Early American settlers tried to eliminate Native Americans by purposely giving away small pox laden blankets
zeez
were the ones that commited this evil, sick, and vile act.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/smallpox1.html
(also google for "smallpox+blankets+hospital+indians for more info on
this)
>From an Internet post by Mary Ritchie (ritc...@cs.uwp.edu) Fri, 2 Jul
1993. She addressed the question of whether Smallpox was really spread
by blankets to American Indians
This reference [for the story of American Indians and deliberate
smallpox spreading ]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 exposed 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 Immunization 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."
Raymond
Read: Interesting article on above subject.: Smallpox blankets.
Smallpox in the New World:
Plains Indian Smallpox
by
O. Ned Eddins
The "white man" diseases...measles, chicken pox, typhus, typhoid fever,
dysentery, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and after 1832, cholera...were
devastating to the American Indian. Lumped together, these diseases
did not equal the havoc of smallpox in terms of number of deaths,
realignment of tribal alliances, and subsequent changes in Canadian
and American Indian Cultures.
Michael
http://www.thefurtrapper.com/indian_smallpox.htm
I spent a long time reading it. It looks very thorough and
intelligently done. I especially appreciate the even-handed
approach. Refreshing compared to the commonly found agenda-ridden
propaganda (on either side of the political fence).
Michael