old policies of quarantine and isolation in hopes of restrict-
ing the movement of people and goods suspected of carrying infectious
disease."*^
Other febrile illnesses, most notably yellow fever, defied any clear under-
standing of causation and spread. Yellow fever appeared widely throughout
I afflicted communities, prompting some to label it, too, as a contagious ill-
ness, best contained by traditional quarantine and isolation. Other theorists,
though, noted that simple contagion could not account for the puzzling way
' yellow fever struck only certain areas and individuals while sparing others
in close proximity.^"
Rejecting the idea of yellow fever as a simple contagious entity, these
I proponents fell back on the Hippocratic principle that sickness resulted
: from a disorder in the physiological balance between individuals and their
r surrounding environment. The answer to preventing outbreaks of yellow
I fever, the argument went, lay in discerning the nature of humanity's rela-
I tionship to the physical environment. As the Enlightenment gathered intel-
I lectual momentum over the course of the eighteenth century, the search for
specific environmental factors responsible for outbreaks of deadly illnesses
like yellow fever accelerated. Attention centered increasingly on the atmo-
[ sphere because all life depended immediately on air, and air seemed a logical
medium through which human victims could internalize the environment's
pathogenic inHuences.^^
Opinions varied as to whether astrological factors, climatic patterns, or
I physical elements, such as partieulate matter or vapors given off by decaying
I organic materials, explained how air could induce widespread sickness. By
I the latter half of the eighteenth century, though, many European medical
theorists and policymakers shared the conviction that if the atmospheric
' source of epidemics could be pinpointed, steps could be taken to counteract
48. Vivian Nutton, "The Seeds of Disease: An Explanation of Contagion and Infection
from the Creeks to the Renaissance." Medical History 27 (1983), 1-34.
49. For detailed discussions of the rise of these early European publie health measures
after 1347 see, among many sources, Carlo M, Cipolla, Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth-
Century Italy (Madison: Univ, of Wisconsin Press, 1981). 16-50; Ann C, Carmicbael, Plague
and the Poor in Renais.sance Florence (New York: Cambridge Univ, Press. 1986). 110-21.
50. See Erwin H. Ackerknecht, "Anticontagionism Between 1S21 and 1867," Bulletin of
the History of Medicine 22:5 (1948), 570-75, For the European debate overyelow fever and
its mode of spread, see La Berge, Mission and Method, 90, n, 16,
51. Riley, Eighteenth-Century Campaign, 12-19.
YELLOW EEVER IN COLONIAL VERAGRUZ

the disease-causing influence and prevent the appearance of illnesses like

yellow fever. Physicians aud scientists collected detailed data ou topography
and weather patterns in specific regions aud townships throughout Europe.
They then compared that information with local case histories of illnesses
aud the timing of regional epidemic outbreaks in the hope that some dis-
cernible relationship between environment, atmosphere, aud sickness would
become apparent.^
Meanwhile, adherents of the environmental theory of disease eager to
take concrete steps toward improving health conditions proceeded on the
assumption that removing obvious sources of atmospheric contamination
would ultimately lessen epidemic risk. After midcentury, cities across the
continent devoted new energy to clearing their streets of Blth, relocat-
ing cemeteries beyond town limits, draining nearby swamps, and widening
streets to facilitate the movement of fresh air.^^
In the late eighteenth century, many of these thoughts and trends sur-
faced in Veracruz as the port struggled to rid itself of yellow fever. As in
Europe, theories on the nature of yellow fever aud therefore the most ap-
propriate means to prevent its outbreak in Veracruz were divided along
contagionist versus environmental hues. These different approaches partiy
reflected the conflicting explanations for yellow fever's appearance in the
port. At the same time, however, and especially because science could pro-
vide uo definitive answer to the dispute, the field remaiued wide open for
those who provided funding for public health measures to dictate strate-
gies for improving community health according to their particular social,
political, aud economic agendas,'^'*
The environmental approach to public health gained wide acceptance
among the intelligentsia aud the commercial aud political elite of Veracruz.
By the 1780s, local resideuts had begun to keep careful records of tempera-
ture aud barometric readings in and around the port in the hope that the
collected data would explain long-term trends in the appearance of yellow
fever in the area.^'' Other citizens focused on removing atmospheric con-

52, Ibid.. 19-69; Rosen, History of Public Health. 154-56.

