> Original Sender: Neal Davis <BINGVAXA.bitnet!BA07301>
> Mailing List: NATCHAT (natchat@gnosys.svle.ma.us)
>
>
> Some time ago (on this line I believe) someone posted a note on estimated
> population figures in the Americas before and after European arrival, and
> the contribution of disease to the population decline. This brought to
> my mind an often repeated story of how blankets contaminated with smallpox
> were distributed to Native American people. The intention was to spread
> the disease and eliminate any resistance to colonists.
>
> A friend recently challenged this story and said that it is a myth
> often cited as fact. I let it go since I was stumped for a definitive
> source. But I continue to wonder... So, can anyone tell
> me if this is a true story? If so, can you suggest a reference? If this
> is not a true story, where did it come from and why is it still repeated?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Neal Davis BA07301@BINGVAXA.BITNET
This reference is from _American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A
Population History Since 1492_ by Russell Thornton, 1987 (Norman: U. of
Oklahoma Pr.) pp.78-79
"It is also during the eighteenth century that we find written reports of
American Indians being intentionally esposed to smallpox by Europeans. In
1763 in Pennsylvania,
Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander of the British forces....wrote in
the postscript of a letter to Bouquet the suggestion that smallpox
be sent among the disaffected tribes. Bouquet replied, also in a
postscript, "I will try to innoculate the[m]...with some blankets
that may fall into their hands, and take care not get the disease
myself." ....To Bouquet's postscript, amherst replied, "You will
do well as to try to innoculate the Indians by means of blankets
as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate
this exorable race." On June 24, Captain Ecuyer, of the Royal
Americans, noted in his journal: "Out of our regard for them
(i.e. two Indian chiefs) we gave them two blankets and a
handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have
the desired effect." (quoted from Stearn, E. and Stearn, A.
"Smallpox Immuninzation of the Amerindian." _Bulletin of the
History of Medicine_13:601-13.)
Thornton goes on to report that smallpox spread to the tribes along the
Ohio river.