Smallpox Blankets Given to Indigenous Peoples (1763)

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Corporate Trainer

[@colinarnold3726]

Here's my question that I'm finding it impossible to verify- is this considered the reason for the term "wet blanket"? I was recently in a training and someone said it was. But almost everyone in the room said it's from the meaning of actually using a wet blanket to put out a small fire and was then used to call a person who takes the fun out of a situation. But I cannot find a link between the smallpox blankets and the term "wet blanket."

[@keikairin2038]

OK...lets go through the chain of events. After the French Indian War....the French ceded territory to the British and the British agreed not to move into Indian territory further. The Pontiac decided that they wanted the British to move BACK out of formerly owned French land...and started another war. He attacked FRENCH settlers in regions formerly owned by French and Indians, causing them to flee to Fort Pitt for help. These settlers were infected with Small Pox. They had a hospital there for the infected settlers. The Natives came to Fort Pitt, saying 'hey we just took out your fort, we won't attack you here if you retreat'. The 'Whites' said no we're going to stay but we'll take out your settlement in return for destroying ours. Please evacuate your women and children. The Natives went back to their leaders and said....ok fine we won't attack you. They gave them blankets infected from the infected people sent to their fort. Then the Natives admitted...we didn't really destroy your other fort. We lied. SO. Who is it at fault for biological warfare? The Natives who sent infected colonists to Fort Pitt? Or the British soldiers who said....well they infected us, lets send the illness back through a blanket. It seems to me the Natives were the ones who attempted the biological warfare against Fort Pitt by sending a much more infectous set of human beings to the Fort, then the idiot commander who sent a 'rare possibility of infecting you via a blanket, but I suppose its possible'....back. I think perhaps these Natives infected themselves and just tried to pass the blame to their enemies to save face. Or hey....maybe the fault was the French. These colonists had the North African slaves which came from a region known to be infested with the plague. Chances are you were already infected when you were attacking the people already infected at these settlements. Did you touch any of their infected women? How did you fight wars? Melee over Ranged weapons right? Did you get infected blood on you in the fight? Maybe stop blaming the British for fighting a war you folks started. If you hadn't attacked the infected settlements maybe your people would have been fine. And after the first guy got that infection what did you do? Nothing right. You didn't quarantine him. You let him wander around infecting people. Perhaps its karmic punishment. Now did the French infect their own settlers to harm the British folks coming to take the settlements over from them? Remember the French ceded this territory to the British just a few months earlier. They did not have time to move infected settlers of their own in. Was THAT infection an accident? Who infected the French Settlements? Will we ever know? Remember on the other side of them, on the other side of you was the Spanish. We know they were spreading smallpox to the Aztecs in Mexico in the 1500s. Perhaps they infected you and you infected the French. You were between them.

[@joanhuffman2166]

Smallpox is spread by droplets, not blankets. Full blame for evil intent, but no cigar. Also, the outbreak that occurred during the French and Indian War began earlier in the Spanish empire.

[@jacksprat467]

The British infected them with smallpox via blankets approved by Colonel Henry Bouquet. Its in the archives. Read the old books.

[@johenkay1129]

I just can't buy into that argument. It makes zero sense because just before colonization of the new world, Europe lost a third of its population through the black plague... They would have hundreds of thousands of accounts of people getting sick by touching the belongings of the infected person, by being in the room of that person... Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe circa 1340.... How do you explain that away? The idea that they didn't know they could spread disease through blankets is so implausible, it's laughable.

[@yourewrongabouteverything]

There was not intent they didn't even know what germ theory was!

[@joanhuffman2166]

@@yourewrongabouteverything there is one, ONE record of a fur trader at a British fort during the French and Indian War who gave to Indians blankets from a smallpox ward. He definitely had evil intent. We don't know if it worked because smallpox was already spreading in the area.

[@wallstreetbulls]

a bunch of lies