1763–64: Britain wages biological warfare with smallpox
The British give smallpox-contaminated blankets to Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware) communities—an action sanctioned by the British officers Sir Jeffery Amherst and his replacement, General Thomas Gage.
“Out of our regard to them … we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.” —An eyewitness, quoted in Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–81, 2001
- Theme
- Epidemics
- Region
- Northeast
![Drawing Showing Nahuas [Nahuatl] Infected with Smallpox Disease](http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/assets/timeline/000/000/236/236_w_full.jpg "Drawing Showing Nahuas [Nahuatl] Infected with Smallpox Disease")
Image of a Mesoamerican infected with smallpox. Illustrated panel from the Florentine Codex, a compendium of information on Aztec people and history by Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th-century Spanish Franciscan missionary.
Courtesy Granger Collection, New York