Ecologies of Risk: Malaria and Settler Landscape Transformation in 19th‐Century Ontario

Malaria's persistence in 19th-century Ontario reflected a structural embedding of disease risk within settler-transformed landscapes. Deforestation, altered hydrology, and agricultural intensification created ecologies conducive to mosquito breeding. Vulnerability was not evenly distributed but shaped by age, labor, and proximity to altered environments. These findings underscore the importance of integrating environmental and historical data to reconstruct past disease ecologies and illustrate how evolutionary mismatch can drive vulnerability even in short-lived endemic contexts.