1616 — Unknown Epidemic Disease, Natives, especially ~coasts of MA, ME, RI –Thousands

–45,000 NIH. Native Voices. “Timeline…1616: Yellow fever kills two-thirds of…Wampanoag.”
—<4,000 Massachusetts coast Natives north of Boston. New England Historical Society. --Large-scale population loss. Hoornbeek. “An Investigation into the Cause or Causes…” p. 55. --Most. Marr and Cathey. “New Hypothesis for Cause of Epidemic among Native Americans…” --Multitudes. Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, pp. 219-220. --Thousands. Bradford. --Thousands. Grumet. Historic Contact: Indian People and Colonists in…Northeastern US. 118. Tribes specifically noted: Abenaki. Thornton. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1990, p. 71. Massachusett. Thornton. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1990, p. 71. Narragansett (MA) Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 219. Nauset Patuxit (or Pawtuxit) (eastern MA). Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 219. Pennacook (also known as Pawtucket or Merrimack). MA, ME, NH, VT, Canada. Penobscot (Maine). Wampanoag between Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Specific diseases noted as the suspected agent in sources below: Bubonic plague (One of several candidates noted by New England Historical Society) Leptospirosis (Johnson; Marr and Cathey) Smallpox (Hopkins; Kohn; New England Historical Society) Yellow fever (National Institutes of Health; New England Historical Society) Narrative Information Abbott: “The next year (1615)….world war had broken out again. The millions of England and the millions of France were grappling each other….The savages were no better than the Christians. They also decided to summon all their energies to destroy one another. The Penobscot Indians [Maine] were arrayed against the Kennebec Indians. Of the origin of this war we know nothing; of its details, very little….This desolating war almost depopulated the realms of New England…. “Famine and pestilence, as is frequently the case, followed the ravages of human passion. A fearful plague, one of the most dreadful recorded in history, swept over the whole region. Many tribes were quite annihilated. This terrible scourge flapped its malarious wings from the Penobscot River to Narragansett Bay. There were not enough left living to bury the dead. For many years their bones were seen bleaching around the ruins of their homes. No one knows what this disease was. Many have supposed it to have been the small-pox, since it was described as loathsome. Others have believed it to have been some think like the yellow fever, as it was said that the sick and dead, in color, resembled saffron. Morton writes, respecting this almost miraculous destruction of the Indians, -- It is happened that Capt. Richard Vines, with a vessel’s crew, passed this winter near Saco. He had been bred a physician, and was in command of one of Georges’ trading vessels. It is singular, that, while the natives were dying all around him, his ship’s company enjoyed perfect health. ‘Though the mortality,’ Georges writes, ‘was the greatest that ever happened within the memory of man, yet not one of them ever felt their head to ache, so long as they staid there.’ (Abbott, John S. C. The History of Maine, from the Earliest Discovery of the Region by the Northmen Unitil the Present Time. Boston: B. B. Russell, 1875, pp. 83-85.) Bradford (Davis, editor): “Having in some sorte ordered their business at home, it was thought meete to send some abroad to see their new friend Massasoyet, and to bestow upon him some gratuitie to bind him the faster unto them…They found his place to be 40. miles from hence, the soyle good, and the people not many, being dead and abundantly wasted in the great mortalitie which fell in all these parts aboute three years before the coming of the English, wherein thousands of them dyed, they not being able to burie one another; ther sculls and bones were found in many places lying still above ground, where their houses and dwellings had been; a very sad spectackle to behould….” Duffy: “Despite assertions to the contrary by a number of medical historians, there is no conclusive evidence of yellow fever in North America prior to the last years of the seventeenth century. True, a number of outbreaks earlier in the century could have been yellow fever. For example, in 1618 a ‘pestilential sickness’ was reported to have devastated the Indians in New England so that ‘the twentieth person is scarce left alive.’ Contemporary observers reported that the disease turned the bodies of the Indians yellow, and it has been assumed on this basis that the epidemic must have been yellow fever. The paucity of the evidence and the isolation of the New England Indians from known centers of the infection make this assumption untenable. Whatever the nature of the epidemic, yellow fever can be ruled out….” (Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953, reprinted 1979, pp. 140-141.) Grumet: “The Seventeenth Century. Records of Europeans note that most Indians in Wampanoag County belonged to a loose confederation led by Massasoit, the sachem of Pokanoket, at the time Plymouth settlers established the first permanent English colony in the area in 1620. At various times, this coalition embraced communities at Nauset, Manomet, Cummaquid, Monomoy, and Mashpee on Cape Cod; Pawtuxet and Nemasket in present-day Plymouth County; Capawack and other places on Martha’s Vineyard; communities on Nantucket Island; and Aquidneck and Massasoit’s town of Pokanoket in eastern Rhode Island. Recent estimates indicate that as many as twenty-four thousand people may have lived in these communities before epidemics ravaging the region devastated settlements throughout Wampanoag Country between 1616 and 1620. “The career of Squanto, an English-speaking Pawtuxet Indian also