Facts don’t back smallpox scheme

Diane Fraser’s letter to the editor (June 6) is one of a string of letters on this subject that contain errors of fact.

Indeed, The Guardian’s editorial of May 10 on the same subject contains such errors.

Jeffery Amherst had nothing to do with smallpox-contaminated blankets in relation to the Mi’kmaq or any aboriginal group in the area now known as the Atlantic Provinces.

What he did in 1763, five years after leaving Cape Breton following the capture of Louisbourg, was to suggest to a subordinate, Henry Bouquet, that the latter arrange for smallpox-contaminated blankets to be distributed to the Shawnee and Delaware aboriginal peoples in Pennsylvania.

There is no evidence that Bouquet actually did such, but others apparently borrowed the idea and independently did so.

Many writers — a few of them historians but most not — have extrapolated or embellished these facts, as established from primary documentation, to arrive at Amherst’s having actually committed the deed and that it involved the Mi’kmaq.

An essential part of this process is one writer after another indiscriminately regurgitating information found in secondary sources, including letters to the editor, opinion pieces and editorials.

Space does not permit me to go into more detail on the results of scholarly work on the Amherst/ smallpox matter.

However those interested should consult the peer-reviewed publications of American historians Philip Ranlet and Bernhard Knollenberg.

Amherst’s smallpox idea has made him a controversial figure in some quarters, though biographers have generally not painted him as such.

Earle Lockerby,

Darnley