Amherst.

This is coolbert:

Here is a letter to the editor from the March 2003 issue of the National Geographic. A letter in response to a previous article in the Geographic concerning weapons of mass destruction [WMD].

"'I didn't see any reference to an early instance of biological warfare that took place at Fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh, under the command of British Gen. Jeffrey Amherst. In 1763 his troops distributed blankets infected with smallpox to Indian tribes around the fort in an attempt to end a rebellion against British rule. About 200 native people died, and many were disfigured and crippled. General Amherst is considered a hero, there are schools and towns named after him, it was a shameful period in our history' - - Conrad Reitz, Windsor, Ontario."

Well, this is all true. Jeffrey Amherst, during the French and Indian War, did give blankets containing smallpox virus to American Indians, killing some of them [about 200]. This is well known and NOT new history.

Amherst is famous and does have a town and college in Massachusetts named after him.

Amherst is NOT famous for giving smallpox to the American Indians. Amherst was respected and famous for NOT being willing to lead British troops against the American colonialists during the American Revolutionary War.

Amherst saw the American cause as being JUST. He would not participate in quelling the rebellion. For this he is famous.

It is true that American Indians were exceptionally susceptible to diseases of the "white man". Struck down and decimated whole tribes with just unbelievable force. In Central America, within fifty years of the coming of Cortez, 95 % of the Aztecs, Maya, and other tribes were all dead from smallpox, influenza, measles, and the common cold. All brought by Spanish Conquistadores. These folks just DID NOT have any natural resistance that people in the rest of the world had [not that folks in the rest of the world had a lot of resistance themselves. Historically, about 1/3 of people world-wide that got smallpox died]. Evidence that American Indians had been separate from the rest of humanity for a LONG time.

What the history books also do not tell you is the important and massive effort undertook by the U.S. Army to inoculate and save American Indians from the ravages of smallpox. According to Al Nofi of the "Strategy Page" CIC:

"During the 1850s, the US Army Medical Service vaccinated over 10,000 Plains Indians against smallpox."

It has often been suggested that the American conquest of what is now the United States was "GENOCIDE". Killing of American Indians on a massive scale to clear the way for "white" settlement. Well, if this is so, the American government went about this "genocide" in a strange manner. Saving by inoculation the American Indian from a disease that killed them in such great numbers.

[it is reputed that the daughter of the great American Indian warrior Crazy Horse died during an outbreak of smallpox among the Sioux Indians. In retaliation, Crazy Horse supposedly went on a rampage and killed over thirty prospectors he found in the sacred grounds of the Black Hills. There is also a terrible irony to the life of Crazy Horse. Some believe he might have been either a white captive of the Sioux or a person of mixed ancestry, half white, half Indian.

"Eyewitnesses agree that he had sandy hair and pale skin – a description that is confirmed by an 1876 photo taken by one S.J. Morrow – the only known authentic portrait of Crazy Horse."

This can and will never be confirmed of course, but makes for an interesting speculation, does it not!!??]

Go to this Strategy Page article to read about the history of how smallpox was combated on a global scale. Also the effect the disease has had on the military and military campaigns the WORLD OVER throughout history!!

If Genghis Khan can be a hero to the Mongols and Napoleon be a hero to the French, I guess Jeffrey Amherst can be a hero to the American revolutionaries. The two former killed a helluva lot more folks than did Jeffrey.

coolbert.