53, Riley. Eighteenth-Century Campaign, 89-112. On .such efforts in London, see Rosen,
History of Public Health, 128-32: Porter, "Cleaning Up the Great Wen," 67-68. On Madrid,
see Clement. "Fl nacimiento del la higiene urbana," 83: Vicente Prez Moreda, Las crisis de
mortalidad en la Espaa interior, siglo.i X\'J-XIX (Madrid: Sigio Veintiuno de Espaa, 1980)
54, See esp, Martin S. Pernick, "Politics. Parties, and Pestilence: Epidemic Yellow Fever
in Philadelphia and the Rise of the First Party System," in Sickness and Health in Auu^nca:
Readings in the Hlstonj of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith W. Leavitt and Ronald L.
Numbers {Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 241-56,
55, Tbc earhest pubhshed recordings of Veracruz climatic data appear in CM 1:4 {Feb. 25.
1784). 28-29, For most of the ensuing decade, C.^Vf published yearly compilations of the read-
ings collected in tbe port each Febniary, For reports of data gathered in the 1790s and early
1800s by Veracruz resident Bernardo de Orta, see Humboldt. Ensayo politico, 4:133-36.
636 I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

taminants they thought were the source of yellow fever and other recurring
ailments. As one consulado member argued,
if one examines the causes of the dominant illnesses in this port, . , . one
finds no other that is more important than the impure air we breathe
[Air] serves as the primary substance for all, or for the majority of the
marvelous processes of nature, . .. But the cruel hardship of war has not
sacrificed as many lives as air impregnated by the fumes of evaporated
putrefaction. What sort of air can one breathe in a town like Veracruz,
where the wastewater of each house is poured onto the streets to sit
and ferment for lack of an incline to let it drain? I shudder when I pass
through the city at the sight of the venomous particles that continually
evaporate from these stagnant and foul pools. . . . This is a perpetual
epidemic that we f ^

Taking its cue from developments in Europe, this attitude focused pub-
lic attention in Veracruz on cleaning up the city and removing potential
sources of atmospheric contamination. Critics pointed to the dire need to
improve public sanitation and keep streets clear of human waste and other
fetid materials. The stink generated by the refuse left to rot in alleys and pas-
sageways was matched only by the stench of corpses buried under church
fioors and in shallow plots, prompting a push to establish a general cemetery
beyond the town limits. Proposals to drain the brackish and stagnant ponds
that ringed the community also won support among public health advocates
because a number of the town's medical practitioners befieved that vapors
given off by decaying vegetable matter in the swamps explained the local
prevalence of yellow fever. Finally, some observers argued for the destruc-
tion of the town's fortified perimeter, as this would allow purifying breezes
to sweep alleys and narrow passageways clear of any remaining airborne
elements capable of causing disease.^'*'
The approaches to improving health conditions in the port differed little
from environmental measures being proposed throughout Europe and even
Mexico City, but a unique sense of^ urgency, coupled with strong finan-
cial and political backing, drove the environmental initiative in Veracruz.
Epidemic disease could cause loss of revenue in the form of collected im-
port and export duties; in addition, production in New Spain's silver mines
depended heavily on European mercury unloaded at the port. But the con-
tagionist approach to preventing large-scale sickness in portsnamely, the
quarantine of vessels suspected of carrying contagious illnesscould halt
the movement of goods as effectively as the worst epidemic. Measures such

