The Blood of Thousands

This chapter focuses on the ways in which slave traders throughout the Atlantic world understood and fought against the diseases that affected them and their human cargoes. It does so by illustrating the risks associated with slave trading expeditions and with the residence in African towns and factories. It also discusses to what extent their understanding and treatment of these diseases were similar to those of the medical officers who confronted them while attempting to stop them. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that slave traders and their accomplices had access to state-of-the-art therapies and to new medicines, just as much as their nemesis in the anti–slave trade patrols did.