Effects of Early Aids-Like and Ebola-Like viruses in 18th century

[Alt History Buff]

All,

I have some POD's relating to early Aids-Like (I call it the African Death or sailors disease) and Ebola-Like viruses coming out of Africa in the 1750-60's. They are intentionally not the same diseases as real life but similar. I have the Ebola-Like (I call it the Bleeding Death) virus being very (more than Ebola) contagious in humid and filthy conditions in particular. Slaves, as always, get the worst of it.

Places especially hard hit by the Bleeding Death are Africa, India, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, etc.

The African Death hits everywhere.

I'm trying to understand the direct and indirect effects of this.

Here is what I have so far:

1. The slave trade comes to a virtual halt as 1. these diseases break up the African Empires that sold the slaves, 2. ensured that a larger than OTL percentage don't live to make it to America as whole shipments are infected, 3. no one in their right mind would crew such a plague ship, 4. the infected newly arrived slaves would only infect native-born North/South American slaves and the white/native American population.

2. As many of the harsher climates already had a negative reproduction rate (Haiti was infamous at negative 8-10% per year, the rest of the West Indies and Brazil also in the negative) even before adding two new contagious diseases, the sugar islands and large swathes of Brazil empty out within decades.

3. The loss of cane sugar production results in higher prices and more sugar beet investment, especially in France and North America where it grows well.

4. Tea and Coffee become more expensive without South American slavery and land less desirable as sugar additives aren't as cheap or available. What would replace them for the middle/lower classes? Old-style beer?

5. Liquors such as whisky, wine and beer (anything not requiring sugar) became more popular.

6. Naval and merchant fleets take a hit as the African Death takes a high toll on sailors who enjoy brothels. Global trade slows.

7. South America's population especially grows more slowly. Only the gold-regions of Brazil/Peru/Mexico continue to get a large amount of Spanish/Portuguese immigration. Assuming that the Native Americans aren't any more susceptible to these diseases than Africans or Europeans, many local tribes/nations do better than OTL.

8. The great trading powers of Britain, the Netherlands, etc, lose a great deal of influence without control of Asian trade due to reduced number of sailors, more expensive tea/coffee, etc.

9. Reduction of Asian trade indirectly helps the trade deficit of Europe to Asia as less Spanish gold and silver flows to Asia in trade for tea, silk, porcelain, etc.

10. By Darwinism, those nations/faiths that stress monogamy incur fewer African Death casualties. This leads to a religious revival.

11. Eventually, the expansion of colonialism to India, Indochina and Africa becomes less important to Europe as there are fewer profits.

12. China is less likely to be humbled by western powers. Japan more likely to be left alone.

13. Hygiene makes a big comeback. Those cultures that stress bathing would face less Bleeding Death losses (Russia? The Nordic Countries?).

What other effects would there be on the global economy, population movements, etc?

Feel free to digress.

 

[Tanc49]

For effect of large, potentially STD like, very deadly diseases, you should look at the spread of Syphillis.

 

[Alt History Buff]

Thanks, I am thinking this was a bad time to be a sailor.

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

Would an AIDS-like virus be noticed, even by doctors? It has few, irregular, and generally minor symptoms itself but interferes with the immune system making you more succeptible to other dieases which then kill you. Considering the period's already high disease and mortality rate I can see a situation where it remains undiscovered until much later. I think adding some kind of visible symptoms would be best.

If it is discovered I suspect the result will be a collective shrug. Since there's no treatment I'd maybe expect harsher crackdowns on prostitution and a lot of "I told you so's" by moralists. It would probably be handled pretty much like syphillus.

 

[Alt History Buff]

Would an AIDS-like virus be noticed, even by doctors? It has few, irregular, and generally minor symptoms itself but interferes with the immune system making you more succeptible to other dieases which then kill you. Considering the period's already high disease and mortality rate I can see a situation where it remains undiscovered until much later. I think adding some kind of visible symptoms would be best.

