John Rodgers (1793-1851) studied at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in 1816. He travelled to England where he spent two years at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital. In 1820, with , he co-founded America’s first specialty hospital, the New York Eye Infirmary. His reputation soon spread and in 1823, Governor Paulus Roelof Cantz’laar invited him to work in Curaçao. “In what might be described as opthamology’s first international goodwill mission, he performed scores of severe operations on poor and rich patients alike in two converted rooms of a fort located near Willemstad, the capital city” (Levin).
While much of the correspondence constitutes professions of adoration, Rodgers includes descriptions of his time on the island. On April, 30 he writes: “I have felt flattered to by being asked to perform operations which the surgeons of the island would not be trusted with and have been pleased with the success in those as well there the surgeons were afraid to make any attempt … I saw many indigent persons afflict with various diseases who were not able to procure proper medical advice … The Governor having taken great interest in a gentleman on whom I operated & having wished me success in all my operations, I told him that if apartments were provided for I was willing to devote an hour every day to their service. He has given me the use of a house in the Fort …”
In a long letter written from the Fryke Plantation, he comments on the drought endured on the island. Rodgers states the plantation owner “has lost upwards of a hundred head of horned cattle, beside horses. How, many of the Planters support themselves, & feed upwards of a hundred slaves, I cannot conceive, for in most fruitful seasons, nothing is raised on land for exploitation, not even coffee & sugar enough for their own consumption. At present even the corn on which the negroes are fed is imported from the U.S.”
He continues on the conditions endured by the enslaved population: “That these last do not live very luxuriously you may readily imagine, their fare is slender indeed. Six quarts of corn are allowed weekly to each adult male & five to a female, the quantity given to children in proportion to their age. No other food is allowed by the master … On many plantations the negroes are allowed as much ground as they can cultivate, when the work of their master is accomplished.” Mr Parker sometimes buys the produce for a “fair market price” or offers an advance on what they might receive later. Incredibly, he states that the enslaved workforce “might take more thought for the morrow. If they were industrious & active they might live well as there are vast quantities of fish on the coast and in the lagoons, … and there are land animals which they might catch …”
It’s a very clumsy, if well-meant, preparation for what follows. “This needless way induces many of their weak masters to think nature has actually created the negro far [infe]rior than the white and … often in consequence of this opinion treated as if he were removed but one degree & that a small one from the brutes.” Later, referring to a racist patient, he adds “He was astonished at my decided negative & still more, when in taking the part of the happy Africans, I stated by belief that they are equal in intellect to the white.”
The letters are accompanied by a pamphlet by Dr Alexander Hossack discussing the disagreements over cause of death of Dr Rodgers.
Levin, L., A Vision of Hope: the 200 year history of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NY, 2020) p.9; Sabin, 33082 for the accompanying pamphlet: HOSACK (Alexander E.) History of the Case of the Late John Kearny Rodgers, MD. First edition. 8vo. Original printed wrappers, a little edgewear & toning, old vertical fold. 47, [1]pp. New York, C.S. Francis & Co., 1851.
