1768

Norfolk Anti-Inoculation Riots, fueled by anger not at inoculation per se, but at physicians who administered inoculation without approval of local government in their homes and private inoculation hospitals, serving wealthy residents who could afford their fees. “For the rioters, the real threats were those who would risk the lives of the community as a whole to protect themselves” (69, 75). Thomas Jefferson defended the inoculators in court “in part to justify his own strong support for inoculation. Given his own recent inoculation in Philadelphia in 1760, he likely viewed the litigation as an opportunity to bring inoculation into the colony so that wealthy Virginians need not travel to other colonies to receive it” (83). For most Norfolk residents, “liberty was of interdependence not independence” (91).