56. "Memoria sobre la construccin de sumideros para purificar la atmosfera," Jan. 9,1797,
in Ortiz de la Tabla Duca,sse, Memarias polticas y eco?imica>i, 17-18.
57. Humbodt, Ensayo poltico. 4:159.
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ

as improving public sanitation, altering burial practices, and draining nearby

swamps, on the other hand, promised to improve health conditions in Vera-
cruz without impinging on commerce. An improved environment, moreover,
would enable the crown to station troops in Veracruz without fear of yellow
fever, ending the dilemma of how to protect the vital lowland port,^**
The earliest attempts to eradicate potential sources of atmospheric con-
tamination and disease in Veracruz centered on removing the waste and
filth generated in the daily life of the community and habitually dumped
on its streets. For most of the port's early history, municipal employees had
collected such refuse and dumped it in the town's harbor,
[a] nightly chore that employs a few negroes and other persons whose
necessity . . . obliges them to it. This task, considered indecent and
beneath the lowest class of people, is supported by the seores goberna-
dores, who include it among the many public obligations encompassed
by the norms of good government.
More often, though, garbage and the contents of emptied chamberpots
simply collected on thoroughfares and in poorly ventilated alleyways until
the next strong rain arrived to wash away the filth. By 1767, conditions in
the port were unpleasant enough to draw the attention of Charles 111, who
ordered the viceroy, the Marqus de Croix, to allocate funds for two boats
to cruise the harbor daily and clear waste from the waters,^'^
At the same time, a strong movement to improve street cleaning gathered
momentum. Few details of these early efforts survive, but in 1775 city offi-
cials announced that they had completed the paving of every major street in
Veracruz, with curbside sluices to aid in sweeping away accumulated filth,^^
Impressed with their accomplishments, the officials were quick to claim
that the new emphasis on sanitation was responsible for yellow fever's disap-
pearance from the port between 1776 and 1793. Local comerciantes shared
in the enthusiasm generated by the perceived public health victory and used
the vmito's subsidence to encourage potential investors and settlers to over-
come their traditional fear of the port. By 1784, articles appeared regularly
in the Gazeta cle Mxico stressing the success of recent cleanup efforts in
Veracruz and, furthermore, reporting a moderating trend in average yearly
temperatures. These could only be signs, port promoters argued, of the end
of yellow fever's centuries-o!d reign in the lowlands and "the [negative] im-

58. "'Relaciiin del seor Flix Berenguer de Marquina a su sucesor, don Jos de Iturriga-
ray," Jan. 1, 1803, in Instntcriones ij iiwinoria.s di- los virreyes novohispanos, 2 vols., ed. Ernesto
de la Torre Villar (Mexico City: Porrua, 1991), 2:1418.
59. "Memoria sobre la construccin de sumideros," 16.
60. ACN, Marina, vol. 27, exp. 71, ibis. 168-71,
61. Humboldt, Ensayo poltico, 4:158-59.
638 I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KXAUT

pression commonly formed about Veracruz's harsh climate that has had not
a minor influence on the interests of the community and the royal treasury."
Port advocates even went so far as to predict that soon Veracruz "would
become the healthiest city in all of New Spain." ^^
The direct success of these efforts to lure investors, laborers, and settlers
to Veracruz in the 1780s can never be gauged, but the port's improved repu-
tation undoubtedly contributed to its dramatic ^ost-comercio Ubre popula-
tion boom. By the end of the decade, though, that growth had effectively
demolished many of the town's hard-won improvements in public sanita-
tion. The amount of garbage and human waste tossed onto city streets in-
creased apace with the influx of newcomers, who crammed themselves into
a settlement that had no way of expanding beyond the limits of its encircling
fortifications. By 1791, municipal officials were complaining that the 32 city
employees charged with clearing the streets and bauling collected refuse to
be dumped into the harbor could no longer cope with the amount of filth
generated daily.^^
As yellow fever renewed its assault on the coastal community in 1794,
local residents, crown officials, and leading comerciantes grew increasingly
alarmed at the port's now inadequate public sanitation efforts. In 1796, more-
over, city officials complained that it had become next to impossible to find
tbe unemployed drifters {vago.s) who had always filled the ranks of the street
cleaners. Press gangs eager to provide crews for warships in the port after
the renewal of hostilities between Spain and Great Britain had effectively
cleared the town of potential street-cleaning recruits.^'*
Conscious of the damage that decaying health conditions threatened to
inflict on its recent economic gains, the town's commercial elite stepped in
to offer its guidance and financial support for a new public health initiative.
In January 1797, consulado representatives presented the town council with
a detailed proposal, formed in consultation with the town s facultativos, on
how best to attack the disease-inducing conditions in Veracruz. The plan
advocated four steps: halting burials inside churches and establishing a gen-
eral cemetery on land far removed from the city, closing the dilapidated and
di.se ase-infested hospital of San Juan de Montesclaros and building a new
facility at the edge of town, draining the stagnant ponds surrounding the
town, and installing water closets in every building in the city and construct-

