Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,995
A general fails in an attempt to exterminate
the Indians by infecting them with smallpox...
On August 3, 1797 died on his country estate "Sevenoaks" (county of Kent)...
... the British Field Marshal Sir Jeffrey Amhearst...:
He had enjoyed a successful military career, beginning as an ensign in the War of the Austrian Succession at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, continuing in Germany during the Seven Years' War under Baron Cumberland (Battle of Hastenbek) and then continuing in America during the Franco-Prussian War would have.
He was promoted over the heads of senior and more experienced officers to Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Canada in 1759 - to his own boundless surprise - in 1759 commanded a push up Lake Champlain in support of the Siege of Quebec commanded by General James Wolfe, drove out the French from Fort Ticonderoga and forced the Montreal garrison to surrender on September 8, 1760, effectively ending French rule in Canada....:
During the American Revolutionary War he declined a field command because he had close ties to numerous figures on the opposite side. In 1778 he received the supreme command of the British Army, in the same year the rank of Field Marshal.
Reading all this, one might think that Field Marshal Lord Amhearst was an honorable man.
But no! He certainly wasn't!
This British nobleman can at best be compared to butchers like Heinrich Himmler or Lavrentij Beria - because he was a ruthless murderer who did not kill with hands or weapons, but with orders.
In his vita there is namely - in Great Britain gladly kept secret! - the so-called "Pontiac Rebellion", a rebellion by Native Americans in the Great Lakes region.
Led by Ottawa Chief Obwandiyag (the British called him "Pontiac")...
...about a dozen tribes living there had formed a confederation, which together defended themselves against the harassing British rule!
At that time, Amhearst was also the military governor of Canada and thus the supreme commander in the fight against the Indian rebellion...:
And he was not at all honorable towards the natives! For him they were little more than annoying insects that should all be killed if possible!
In a surviving letter dated July 16, 1763, his lordship ordered blankets and other clothing that had been deliberately infected with smallpox germs to be handed over to the natives...:
The proposal for this "silent holocaust" came from a colonel on his staff named Henry Bouquet...:
Bouquet made his proposal in writing - this letter has also been preserved...:
There is at least one confirmed case where Native Americans in Fort Pitt were given smallpox-contaminated blankets and handkerchiefs as "gifts" - recreated here by reenactors...:
Since smallpox was unknown in the Americas, the native people had no defenses against it. The fact that a mass extinction did not occur was not due to his lordship's "good will", but simply to the fact that too few smallpox pathogens could be obtained to use the matter on a large scale.
But of course the smallpox claimed its victims among the natives - lucky for them that their villages were mostly further apart - and so by chance the wide spread of the infection was prevented...:
General Amhearst would have infected the natives on a large scale if he could—there is a series of letters in which he advocated exterminating the Indians over and over again (July 9, August 7, and August 27, 1763).
For this, he explained in the aforementioned letter of July 16, "every means is justified"!
This advertising poster for a book quotes one of the monstrous phrases that the noble lord wrote again and again...:
Well, the British managed to put down the rebellion even without waging bacteriological warfare - although of course they killed plenty! In 1769, Chief Obwandiyag was at Cahokia, Illinois, stabbed from behind by a hired killer, a native American...:
I sincerely wish General Amhearst (and of course Colonel Bousquet as well) that they didn't die easily and painlessly, but that they had to suffer a lot before they died!
the Indians by infecting them with smallpox...
On August 3, 1797 died on his country estate "Sevenoaks" (county of Kent)...
... the British Field Marshal Sir Jeffrey Amhearst...:
He had enjoyed a successful military career, beginning as an ensign in the War of the Austrian Succession at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, continuing in Germany during the Seven Years' War under Baron Cumberland (Battle of Hastenbek) and then continuing in America during the Franco-Prussian War would have.
He was promoted over the heads of senior and more experienced officers to Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Canada in 1759 - to his own boundless surprise - in 1759 commanded a push up Lake Champlain in support of the Siege of Quebec commanded by General James Wolfe, drove out the French from Fort Ticonderoga and forced the Montreal garrison to surrender on September 8, 1760, effectively ending French rule in Canada....:
During the American Revolutionary War he declined a field command because he had close ties to numerous figures on the opposite side. In 1778 he received the supreme command of the British Army, in the same year the rank of Field Marshal.
Reading all this, one might think that Field Marshal Lord Amhearst was an honorable man.
But no! He certainly wasn't!
This British nobleman can at best be compared to butchers like Heinrich Himmler or Lavrentij Beria - because he was a ruthless murderer who did not kill with hands or weapons, but with orders.
In his vita there is namely - in Great Britain gladly kept secret! - the so-called "Pontiac Rebellion", a rebellion by Native Americans in the Great Lakes region.
Led by Ottawa Chief Obwandiyag (the British called him "Pontiac")...
...about a dozen tribes living there had formed a confederation, which together defended themselves against the harassing British rule!
At that time, Amhearst was also the military governor of Canada and thus the supreme commander in the fight against the Indian rebellion...:
And he was not at all honorable towards the natives! For him they were little more than annoying insects that should all be killed if possible!
In a surviving letter dated July 16, 1763, his lordship ordered blankets and other clothing that had been deliberately infected with smallpox germs to be handed over to the natives...:
The proposal for this "silent holocaust" came from a colonel on his staff named Henry Bouquet...:
Bouquet made his proposal in writing - this letter has also been preserved...:
There is at least one confirmed case where Native Americans in Fort Pitt were given smallpox-contaminated blankets and handkerchiefs as "gifts" - recreated here by reenactors...:
Since smallpox was unknown in the Americas, the native people had no defenses against it. The fact that a mass extinction did not occur was not due to his lordship's "good will", but simply to the fact that too few smallpox pathogens could be obtained to use the matter on a large scale.
But of course the smallpox claimed its victims among the natives - lucky for them that their villages were mostly further apart - and so by chance the wide spread of the infection was prevented...:
General Amhearst would have infected the natives on a large scale if he could—there is a series of letters in which he advocated exterminating the Indians over and over again (July 9, August 7, and August 27, 1763).
For this, he explained in the aforementioned letter of July 16, "every means is justified"!
This advertising poster for a book quotes one of the monstrous phrases that the noble lord wrote again and again...:
Well, the British managed to put down the rebellion even without waging bacteriological warfare - although of course they killed plenty! In 1769, Chief Obwandiyag was at Cahokia, Illinois, stabbed from behind by a hired killer, a native American...:
I sincerely wish General Amhearst (and of course Colonel Bousquet as well) that they didn't die easily and painlessly, but that they had to suffer a lot before they died!
