On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:12:51 -0500, Douglas Deal wrote

> This is probably *not* a myth. See the refs to Jeffrey Amherst and
> other smallpox related episodes in the following H-West exchange
> from 1995: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~west/threads/disc-smallpox.html
>

From that website:

<<<<On the plan to use smallpox as a weapon against the Indians; Parkman, in
_The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ (Vol 2, pgs 39-40, in the new Bison edition)
discussed this proposal. The idea, apparently, came from Lord Amherst, in a
letter of orders to Col Bouquet, saying "Could it not be contrived to send
the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this
occassion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them". Bouquet replied
that he would try and use infected blankets as a means of introducing the
disease among the Indians, but was wary of the effects that it would have on
his own men.

Parkman states that there is no evidence that Bouquet ever used the smallpox
plan, although an epidemic raged among the Ohio Indians "a few months after"
the July 1763 correspondence.>>>>

At Fort Pitt in 1763, Capt. Ecuyer did attempt infecting them by giving the
Indians two blankets and a handkerchief. There has been considerable doubt
that it would have been effective. As I had mentioned before, it's more
probable that the infected, bloody scalps taken from the dead buried outside
Ft. Pitt would have been much more effective in spreading the pathogen than
two blankets. Those scalps would have been distributed further and faster
than two blankets and a handkerchief. That would explain the epidemic that
raged throughout the Ohio Indians after Pontiac has laid siege to Ft. Pitt.

Granted, it was attempted by Ecuyer, in one documented instance, but was
probably not near as successful (if it even was) as taking bloody war
trophies.

The problem is that one letter by Amherst is used as evidence that giving
infected blankets was a common practice, which has not been proven.

Regards,

Tom Apple

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