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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (199638)	9/1/2012 1:26:56 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542201

yup, that Amherst Smallpox blankets Despite his fame, Jeffrey Amherst's name became tarnished by stories of smallpox-infected blankets used as germ warfare against American Indians. These stories are reported, for example, in Carl Waldman's Atlas of the North American Indian [NY: Facts on File, 1985]. Waldman writes, in reference to a siege of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) by Chief Pontiac's forces during the summer of 1763: ... Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort -- an early example of biological warfare -- which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer. [p. 108] nativeweb.org

To: bentway who wrote (199638)	9/1/2012 2:49:09 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542201

You are incorrect. I'm not uncomfortable with it. History simply is what it is- for me. It doesn't upset me. I simply don't see evidence for it as a common practice. Arguing with right wingers, as you do, I know you get used to personalizing arguments (and I realize that's personal- but I don't say this is a right or wrong tactic, and I'm not upset about it)- but insulting the person with whom you are speaking, or attributing things to them that are not true, will convince no one, or at least it will not convince me. So again, unless you have evidence that it was common, I will continue to say it happened, but not very often. What did happen often to the Indians was that they were massacred or starved, which I don't find to be much "better" than being killed with germs. They were treated horribly, but I just don't happen to find much support for the biowarfare idea. If evidence comes to light- bully! I'll read it with interest. I don't have a problem with history- whatever it happens to be.