If it is discovered I suspect the result will be a collective shrug. Since there's no treatment I'd maybe expect harsher crackdowns on prostitution and a lot of "I told you so's" by moralists. It would probably be handled pretty much like syphillus.

I'm making my hypothetical disease obvious enough that they can tell what it is within a decade of the first outbreak. Good point on AIDs symptoms, though.

 

[Tanc49]

Would an AIDS-like virus be noticed, even by doctors? It has few, irregular, and generally minor symptoms itself but interferes with the immune system making you more succeptible to other dieases which then kill you. Considering the period's already high disease and mortality rate I can see a situation where it remains undiscovered until much later. I think adding some kind of visible symptoms would be best.

If it is discovered I suspect the result will be a collective shrug. Since there's no treatment I'd maybe expect harsher crackdowns on prostitution and a lot of "I told you so's" by moralists. It would probably be handled pretty much like syphillus.

I would agree with you. Especially if it spreads among sailors and the black in the islands, it would be seen as "the fevers" which were already killing scores.

I can't quote a source (In Our Time podcasts and some Sanjay SUbrahamian books but can't be arsed to recheck), mortality rate of white people coming to the colonies was like 80% over three years. Don't have a figure for black people but I imagine they didn't have the longest lifespan either.

If AIDS was to come in the XVIIIth century, it wouldn't be noticed. For all we know, there was something similar? Syphillis is interesting as it can have quite spectacular effects on the long term, easier to see the consequences compared to AIDS which "just" makes you weaker to other stuff.

 

[Arkenfolm]

All,

I have some POD's relating to early Aids-Like (I call it the African Death or sailors disease) and Ebola-Like viruses coming out of Africa in the 1750-60's. They are intentionally not the same diseases as real life but similar. I have the Ebola-Like (I call it the Bleeding Death) virus being very (more than Ebola) contagious in humid and filthy conditions in particular. Slaves, as always, get the worst of it.

Places especially hard hit by the Bleeding Death are Africa, India, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, etc.

The African Death hits everywhere.

I'm trying to understand the direct and indirect effects of this.

Here is what I have so far:

1. The slave trade comes to a virtual halt as 1. these diseases break up the African Empires that sold the slaves, 2. ensured that a larger than OTL percentage don't live to make it to America as whole shipments are infected, 3. no one in their right mind would crew such a plague ship, 4. the infected newly arrived slaves would only infect native-born North/South American slaves and the white/native American population.

2. As many of the harsher climates already had a negative reproduction rate (Haiti was infamous at negative 8-10% per year, the rest of the West Indies and Brazil also in the negative) even before adding two new contagious diseases, the sugar islands and large swathes of Brazil empty out within decades.

3. The loss of cane sugar production results in higher prices and more sugar beet investment, especially in France and North America where it grows well.

4. Tea and Coffee become more expensive without South American slavery and land less desirable as sugar additives aren't as cheap or available. What would replace them for the middle/lower classes? Old-style beer?

5. Liquors such as whisky, wine and beer (anything not requiring sugar) became more popular.

6. Naval and merchant fleets take a hit as the African Death takes a high toll on sailors who enjoy brothels. Global trade slows.

7. South America's population especially grows more slowly. Only the gold-regions of Brazil/Peru/Mexico continue to get a large amount of Spanish/Portuguese immigration. Assuming that the Native Americans aren't any more susceptible to these diseases than Africans or Europeans, many local tribes/nations do better than OTL.

8. The great trading powers of Britain, the Netherlands, etc, lose a great deal of influence without control of Asian trade due to reduced number of sailors, more expensive tea/coffee, etc.

9. Reduction of Asian trade indirectly helps the trade deficit of Europe to Asia as less Spanish gold and silver flows to Asia in trade for tea, silk, porcelain, etc.

10. By Darwinism, those nations/faiths that stress monogamy incur fewer African Death casualties. This leads to a religious revival.

