Born Then1789–1790
Life during the Smallpox epidemic around Sydney
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
About a year after the British First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove, smallpox broke out among the Aboriginal people of the area in April 1789. It killed a large share of the Eora and neighbouring peoples. How it started is still debated.
Deaths: perhaps half or more of the Aboriginal people around Port Jackson.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
Around the same time
- Indian Ocean slave trade 700–1799
- Atlantic slave trade (West Africa) 1501–1799
- Atlantic slave trade (Kongo and Angola) 1514–1799
- Plantation slavery in Brazil 1550–1799
- Tokugawa peace 1603–1780
- Sugar slavery in the Caribbean 1640–1799
- Slavery in the British North American colonies 1660–1799
- Bengal famine of 1770 1769–1771
- Spanish missions in California 1769–1799
- Great Tenmei famine 1782–1788
- Laki haze and the cold winter of 1783–1784 1783–1784
- Laki eruption and the Haze Famine 1783–1785
- Smallpox epidemic around Sydney 1789–1790
- Atlantic slave trade, final decades 1800–1866
- Slavery in the United States 1800–1865
- Slavery in Brazil 1800–1888
- Serfdom in the Russian Empire 1800–1861
- Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815
- Fulani War and the Sokoto Caliphate 1804–1808
- Spanish American wars of independence 1808–1826