Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox Blankets

Here's the known evidence for the legends of smallpox blankets among the Indians. It comes much later, and isn't nearly as widespread as is commonly reported.

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

Excellent find.

Those offended by Colonel Bouquet's part in the matter can take solace in the fact that he died of disease at Pensacola shortly after his promotion to General in the year 1765. His accomplishment at Brushy Run seems to have been overshadowed by the Amherst correspondence, but I suppose that is to be expected in this age.

Ed (a lineal descendant of the very late Henry Louis Bouquet- unless proven otherwise)

ping

((((((growl)))))

Here's the known evidence for the legends of smallpox blankets among the Indians. It comes much later, and isn't nearly as widespread as is commonly reported.\

Blankets played a role. I guess. But the real culprit simply was European diseases that the Indians had no resistance to. Indians got it from contact with the Europeans. See the movie "Black Robe" sometime. Lothair Bluteau is the lead. He once had a great part in Miami Vice TV show

Thanks for posting this. I research this stuff, and recently put out a call for documentary evidence on this very subject on an "Early American History" listserve. The Amherst incident is the only piece of evidence that anyone on there could present for the "small-pox blanket" urban legend.

For what it's worth, by the time of the Amherst incident [1763], small pox had been ravaging the Indian populations for nearly 150 years. Perhaps the greatest devastation was wrought unwittingly by the French missionaries in Canada, who brought both small pox and tuberculosis, among other diseases to the Indians. As the Indians had never been exposed to these diseases before, the death toll was catastrophic. In the Jesuit Relations, the following excerpt gives some idea of the scope of the disaster on the Algonquin tribes near Quebec, which had been stuck successively by famine, plague, and war with the implacable Iroquois:

"All these events have so greatly thinned the numbers of our Savages that, where eight years ago one could see eighty or a hundred cabins, barely five or six can now be seen; a Captain, who then had eight hundred warriors under his command, now has not more than thirty or forty; instead of fleets of three or four hundred Canoes, we see now but twenty or thirty."

The French, to their credit, did everything in their power to minister to the Indians suffering under the these plagues, contrary to the common presentation of the European as oppressor/conqueror in academic and media today.

One more thing for us to feel guilty about? I can't handle much more.

Actually, having read nearly 1/2 of the Jesuit Relations, I didn't find Black Robe all that compelling. For those who don't have the wherewithal to make it through all 73 volumes, a very compelling history of this period may be found in Francis Parkman's The Jesuits and other volumes in his series on the pioneers. It should be found in any public library worth its salt. Just be aware of Parkman's not-atypical, unhidden anti-Catholic bias.

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Question: approximately when did science actually figure out how diseases and viruses, such as small-pox spread? Thanks.

Question: approximately when did science actually figure out how diseases and viruses, such as small-pox spread? Thanks.

Funny you should ask. Historical overview of smallpox here...

Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible
of the Ministers of Death

The depiction of Indians as wild beasts was quite common among early American leaders, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. David E. Stannard writes: 'As is so often the case, it was New England's religious elite who made the point more graphically than anyone. Referring to some Indians who had given offense to the colonists, the Reverend Cotton Mather wrote: "Once you have but got the Track of those Ravenous howling Wolves, then pursue them vigourously; Turn not back till they are consumed… Beat them small as the Dust before the Wind."

This seems pretty awful out of context. Here's the context. Read it if you can:

Jesuit Relation of 1643-4, R. G. Thwaites, ed. Volume 26, page 29.

We would have been deprived of all knowledge of what has happened to Father Bressany since the time of his capture, had we not heard it from a trustworthy person who was an eyewitness of all that he suffered during his captivity. After the first encounter, related above, [161] the Iroquois crossed Lake saint Pierre, and took the captives, for their sleep, to a very damp but very retired place,—where the Father and his companions, all securely bound, passed the night without any shelter but the Sky, or other bed than the earth. This was their usual lot, every night throughout the journey. On the following day, they were made to embark; and, after two days’ navigation, they met another band of Iroquois, who, overjoyed at this capture, gave the Father several blows with cudgels and threatened him with rougher treatment. When the last comers informed the others of the death of one of their most distinguished companions, which had happened at Montreal, the Father was no longer spared.

After two days’ navigation, he landed, and walked for six days barefooted through the woods, brush, and swamps,—fasting until about four o’clock in the afternoon, when a halt was made for the purpose of taking a rest. But hardly any was given to the Father, who, wet with rain, with the water of melting snows, of the torrents, and of the [162] rivers that had to be crossed, was compelled to assume all the tasks of the cooking. He was sent for the water and wood; and when he did not do well, or did not understand what was said to him, blows from cudgels were not lacking,—nor were they, whenever the party encountered Hunters and Fishermen.

