Alexandersmap

    Tag: Jeffrey Amherst

    • Stumbling Across Amherst

      I was thinking about Jeffrey Amherst yesterday. Or rather, Amherst was thrust upon me as I walked through the National Portrait Gallery in London and his face jumped out at me in three paintings. Two were “face in the crowd” works that ensured you knew that yes, HE was there, so was that other HE… and so on. It’s like a snapshot taken at an event, painted over a long period of time. Ego strokes and, to me, tedious. But portraits offer something different, a glimpse into the person. And few people got your attention during the French and Indian War like Jeffrey Amherst.

      No matter what you think of Amherst, and there’s plenty of reason to question his tactics, he helped shift momentum of the war with decisive, ruthless action (giving smallpox infected blankets to Native Americans is certainly ruthless and ethically highly questionable). That victorious campaign positioned him for accolades at home, place names in the New World, and one elite liberal arts college bearing his name. And a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. I don’t celebrate the life of Amherst, but I acknowledge that he got the job done when the English needed someone to step up.

    • Smallpox

      Smallpox

      During the Revolutionary War more than 130,000 people living in North America died from Smallpox.  Of those fighting in the war, about 7000 died in the war, while more than 17,000 died from disease.  And smallpox was the biggest killer on the continent.

      Variola virus, or smallpox is spread through physical contact, airborne through breathing droplets from an infected person, or through bodily fluids.  About 30% of the people who got smallpox died from it.  The disease was declared eradicated in 1980.

      During the Revolutionary War soldiers would deliberately infect themselves with a small amount of the virus on their skin as a crude form of self-inoculation.  They would become sick but nowhere near as sick as others who got the disease through normal transmission.  It’s a terrifying gamble to infect yourself with a disease that kills 1/3 of the people who contracted it.  There was also significant debate within the colonial army about the wisdom of inoculation.  Major General John Thomas threatened his troops in the Northern Army with the death penalty they were found to have inoculated themselves.  There’s some tragic irony in Thomas succumbing to smallpox himself within weeks of his order.

      Once you had smallpox (and of course, survived) you were immune to it.  There was speculation that the British army, who were largely immune to it from dealing with outbreaks at home, deliberately introduced smallpox to the colonies as a form of chemical warfare.  As horrific as this sounds, it’s not entirely farfetched.  After all, Jeffrey Amherst had done just that to the Native American population approving smallpox-infected blankets being given as gifts to Chief Pontiac and his Ottawa Indians during the French and Indian War just a decade earlier.

      George Washington was well aware of the threat posed by smallpox, and increasingly looked to inoculation as a way to save his army from being decimated by the disease:

      “In February 1777, while encamped at Morristown, Washington became convinced that only inoculation would prevent the destruction of his Army.  Emphasizing the need for secrecy and speed, Washington ordered the inoculation of all troops.  Because Virginia forbade inoculation, Washington asked Governor Patrick Henry to support the program, writing that smallpox “is more destructive to an Army in the Natural way, than the Enemy’s Sword.”
      In the end, the gamble paid off.  Fewer than 1% of the Soldiers died from being inoculated, and the program was so successful in controlling smallpox that he repeated it in the Valley Forge winter of 1778.” – Army Heritage Center

      For people who complain about living in the times we live in, I’d point them straight at smallpox as an example of how much better off we are today than we were years ago.  Advancements in healthcare have completely transformed our lives for the better.  Longer lifespans for sure, but also a better overall quality of life without the threat of smallpox, polio and other horrific diseases.

    • Jeffrey Amherst

      The winners get to write the history.  That maxim has dictated what we’ve learned in history books, at church or in the stories told time and again through generations.  Whether its historical perspective, political correctness gone awry or a long overdue reset, there’s no doubt that some of the historical figures of the past are getting re-evaluated over the last decade or so.

      General Robert E Lee, Columbus, Hannah Duston, and Tom Yawkey are some of the historical figures honored in the past who are being re-examined in the present.  Outrage addiction is real, and there are plenty of people who look for anything they can find to be indignant about.  Some people ignore the realities of the situation people were in at the time, like Hannah Duston’s immediate peril should she be discovered escaping that island on the Merrimack River.

      Jeffrey Amherst is a good example of one-time hero being re-examined with the lens of history.  There’s no doubt that Amherst was a man of action trying to win the French and Indian War.  There’s no doubt that the settlers in the region were enduring atrocities at the hands of the Native Americans allied with the French.  But history points out that Amherst is the man that approved giving smallpox-infected blankets to Chief Pontiac’s Ottawa who were wreaking havoc on Fort Pitt and the settlements in Western Pennsylvania.

      In a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet in 1763 Jeffrey Amherst approved of a plan to “to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race.” in response to Bouquet’s letter asking for permission to “inocculate the Indians”.  Biological warfare utilized to eliminate a problem during war.  It’s hard to justify the action, but it’s easy to understand if you look at the North American settlers killed and kidnapped over the past 70 years in wars between the French and British.  There were horrors on both sides.