In honor of Thanksgiving, I would like to make this post in honor of the Native Americans whose lands were stolen from them by European invaders:
“The surrender terms, however, gave nothing to the Native Americans who had fought alongside the French, some of whom had traveled from as far away as present day Wisconsin. Native American warriors would have expected scalps, captives, and booty in the wake of victory.
And so on the afternoon of the surrender, the French-allied Native Americans began to seize what they believed they were owed: entering the fort’s hospital, they killed the sick and wounded, taking scalps and possessions, and they dug up the recently buried and took their scalps, too, along with whatever clothing and blankets had been buried with the corpses. The next day they launched an attack on the departing evacuees, taking captives, more scalps, and more goods.”
- Fred Anderson. 2000. Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, pp. 187-189. New York.
“But some of those who had lain ill in Fort William Henry’s hospital and some of those whose corpses had been scalped had had smallpox. Consequently, the warriors carried more than scalps, captives, and booty with them; they also carried the deadly smallpox virus. Some warriors became ill en route, and halted to die at Fort Niagara; others reached their villages only to spread it to kin and neighbors.”
- R. Peter MacLeod. 1992. “Microbes and Muskets: Smallpox and the Participation of the Amerindian Allies of New France in the Seven Years War,” Ethnohistory 39: 42-64.
And don’t forget my own very popular and widely linked piece on the smallpox-infected blankets bullshit.
The real reason is alluded to above, among other things:
The real spread of smallpox was caused by the French invention of paying for scalps of English and Dutch colonists. Seems the Indians in the employ of the French were so eager to feast on French trade goods that they would dig up the recent graves of smallpox victims to scalp them. A scalp was treated like cash (which it was) and as cash crossed many hands before being retired by the French paymaster.
Smallpox-infected blankets, my ass.