Insights from research at HEC Lausanne-UNIL – The introduction and spread of slavery in the United States are a controversial period of US history that has prompted numerous debates. In her latest research, Professor Elena Esposito from HEC Lausanne (UNIL) has tackled this sensitive issue by trying to understand whether there was a link between the spread of malaria and the increase in slavery in the United States.
By researching historical documents and archive data, Prof. Elena Esposito discovered that malaria played a significant role in the spread of slavery in the United States at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century.
The epidemic meant that warm, humid areas of the United States, mainly in the south, faced a real shortage of labor. The results of the research led by Prof. Esposito showed that the pandemic context prompted plantation owners to turn to slaves from sub-Saharan Africa because of their resistance to the disease. Exposure to a disease that had been raging in their countries of origin for many years meant that Africans had a higher resistance to malaria than either Native Americans or Europeans.
Find out more about the results of the research in the article on our blog, HECimpact.
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