62. See CM 1:4 {Feb. 25, 1784), 28-29; ^-3 (^^^- ^5- 1786), 32; 2:28 (Feb. 13, 1787}, 290-
91. The laudatory articles usually appeared in February and included mortality statistics from
the previous year for the Hospital Real de San Garlos as supporting evidence. Over the course
of the 1780s and early 1790s, annual mortabty in tbe hospital was touted as running between
2 and 3 percent. The authors noted that it would be hard to find another hospital in Europe or
the Americas whose yearly mortality did not exceed lo percent.
63. ABH-V. caja 37, fols. 140-52.
64. Ibid., caja 51, fols. 26-28.
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ

ing an underground sewage system to drain them. The consulado offered

to pay for these measures if the town council granted it the authority to
collect fines from building owners who did not maintain the water closets
in working order and from residents caught pouring their waste onto the

Over the next decade, the consulado applied money and political lever-
age to ensure that its proposed public health measures were carried out. In
1802, the merchant guild persuaded the Veracruz cabildo to set aside land
on the plains surrounding the town as a general cemetery. By 1804, many
of the town's commerciiil elite had announced that they and their families
would give up the tombs reserved for them in the city cathedral and take
plots instead in the new cemetery in the hope that their example would
spark imitation throughout the community.^'' When Charles IV issued a gen-
eral edict later that year mandating an end to burials within the limits of
all cities in Spain and its o\'erseas possessions, Veracruz complied with the
order almost immediately.*" Also in 1804, the consulado won its campaign to
close the city hospital of San Juan de Montesclaros and persuaded the ca-
bildo to devote municipal funds to a new facility that would care exclusively
for yellow fever sufferers connected to Atlantic commerce.
In 1801, the cabildo had given up its attempts to maintain adequate
numbers of street cleaners in Veracruz, contracting instead with a local co-
merciante, Manuel Francisco Alegre, to provide the vital service.^^ Alegre
dealt with the task successfully, according to Alexander von Humboldt. The
port's age-old reputation as a filth-ridden community was undeserved, Hum-
boldt noted in 1804; cabildo and consulado efforts to improve sanitation
had been so successful that "Veracruz is now cleaner than many cities in
southern Europe."'''^
Other elements of the consulado's campaign to eradicate environmental
sources of disease in Veracruz proved less successful, however. Local conwr-
ciantes convinced the crown of the need to improve the town's water supply,
both to drive a new sewage and water closet system and to provide drinking
water so that the surrounding swamps could be drained once and for all.
By 1804, the royal treasury had provided more than five hundred thousand
pesos in direct subsidies for the construction of a 25-kiIometer aqueduct
that would channel water from the nearby Rio Xamapa into Veracruz. By
1815, however, only one thousand meters of the water system had been

65, "Memoria sobre la construccin de sumideros,' 19-20; Humboldt, Ensayo poltico.

4;i52.
66, Humboldt, Ensayo poltico. 4:158-59,
67, Burial records for the Veracruz cathedral confirm this; listings for the cementerio
general extramuros as tlie site of interment appear consistently heginning in 1805.
68, ABIi-V, caja48, r, 524,
69, Humboldt. Ensayo poltico, 4:132.
640 I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

completed, and auditors in the Mexico City contadura angrily denounced

the Veracruz cabildo for having tapped money intended for the Rio Xamapa
effort to offset its deficit spending of almost two decades. When the city
entered the national period in 1821, it did so without the long-hoped-for
aqueduct.