11. Eventually, the expansion of colonialism to India, Indochina and Africa becomes less important to Europe as there are fewer profits.

12. China is less likely to be humbled by western powers. Japan more likely to be left alone.

13. Hygiene makes a big comeback. Those cultures that stress bathing would face less Bleeding Death losses (Russia? The Nordic Countries?).

What other effects would there be on the global economy, population movements, etc?

Feel free to digress.

1. If African empires are breaking up, that means more warfare, thus more slaves to make up the losses. If your "cargo" is sick, you throw them overboard as they did OTL. This also raises the price of slaves, meaning more incentive to get slaves. It'll cause a huge ripple effect in Africa (West Africa, at least), especially since the seeds of the Fulani jihad were already sown by the 18th century.

2. There'll still be people there I bet, probably runaway slaves or others. More quilombo-type settings? A place as successful as Palmares?

3. Probably some more experimentation along that root of thought eventually resulting in sugar beets. But there were always plenty of sugar substitutes, if you look at any medieval cookbook. Honey is the most famous, of course. Definitely will mess with cuisine. Indirectly, it'll make places on the periphery of Europe which grew sugarcane (Canary Islands, south Spain, Morocco) wealthier and prevent their decline thanks to the law of supply and demand.

4. Coffee plantations were only starting to take off in Latin America at that time, and tea was imported from Asia. An interesting option to replace them for the lower classes might be yaupon tea (it's a relative of yerba mate and tastes very good), but that was from the Deep South so might have some issues, but yaupon was OTL regularly consumed by poor people in the parts of the South where it was native until the early 20th century, and occasionally in times of tea shortages by other people from elsewhere in the country. Yerba mate itself, perhaps too, since that was from Southern Brazil and not the tropics. But as far as I know, yaupon isn't produced in plantation-style agriculture (possibly could be if demand ever got high enough), and yerba mate wasn't either for centuries, because both are difficult to adapt to that setting. But for the local peoples where its native and to a lesser extent their whole country, it'll probably still be cheaper than imported tea or coffee.

5. Is it even possible to increase the popularity of wine and beer to Europeans? Not sure, other than a place like Boston won't become a major rum-producing center so it'll have to turn to distilling something else. More prominent American whiskey early on?

6. Couldn't be too much worse than syphilis in those days, which was a lot worse than syphilis is now. I could see AIDS evolving on a similar path.

7. Those parts of Peru/Brazil/Mexico were beginning to run out of precious metals by the late 18th, although for Peru and Mexico, those weren't exactly in tropical climates where ebola fluorishes. The Spanish could redirect settlement to Argentina, Chile, and the far north of Mexico (New Mexico, California, etc.), which will be interesting and could have a lot more of a chance of holding on against American influence. Of course, it'll also make the Comanche who plagued Spanish/Mexican Texas and New Mexico even wealthier/stronger if Spain messes up there as well as help mitigate their losses from the plagues.

8. Trade with Asia is now even more important to get that coffee and tea. If they can popularise yaupon or yerba mate outside of their native regions (very doable and personally I'm amazed it didn't happen OTL since both are far superior to coffee or tea), then Britain/Spain/Portugal have made quite a gain.

9. True. And if California is settled more extensively, the Spanish are sitting on another gold mine.

10. They'd notice that priests (Catholic ones, at least), monks, and nuns tend not to get the illness, as well as any other celibate clergy. Likewise elsewhere for eunuchs. Could be interesting.

11. Europeans died in massive amounts in Batavia (and on the way to Batavia), and now since even fewer are going there, people are still going to want to go there because now the profits are even higher. Likewise with India, though you're right that India won't get colonised (too much, at least--European influence will be strong in some areas).

12. Can't really speak for this, but China could still decline and the Qing could still be in trouble relative to Europe. The loss of precious metals flowing into China won't go unnoticed there. Likewise, Japanese society by the 18th century was very well set-up to, well, "pull a Meiji", diseases or not.

