"Pontiac's Rebellion and Smallpox as a Weapon" Topic

"Victory in the French and Indian War had opened up new areas of North America for British settlers. The previous inhabitants, France, hadn't settled to the extent that the British now tried, and had not impacted the Indian populations to a great extent. However, colonists now flooded into the newly conquered areas. Indian representatives made it clear to the British that they were unhappy with the number and spread of settlers, as well as the increasing number of British fortifications in the area. This last point was especially heated as British negotiators had promised that the military presence was only to defeat France, but they had stayed on regardless. Many Indians were also upset with the British apparently breaking peace agreements made during the French and Indian war, such as those promising certain areas would be kept for Indian hunting only.​

This Indian resentment caused uprisings. The first of these was the ​​Cherokee War, caused by colonial infringement on Indian land, attacks on Indians by settlers, Indian revenge attacks and the actions of a prejudiced colonial leader who tried to blackmail the Cherokee by taking hostages. It was bloodily crushed by the British. Amherst, the commander of the British army in America, implemented stringent measures in trade and gift giving. Such trade was vital to the Indians, but the measures resulted in a decline in trade and greatly increased Indian anger. There was a political element to Indian rebellion too, as prophets began preaching a divide from European cooperation and goods, and a return to old ways and practices, as the way in which Indians could end a downward spiral of famine and disease. This spread across Indian groups, and chiefs favorable to Europeans lost power. Others wanted the French back as a counter to Britain…"

Main page

link

Armand

Where to start? The author misquotes Fred Anderson, who labeled the attempts to paint smallpox infection as official policy as "genocidal fantasies".

He then refers (indirectly) to the supposed Amherst letter as proof of such policy, despite the fact that the letter in question has been proven to be a 19th Century forgery, written in chemical ink no available until the 1850's.

The usual total fluff piece with no research, just copying other writers, and thereby perpetuating myths upon the casual reader.

One of the great myths in Native American history. I read and hear it all the time. Usually it is the US government who tries to spread small pox through blankets to Native Americas. I believe there was one attempt, that failed badly, at Fort Pitt during Pontiac's War.

The germ warfare against native tribes is one of those ridiculous lies we keep telling kids in school. Get rms and microbes as the cause of disease wasnt discovered until the mid-1840s in its earliest form. If this is noted in an article, forget wasting time on the rest.

I think people had learnt by then that the disease was contagious. However, as I understand it, smallpox was already in the native population at the time of the siege of Fort Pitt.

Glup!.

Armand

If every European who got off the boat had been St Francis of Assisi, the native population would still have perished by the millions, the tens of millions, as a result of the Columbian exchange.

War is horrible and people do horrible things in it. (The Indians were not gentle lambs.) But the destruction of the American native cultures was as inevitable as gravity.

Well, there was syphilis. Allegedly