Is the West a victim of its own past?
IN THE early years of this century a curious search for blankets began in the plains around the Great Lakes in North America. These were not ordinary blankets. They were actually bison skins that were smeared with body fluid tainted with smallpox and used, 200 years ago, to obliterate American Indians.
Post 9/11, US authorities feared that some such blankets might still exist, and a viable source of smallpox might fall into wrong hands. Many areas in the US and Canada were cordoned off. But the operations remained shrouded in secrecy The search did not yield anything, but brought to the fore sordid pages from American history. Many historians trace the notorious blankets to a gruesome episode during the spring of 1763.
That year, a party of Delaware Indians, led by their Ottawa chief Pontiac, laid siege on the British-owned Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a Swiss mercenary and the fort’s senior officer, saved the day for the British. The Indians agreed to temporarily abandon their siege in return of a gift of two blankets and a handkerchief. They had no inkling that the wily Ecuyer had deliberately infected the presents with smallpox contagion.
This episode is confirmed by William Trent—the leader of the militia of European settlers at Fort Pitt—in his journal. Most historians regard this source as the “most detailed contemporary account of the anxious days and nights in the beleaguered fort.” Trent notes in an
Swiss mercenary Captain Simeon Ecuyer presented the Delaware Indians with two blankets and a handkerchief when the latter agreed to abandon their siege on a British-owned fort. The Indians had no inkling that Ecuyer had infected the presents wth smallpox contagion entry dated May 24, 1763, “I hope the means have the desired effects.” They indeed had. By July 17, smallpox had become endemic among the Delaware Indians.
Another villain in this piece is Lord Jeffrey Amherst, commander of British forces in North America during the final battles of the French and Indian wars (1756-1763). The general’s correspondence
shows that he entered into tacit collaboration with his bitter colonial rival, the French, to further the dubious methods initiated by Ecuyer. In his book, historian Francis Parkman notes that Amherst and a French general Henry Bouquet exchanged regular letters about spreading “smallpox among the disaffected tribes of Indians.”
Bouquet was aware of Ecuyer’s method. In a letter dated June 23, 1763, he notes that smallpox had broken out among Indians at Fort Pitt. And on July 13, 1763, he suggests “the distribution of smallpox smeared blankets to 4 | Environmental History Reader inoculate the Indians.” Amherst approves of the method in a letter dated July 16, 1763, and also queries his French interlocutor about other
LORD JEFFREY AMHERST, COMMANDER OF BRITISH FORCES IN NORTH AMERICA, ENTERED INTO A COLLABORATION WITH HIS BITTER COLONIAL RIVAL, THE FRENCH. THEY EXCHANGED LETTERS ABOUT SPREADING “SMALLPOX AMONG THE DISAFFECTED TRIBES OF INDIANS” AND ABOUT METHODS “TO EXTIRPATE THIS EXECRABLE RACE”
methods, “To extirpate this execrable race.” Bouquet and Amherst also discuss the use of dogs to hunt down Indians, called the “Spanish method”. But this method could not be put into practice, because there were not enough dogs.
Amherst had been at war with the French as much as with the Indians, but he was not driven by any obsessive desire to extirpate them from the face of the Earth. The general had no scruples when it came to Indians. His letters abound with phrases such as, “That vermine (sic) have forfeited all claims to the rights of humanity.” Historian J C Long, records the general as saying, “I would be happy for the provinces [Pittsburg] if there was not an Indian settlement within a thousand miles of them.” smallpox if a small dose of cowpox could be administered to them. Such knowledge was kept away from indigenous people in the colonies.
Today, the West remains in mortal fear of diseases that originate in Asia (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS; avian influenza) and Africa (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, Ebola and monkeypox). But almost all vaccination measures are designed to protect citizens of the developed world. There is very little effort to protect those who face the greatest risk from violent diseases. For example, discontinuation of smallpox vaccination in Africa has exposed many in the continent to other related infections, like the monkeypox.