13. Deforestation everywhere, I bet. Countries with lots of wood (Scandinavia, Russia, North America) will see a benefit because of the increase in the price of wood. Maybe even earlier industrialisation/coal mining to get the fuel needed for bathing, assuming you want something like traditional public bathing. Cultures which have a tradition of that (Japan, onsen) will see less losses.

 

[Alt History Buff]

Good points.

I disagree with the slavery issue. Most slaves were delivered by the coastal empires. If they fall apart, they wouldn't be able to provide anymore. Also, given the crowded confines of slave ships, I don't see how the Bleeding Death (Ebola) wouldn't spread to virtually every occupant within days. You can throw the dead slaves off the side but I would think contagion would be 100%. Those handful who lived to see the Americas would probably end up killing more American-born slaves (and everyone else they come into contact with), wiping out entire plantations.

Do you think that Yerba and Yaupon could be produced in large enough quantities as to replace tea and coffee?

I don't know much about their production. I imagine they are less labor-intensive than Sugar and therefore less likely to use the dense plantation system.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Good points.

I disagree with the slavery issue. Most slaves were delivered by the coastal empires. If they fall apart, they wouldn't be able to provide anymore. Also, given the crowded confines of slave ships, I don't see how the Bleeding Death (Ebola) wouldn't spread to virtually every occupant within days. You can throw the dead slaves off the side but I would think contagion would be 100%. Those handful who lived to see the Americas would probably end up killing more American-born slaves (and everyone else they come into contact with), wiping out entire plantations.

Do you think that Yerba and Yaupon could be produced in large enough quantities as to replace tea and coffee?

I don't know much about their production. I imagine they are less labor-intensive than Sugar and therefore less likely to use the dense plantation system.

The coastal empires got their slaves from the interior and mostly from warfare. Plus there's Europeans to protect the slave castles and trading outposts they had on the coast. Unless there's anti-slave trade ideologies going around Africa like those of the Nri Kingdom, then the slave castles are safe from the natives, because a lot of money is flowing through them. They won't destroy it, and they'll want to find ways to keep the money flowing through there, and that means selling whoever gets captured in war.

I think I more mean throwing sick slaves off the edge. Since ebola and most viral hemorrhagic fevers (I'm going to assume by "ebola-like" you mean a sort of viral hemorrhagic fever) are so noticeable once the symptoms start, they'll quickly find that it can utterly destroy a cargo (and probably them too). I wouldn't be surprised if the slightest sign of it would mean half the slaves are thrown overboard. I don't know how much they'd be able to infect others once they got there--are there any other viral hemorrhagic fevers beside ebola spread through sexual transmission? Even with ebola, that's pretty rare, and would mainly be an issue if they started "slave breeding" immediately. And no one would sell an obviously sick slave at a slave market.

Mate and yaupon wouldn't be able to be produced in high enough quantities initially, but you'd definitely see plantation-style management for both crops much earlier than OTL. It will still fulfill local and regional demand, since pre-War of the Triple Alliance Paraguay supplied not only its own local production but also all of South America's mate demand with only limited production in Argentina and Brazil. You can spread mate outside of its native range probably to the rainy and mountainous parts of Mexico, Colombia, etc. Likewise with yaupon (a subspecies grows in Chiapas). Yaupon would probably grow in the same areas--wet enough, subtropical climates.

But now that I see this, I think tea production in the US might be a bit more successful if only because more people will be trying, unless yaupon is able to find a root earlier. Since your POD is so close to the Boston Tea Party (related to events regarding British activities in India), I wouldn't be surprised if yaupon isn't at least able to find a regional root (like mate in the south of Brazil) where the lower price and (temporary) unpopularity of tea would give it even more of a boost than it had OTL in that era. Let some of the Founding Fathers (who don't die of *AIDS) get to it and it'll get promoted as an American thing.