The Debate over Quarantine

In the meantime, contagion theory also found advocates among those con-
cerned with preventing yellow fever in Veracruz. As the viceroyalty's busiest
harbor, Veracruz was perceived by many as the most dangerous potential
landing site for imported illness. Only the systematic inspection and, when
deemed necessary, the isolation of newly arrived vessels in Veracruz, advo-
cates argued, could protect "this vast continent from the deadly foreign
contagions whose principal point of entry is the port of Veracruz."^' Failure
to take such precautions, they warned, would sooner or later preeipitate
an epidemic in the coastal township "capable of spreading throughout the
realm, sacrificing the lives of thousands of persons [who are] of great use to
the State and the Nation," ^^
Although loath to instate coutagionist public health measures, decision-
makers in Mexico City found these argumeuts increasingly difficult to ignore
after 1790, Smallpox outbreaks in Havana in 1790, 1793, and 1796 prompted
fears that the disease might strike the continent by way of Veracruz. As
a result, successive viceroys, from the Conde de Revillagigedo on, would
order the Veracruz cabildo and local military authorities to establish a tem-
porary health inspection committee {junta de sanidad) and guidelines for
ship quarantines whenever smallpox threatened,''^ As the century drew to
a close, calls increased dramatically for a permanent jiinfa de sanidad in
the town.
The resurgence of yellow fever only fed the growing interest in conta-
gionist efforts. Many Veracruzanos rejected the contention that yellow fever
was a noncontagious, endemic illness that emanated from the soggy terrain
surrounding the town. Iustead, they asserted that the vmito's resurgence
after an absence of almost 20 years had come via three infected sailors
aboard the warship El Mio.
If the proper precautionary measures had been in place and executed on
the arrivd of the warship Mio, his majesty would have four thousand

70, AGN, Epidemias, vol. 2, exp. 7, f, 318.

71. Ibid., f. 310.
72, Ibid,, vol, 2, exp. 3, f 40.
73. Ihid., vol. 7, exp. 2.
YELLOW FEVER IN COLONIAL VERACRUZ 64X

more subjects to man his armies and navy that have perished as a result
of that fatal ship's inBuence, and the Nation a great number of active
arms that experienced a similar cruel fate,"*
This belief not only gave added weight to the campaign for more rig-
orous inspections of ships entering Veracruz, but also fueled calls for an
automatic quarantine on vessels coming from the yellow fever-plagued east-
ern seaboard of the United States.'^ In 1801, knowledge that the disease was
active in southern Spain prompted Viceroy Flix Berenguer de Marquina
to order the establishment of permanent yNifl.s de sanidad in every port
in New Spain. Veracruz complied with the order, making systematic ship
inspections standard practice for the remainder of the colonial period.'^"
The appearance of an inbound sail on the horizon was the signal for port
officials to summon one of the town s facultativos from a list compiled by the
protoniedicato'ii representative in Veracruz.^^ As the ship entered the har-
bor, a launch carried both the practitioner and a notarial clerk to meet the
incoming vessel. From the launch, the facultativo queried the captain about
the health of his crew and the places he had visited en route to Veracruz. If
no immediate cause to su.spect contagious illness existed, he then boarded
the vessel and examined all hands. But if the captain's answers raised suspi-
cions of sickness, or if the inspection uncovered signs of disease, the ship
entered quarantine at a site selected by the harbormaster. In such instances,
all persons who had accompanied the launch washed their clothes with vine-
gar, sulfur water, or some other astringent substance on returning to shore.
After 40 days had passed with no new appearance of disease on the isolated
craft, crew members could disembark after similarly cleansing all clothing.
The ship's cargo was then unloaded onto a remote part of the docks, where
it remained for several days to allow fresh air and sunlight to remove any
lurking remnants of contagion.'''*
The efforts to implement ship inspections and isolation measures faced
opposition and harsh criticism. In Veracr\iz, local comerciantes, agents of
the large trading houses in Mexico City and Madrid, and, after 1795, mem-
bers of the town's consulado regularly attended meetings of the port's^unia
de sanidad, where the merchants vocally denounced the quarantines as