When the six days had expired, he had to embark on the Lake of the Iroquois, which they crossed in 8 days; they then landed, and walked for three days more. On the fourth day, which was the fifteenth of May, about three o’clock in the afternoon, while he was still fasting, they reached a place where there were about 400 Savages, who had erected their cabins there for fishing. About two hundred paces beyond the cabins, the Father was stripped quite naked; and when the Savages had ranged themselves in two lines, facing each other, and armed with cudgels, he was ordered to march the first of all through the ranks of the band. No sooner had he lifted his foot than one of the Iroquois seized him by the left hand, and with a knife inflicted a deep gash between the third and the little fingers; and then the others discharged on him a [163] shower of blows with cudgels, and led him thus to the cabins. There they made him ascend a scaffold (raised about six feet from the ground),-quite naked, bathed in his own blood, that flowed from nearly every part of his body, and exposed to a cold wind that congealed his blood on his skin; and they ordered him to sing during the feast that they gave to those who had brought in the prisoners.

When the feast was over, the warriors withdrew and left the Father and his companions in the hands of the young men, who made them descend from the scaffold, whereon they had stood for two hours, exposed to the jeers of these Barbarians. When they had come down, they were made to dance, after their fashion. But, as the Father did not do it well, they struck him, goaded him, and tore out his hair. Five or six days were spent in this pastime. Some one out of compassion threw him some shreds of a gown, wherewith to cover himself. He made use of it during the day; but at night they took it from him, and, gathering round him, one goaded him with a very sharp stick; another burned him with a [164] firebrand; others seared him with calumets heated red-hot. The children threw on him hot embers and glowing coals. Then they made him walk around the fire where they had stuck short, pointed sticks into the ground, and had scattered hot embers and live coals; others tore out his beard and his hair.

Every night, they would begin anew this diverting sport; and, at the end, they would burn one of his nails or one of his fingers during seven or eight minutes. One night, they would burn a nail; another night, the first joint of a finger; on another, the second joint. Thus they applied fire to his fingers over eighteen times. They pierced his left foot with a stick, and, meantime, he was compelled to sing. This little amusement lasted until fully two hours after midnight; and then they left him there, lying flat on the ground in a spot where rain fell abundantly,—his only covering being a small skin that did not cover one half of his body. A whole month passed in this manner.

From this place, he was taken to the first Village of the Iroquois, and suffered more on [165] this journey than on the previous one,—being wounded, feeble, poorly clad, with but little food, and at night exposed to the air and bound to a tree; so that, instead of sleeping, he could only shiver with the cold. On arriving at the first Village, he was received with severe blows, administered with cudgels on the most sensitive parts of his body; but the blows were so heavy that he fell to the ground, half dead. They still continued to strike him on the chest and on the head, and would have killed him, had not a Captain dragged him on the scaffold that had been erected, as on the first occasion. Here they cut off his left thumb, and two fingers of his right hand, after first, slitting his hand between the second and middle fingers. In the meanwhile, there came a heavy shower accompanied by thunder and lightning, which drove the Savages away, and so they left him there quite naked. As night approached, they took him into a cabin where they burned the remainder of his nails and some of his fingers, twisted his toes, and forced him to eat [166] filth and what the dogs had left, without giving him any rest.

After he had been so tortured in that Village, he was taken to another, at a distance of two or three leagues, where again he had to suffer the same torments. He was, moreover, hung up in chains, by the feet; and, when he was taken down, his feet, his hands, and his neck were bound with the same chains. Seven days passed in this manner, and new tortures were added; for he was made to suffer in places and in ways concerning which propriety will not allow us to write. Sagamite was poured on his stomach and the dogs were called to eat the sagamite, biting him as they ate. All these sufferings reduced him to such a state that he became so offensive and noisome to the smell, that all kept away from him as from carrion and approached only to torment him.

He was covered with pus and filth, and his sores were alive with maggots. With all this, he could hardly find any one who would give him a little Indian corn boiled in water. The blows that he [167] had received caused an abscess to form on his thigh, that allowed him no rest,—which was, moreover, difficult to obtain on account of the hardness of the ground, on which he stretched his body, that was only skin and bone. He did not know how he could succeed in opening his abscess, but God guided the hand of a Savage—who wished to stab him three times with a knife—so that the Savage struck him directly on the abscess, whence flowed an abundance of pus and blood, and thus he was cured. Who would ever have thought that any man could have suffered so much without dying—abandoned in terra aliena, in loco horroris et vastae soditudinis; without language with which to make himself heard; without friends to console him; without Sacraments, and without any remedy wherewith to alleviate his suffering? He did not know why the Savages deferred his death so long,—unless, perhaps, to fatten him before eating him; but they did not take the means to do so.

