![Anti-smallpox shots in now DR Congo 1962](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/the-african-slave-who-taught-america-how-to-vaccinate-itself-from-smallpox-1-910x512-1.jpg)
By Carey Baraka, Quartz Africa — In April 1721, a smallpox outbreak swept through Boston. This was the latest in a string of six epidemics that had, since, 1630, laid waste to the city. Cotton Mather, a local slave owner and preacher, claimed to be in possession of a way of preventing contraction of the disease. Mather, who had first come to public prominence as one of the thinkers behind…