74. Ibid., vol. 2, exp, 3, fols. 39-43.

75. ABII-V, caja 77, f 701; AGN, Epidemias, vol, 2, exp. 3, fols. 39-40,
76. AG\, Epidemias, vol. 2, exps. 3-5, fols. 41-179.
77. The fiiailtaiivos shared the duty on a rotating basis without pay, endlessly bickering
over and trying to escape the hated task. AGN, Epidpmia.s. vol. 8, exp. 12. fols. -254-55; Lan-
ning. Royal Protoinedicato. 130-33. On several occasions after 1801. the subdelegado, with tbe
cabildos support, threatened to revoke the prescription privileges nf offending/ocuifcfiros and
to fine or close down local pharmacists who filled their orders. ABII-V, caja 77, fols. 695-97;
AGN, Protomedicato, vol. 1. exp. 5, f. 160.
78. AGN. Epidemias, vol. 7, exp. 2, fols, 33-45.
64a I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

unnecessary and hurtful to commerce.^^ Quarantining a vessel laden with

valuable cargo not only lost weeks in transporting the merchandise but also
placed it at considerable risk of loss or theft.
Health officials typically ordered quarantined ships to take up station off
the nearby Isla de Sacrificios. Navigation between the harbor at Veracruz
and the designated anchorage was treacherous, particularly for larger vessels
with fully packed holds. The ships, moreover, enjoyed no military protection
during their lengthy stay, making them tempting targets for British raiders
and privateers. Debates between members of the junio de .sanidad, the mili-
tary, the merchants' guild, the harbormasters, and the town council over the
appropriate anchorage for quarantined vessels arose repeatedly during the
crises of 1790, 1793, and 1796 and continued into the nineteenth century,^"
These threats to commerce were in themselves irksome to those with a
stake in the Atlantic trade, but critics also questioned the validity of the con-
tagionist measures that exacted such a heavy price. As one colonial official
pointed out after a 1793 reinstatement o( the junta de sanidad in Veracruz,
ship inspections were far from foolproof under the best of circumstances.

In addition to the malicious violation [of rules forbidding recovering

smallpox victims from boarding ships leaving Havana] by some convales-
cent interested only in quick passage to this continent, some sufferers can
embark without malice and [complete their] travel in the days between
catching the illness and manifesting even the most minor of symptoms.^^

Even without questioning the theoretical validity of quarantines, oppo-

nents argued that gross inadequacies and violations of the system as prac-
ticed in Veracruz rendered the measure worthless even as it impeded the
flow of goods through the port. They pointed out that contacts between
incoming vessels and persons from the shore occurred long before the in-
specting/CU/O began his interrogation, making any subsequent isola-
tion superfiuous. As ships neared Veracruz, for example, boys from the town
habitually flocked into canoes, paddling out to intercept the new arrival and
sell their services as guides. As the Inbound vessel neared its designated
slip, the young entrepreneurs would jump overboard and swim ashore long
before the launch bearing the health inspectors left the docks. Similarly,
the harbormaster and military officers frequently overruled the designated
medical inspector's authority when they accompanied him in the outgoing
launch, forcing him to delay his interrogation and remain in the boat until

79. See the attendance lists for meetings on Mar, n, 1793, ABH-V, caja 27, f. 268; and
Nov, 27, 1801, AGN, Epidemias, vol. 2, exp, 3, fols, 53-54,
80. AGN, Epidemias, vol. 7, exp. 2, fols, 72-j^.
81. Ibid., vol. 7, exp. 8, f, 359.
YELLOW FEVER IN GOLONIAL VERAGRUZ 643

