Commentary on the history of British use of biological weapons in North America.
Source: Email from Alex Bérubé (Canada), dated August 5, 2002.
Regarding your brief comment about the British use of smallpox in New Zealand, I’d also like to mention that they had conducted experiments in Canada beforehand. At that time, the Native Americans lived in harmony with the colonists from New France, following the Great Peace of 1701 signed in Montreal at Pointe Calumet. This was the most important agreement ever signed between Europeans and Native Americans. It recognized the coexistence on French territory of two great peoples: the French on one side, and the united Huron and Iroquois nations on the other. This agreement can be compared to the European Union; in this case, it was an “Amérindian Union.” After Louis XV gave away the territory of New France—allegedly just a few acres of snow-covered land—the English were left with only a small area between the Tennessee River and the coast of New England. Please excuse this lengthy introduction; it’s important to understand the context. After the French were defeated at the Plains of Abraham in Quebec in 1759, the territory was handed over to the English. But the Huron and Iroquois nations weren’t consulted. Their chief, Pontiac, refused to accept this defeat and decided to drive the English out of their lands. At that time, the Huron nation had many members. They were sedentary people who lived in large villages with up to 6,000 inhabitants. They cultivated corn, pumpkins, and other crops. These were organized people capable of waging war. When the English saw what was happening, they came up with a brilliant idea: they arranged a friendly meeting between the leaders of the five main nations. As was customary at the time, such meetings involved exchanges of gifts. An English general had the brilliant idea of having silver boxes made, inside which infected cloths from smallpox victims were placed. These boxes were then sealed shut. The result was that the Huron and Iroquois nations were almost completely wiped out in the Great Lakes region—by as much as 90%. It’s difficult to estimate the actual damage, since some villages were isolated and unknown to Europeans who hadn’t yet explored those areas. What we do know is that there are no traces of these nations today. Only the Western nations (Sioux) were spared. Entire villages were destroyed during winter. Everyone knows what happened next; now, all that remains of this history is a car brand name.
There’s an episode in a TV series about Canadian history that aired in 2000 or 2001, both in English and French. radio-canada.ca