Finally, on the 19th of June, the Iroquois gahered together from all the Villages, to the number of 2,000, in the Village where the Father was, who thought that that day [168] would be the last of his life. After the meeting, he begged the Captain that the torture by fire might be changed for another; as for death, he would welcome it. “Not only shalt thou not suffer by fire,” replied the Captain, “ but what is more, thou shalt not die. That has been resolved.” I know not how they came to take that resolution; but I know well that they themselves were afterward astonished at it, without knowing why, as the Dutch and the good Cousture—who was taken two years ago with Father Jogues, and who saw Father Bressany only after his deliverance—have related.

That resolution taken, they gave him, with all the ceremonies usual in the country, to a good woman whose grandfather had formerly been killed by the Hurons in an encounter. This woman received him; but her daughters could not bear him, because he inspired them with such horror. I know not whether it was this that led the mother to think of his deliverance, or whether it was through compassion that she took on him, or, rather, because she saw that he was unfit for work owing to the mutilation [169] of his fingers, and was convinced that he would be a burden upon her. In any case, she ordered her son to take him to the Dutch, and, on receiving some present from them, to deliver him into their hands. This the son faithfully carried out.

But, before leaving, the Father had the consolation of baptizing a Huron who was being taken to the torture, and who earnestly begged for Baptism before dying. This the Father granted him, knowing that he had received sufficient instruction from our Fathers. But it could not be done so secretly that the Iroquois did not perceive it, so they compelled him to go out and leave him. When he was dead, they brought his limbs into the cabin where the Father was, and, after cooking them, they ate them in his presence; then, placing the head of the dead man at his feet, they asked: “Well! of what avail was Baptism to him?” If the Father could have explained himself in their language, it would have been a good opportunity for him to instruct them. It was, nevertheless, a profound consolation [170] to have been there so opportunely for the happiness of that poor Savage. He started shortly afterward, in the company of the young Savage, the son of the good widow, who took him to the Dutch. He was received by them with great kindness, and they satisfied the Savage beyond all his expectations; they gave the Father clothes, and, after keeping him with them for some time, until his health was restored, they put him on board a ship. He reached la Rochelle, on the fifteenth of November of the year 1644, in better health than he has ever enjoyed since he has belonged to our Society.

And lest anyone think that the above post regarding the torture of Fr. Bressani was an isolated incident, the Jesuit Relations contains eyewitness accounts of *scores* of other such equally grusome tortures inflicted mainly by Indians on other Indians.

Another thread...

POX AMERICANA -- The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775 - 82

Posted by Sabertooth
On 11/16/2001 1:25 PM PST with 15 comments

IMdiversity.com ^ | October, 2001 | Elizabeth Fenn
The following is a review of Pox Americana by the Native American Village Staff… During the years when the Revolutionary War transformed thirteen former British colonies into a new nation, a horrifying epidemic of smallpox was transforming -- or ending -- the lives of tens of thousands of people across the American continent. This great pestilence easily surpassed the war in terms of deaths, yet because of our understandable preoccupation with the Revolution and its aftermath, it has remained virtually unknown to us. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply Variola affected the outcome of ...

From the other thread:Variolation soon reached the New World, and in 1721,

So how likely is it that Amherst would have had all his troops variolated (proper usage?)against small-pox so that he would be able to infect the Indians with complete confidence that it wouldn't backlash on him and his?

You are a scholar and I'm just a movie goer. I saw "Black Robe" years ago so the particulars escape me. No way can it be as accurate or deep as the sources you mention.

Torture was high entertainment for many Indians. So was war. Many (most) Indian wars were not over hunting grounds and scarce resources. They were for honor, for booty, to capture fertile women to increase the tribe.

POX AMERICANA -- The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775 - 82
			Posted by Sabertooth On 11/16/2001 1:25 PM PST with 15 comments IMdiversity.com ^ \| October, 2001 \| Elizabeth Fenn The following is a review of Pox Americana by the Native American Village Staff… During the years when the Revolutionary War transformed thirteen former British colonies into a new nation, a horrifying epidemic of smallpox was transforming -- or ending -- the lives of tens of thousands of people across the American continent. This great pestilence easily surpassed the war in terms of deaths, yet because of our understandable preoccupation with the Revolution and its aftermath, it has remained virtually unknown to us. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply Variola affected the outcome of ...