after they had boarded and questioned the ship's captain about the nature
of his cargo, urgent documents, and military or political news from abroad.^^
At the same time, colonial authorities often ignored violations of quar-
antine when the preventive measure impinged on activities considered vital
to the state. Complaints frequently surfaced that ship captains and pas-
sengers claiming urgent business in the viceregal capital left quarantined
vessels prematurely.**^ Even Viceroy Revillagigedo, reinstating ihe junta de
saiid/id in 1793, stressed that while he understood the dangers of smallpox
spreading from Havana, "nevertheless there are other matters both ordi-
nary and extraordinary that concern the royal service at this moment that
should be kept in mind as the mentioned junta carries out its tasks." ^^ As
the system evolved in subsequent years, mail ships and any messengers they
carried were allowed to circumvent the quarantines, depositing cargo and
passengers on the shore south of the port. There, the passengers remained
in isolation at a designated hacienda for three or four days before being
allowed to continue to the interior of Mexico.**'^
Criticism of the anticontagion measures, as well as complaints that they
hindered commerce in the port, provided ready ammunition for the com-
mercial elite as it promoted the competing environmental approach. No
issue plagued the new junta de sanidad more than funding, a weakness that
enabled opponents of the anticontagion steps to seriously limit the junta's
capabilities. In Mexico City, where no royally funded health committee func-
tioned iu the colonial period, debate over the allocation of money for the
Veracruz junta de .sanidad continued for more than a decade among the
fiscales charged with advising the viceroy on the matter.^"
Meanwhile, efforts to raise funds locally by increasing the duties on
goods moving through the port met with unbending opposition from the
consulado, whose members were loath to suffer added expenses for anti-
contagion measures they considered more damaging than helpful to com-
merce. Such tax hikes, they repeatedly and successfully argued, were better
reserved for environmental programs like the Rio Xamapa project, which
would ultimately improve health conditions in Veracruz without impinging
on the movement of goods through the

82. Ibid.. vol. 2, exp. 3, fois. 39-40; ABII-V; eaja 51. fols. 78-81.
83. See, e.g., ABH-V, caja 27, fols, 289-90.
84. ABH-V, caja 27, ibis. 287-88,
85. Ibid., fols, 268-74: AGN. Epidemia.s, vol, z, cxp. 3, f. 82.
86. See the opposition from Francisco Xavier Borhn. the supervi.sing fiscal de lo civil, in
AGN. EpideiTLa.s, vol. 2, exp. 3, fols. 46, 67; and his postponement of a decision in July 1802,
ihid., vol. 2. exp. 7, f 247. Soon afterward, th(? file on the matter disappeared, despite repeated
searches by viceregal clerks in 1804 and 1814. ABH-V. caja 68, fols, 178-84; AGN, Epidemias,
vol, 2, exp. 7, ibis, 315-18.
87. In Octoher 1S02, the merchant guild blocked efforts by the junta de sanidad to acquire
644 I HAHR I NOVEMBER | ANDREW L. KNAUT

Lasting Achievements

In spite of conflicting economic interests and theories on disease causation,

Veracruz did make genuine advances in public health as the colonial period
drew to a close. Efforts to improve public sanitation succeeded from time
to time, and advocates of the environmental approach to disease preven-
tion could claim major victories in their campaign to stop burials within the
walled confines of the town and to close the hospital of San Juan de Mon-
tesclaros. After i8oi, a permanent public health body, the junta de nanidad,
functioned continuously in Veracruz, conducting ship inspections and, after
1804, overseeing the distribution of smallpox vaccine throughout the south-
east corner of the viceroyalty. In 1816, moreover, viceregal authorities finally
acknowledged the importance of the committee's work by granting funds
for a salaried mdico de sanidad to head the organization, thereby creating
the first and only royally funded public health ofHce in New Spain.^**
The public health effort in Veracruz stemmed from the threat that dis-
easemost importantly, yellow feverposed to the port and to New Spain's
position in an expanding Atlantic economy. The town's emerging commercial
elite and royal officials recognized sickness in Veracniz as bad for business
and the interests of colonial government. Both sectors, therefore, proved
willing to devote money to projects patterned after public health initiatives
being carried out across Europe, particularly those that did not impinge
on the movement of goods and people through the port. As a result, pub-
lic health in Veracruz reached a level unequaled in the viceroyalty, placing
the town in the vanguard of the effort to prevent widespread disease in
New Spain.

operating funds via a 1/8 percent increase iu duties on goods passing through the port; AGN,
Epidemias, vol. 2, exp, 3, fols. 85-86, and exp, 7, f. 262, In May 1804, the consulado derailed
a similar propo.sal based on an increase in the per weight tax on water loaded onto outgoing
vessels; AGN, Epidemias, vol, 2, exp. 3, fols. 114-16,
88, AGN, Epidemias, vol. 8, exp. 11, fols, 171-84.
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