Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Cholera swept up the James Valley in late July and persisted into late October 1832. It arrived one year after Nat Turner’s Rebellion, which had precipitated a debate among white people in Virginia about gradually abolishing slavery and deporting all people of color. Ann Maury, a member of an elite family, predicted that cholera would solve the issue by devastating the African American population. Her views echoed widespread racist opinions that people of color were incapable of taking care of themselves and would be particularly vulnerable. As elsewhere, Vibrio inflicted disproportionate losses on the oppressed, especially in Norfolk and Richmond, not because of their own choices but because of their inability to avoid contaminated water. The disease also replicated its pattern of taking the lives of supposedly respectable people, especially after municipal authorities had prematurely declared local outbreaks to have ended.</jats:p>