Black-related diseases have occupied most of our attention to this point. We have seen Caribbean blacks dying of myriad ailments that ranged from epidemic cholera to endemic nutritional ailments to the chronic illnesses that accompanied them from Africa. Whites, by contrast, were troubled little by most of these diseases. Yet their demographic performance in the West Indies was even more dismal than that of their servants. In the words of Philip Curtin, “We know in a vague way that, in the Caribbean, the net natural decrease for Europeans was higher than it was for Africans, but not by how much or how long this situation persisted.”

This “situation” was not, as we know from Chapter 1, created by indigenous diseases; nor was it the creation of numerous illnesses of varied etiologies, such as those that plagued the slaves. Rather, major responsibility is borne by only two illnesses, both of them of African origin and both far more deadly to whites than to blacks.