Jonah Burkart

Topic

On the Origins of Syphilis: Blame, Othering, and the Pox of Many Names in the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Worlds

Department of History

Date & location

• Thursday, August 27, 2026
• 11:30 A.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B007

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Beatriz de Alba-Koch, Department of History, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Sara Beam, Department of History, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Enrique Fernández, Department of French, Spanish and Italian, University of Manitoba

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. James Rowe, School of Environmental Studies, UVic

Abstract

The origins of syphilis have long been obscured by political blame and speculation. After the 1494 epidemic in Europe, theories of the disease's origins often blamed whatever country was politically convenient, framing the disease as a foreign invader. During the early modern period, the theory of an American origin became increasingly popular, first through the lens of religious difference, and later aligning with emerging Enlightenment-era narratives that emphasized constructions of Indigenous sexual and racial “otherness” in contrast to European “civilization.” This paper examines the European narratives of blame that used syphilis to argue the moral and physical degeneration of the Americas, and highlights the response crafted by the Creole Jesuit scholar Francisco Javier Clavigero in his Storia Antica del Messico and its accompanying dissertations. It argues that Clavigero’s refutation of syphilis’ American origin was central to his effort to uphold the moral integrity of the ‘New World’ and to assert and defend his own Creole identity. The paper aims to demonstrate the significance of the role of syphilis in the Enlightenment debates of the ‘New World,’ and to show how eighteenth-century Latin American responses to these disease narratives both challenged Eurocentrism and contributed to emerging forms of national identity.