known as Tisquantum, exemplifies some of the creative ways inhabitants of the Wampanoag Country responded to the challenges of contact. Kidnapped by English slavers in 1614 and sold in Spain, Squanto managed to make his way to London by 1617. Shortly thereafter, he contrived his return to Massachusetts by promising to guide gold-hungry adventurers to deposits of the precious metal allegedly located near his home. “Squanto returned in 1619 to find his people’s lands had been abandoned in a 1616 epidemic. Subsequently captured by warriors from nearby Indian communities when Epinow, another former English captive, led a successful attack on the English landing party he was guiding, Squanto later emerged in English annals as the bilingual intermediary who established relations between Massasoit and the English in the spring of 1621 (Salisbury 1981, 1982a)….” (Grumet. Historic Contact. P. 118.) Johnson: “Rat urine. As we feast on succulent turkey, moist stuffing, and glistening cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving, the furthest thing from our minds is probably rat urine. Yet it’s quite possible that America as we know it would not exist without rat urine and leptospirosis, the disease it spreads. The disease conveniently cleared coastal New England of Native Americans just prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival and later killed the helpful Squanto. It still lurks among us, underdiagnosed, an emerging menace. “In the winter of 1620, the Mayflower happened to dock at an abandoned village. It had been known in the local Wampanoag language as Patuxet. Pilgrims rejoiced; the land “hath been planted with corn three or four years ago, and there is a very sweet brook runs under the hillside.” In fact, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain had observed what would become Plymouth harbor 15 years earlier and drew a map of native homes surrounded by fields of corn. “Where had all the people gone? As the Pilgrims thanked God for their luck, they were unaware that the previous tenants had died of a gruesome infectious disease. “In the spring of 1621, the Pilgrims finally met their surviving neighbors. If the colonists thought God was good for guiding them to pre-tilled land and a sweet brook, they were even more thankful when the first Native American strolled into their midst, smiling and saying in English, “Welcome!” According to Pilgrim-era writings, he told them straight away that the previous villagers “died of an extraordinary plague.” A few days later, Tisquantum arrived. Called Squanto by Pilgrims, he was born in Patuxet, abducted by Englishman Thomas Hunt in 1614, and missed out on the epidemic that killed his entire village. During his years in captivity, he’d learned English, and he was now attached to a nearby branch of the Wampanoag. “The Pilgrim leader William Bradford was already aware of the death toll from “Indean fever.” His scouts had ventured inland and noted “sculs and bones were found in many places lying still above ground, where their houses and dwellings had been; a very sad spectackle to behould.” It’s estimated as many as nine out of 10 coastal Indians were killed in the epidemic between 1616 and 1619. “What killed so many people so quickly? The symptoms were a yellowing of the skin, pain and cramping, and profuse bleeding, especially from the nose. A recent analysis concludes the culprit was a disease called leptospirosis, caused by leptospiral bacteria. Spread by rat urine Kohn: “Massachusetts Smallpox Epidemic of c. 1617-19.” “Introduction of smallpox by Europeans on the American continent north of Mexico; this great outbreak destroyed 90 percent of the Massachusetts Bay Indians. English and Dutch fishing boats regularly visited the Massachusetts coast and could have brought the infection. Also, English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold visited Martha’s Vineyard in the early 1600s. Destruction of the Indians eliminated one of the problems that would beset the Puritans when they erected their colonial settlement in Massachusetts in 1620. By then, there were only few Narragansetts remaining of a tribe that, six years earlier, had commanded 3,000 braves…. “After Plymouth Plantation was established, an exploratory party went to Patuxit, where they found multitudes in Indians long dead, probably from the epidemic of 1617-19, which they concluded was plague, despite the decay. Although historians disagreed about whether the epidemic was smallpox or bubonic plague (both rampant in Europe), the preponderance of the evidence suggested smallpox, as recorded by the French at the time. Captain Thomas Dermeer, who witnessed the 1617-19 epidemic, reportedly saw pockmarks on some of the Indians. “Smallpox caused the greatest destruction among populations never before exposed, wiping out up to 90 percent of the infected….” (Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, pp. 219-220.) Marr and Cathey: “In the years before English settlers established the Plymouth colony (1616–1619), most Native Americans living on the southeastern coast of present-day Massachusetts died from a mysterious disease. Classic explanations have included yellow fever, smallpox, and plague. Chickenpox and trichinosis are among more recent proposals. We suggest an additional candidate: leptospirosis complicated by Weil syndrome. Rodent reservoirs from European ships infected indigenous reservoirs and contaminated land and fresh water…. “By 1616, several subtribes of the Wampanoag (Pokanoket) Nation were living between the present-day borders of eastern Rhode Island and southeastern Maine…The Patuxet village was localized to an area in and around Plymouth harbor…Demographers and historians disagree about the total size of the Wampanoag Nation, but Salisbury considers an estimate of 21,000-24,000 as ‘not unrealistic for this region.’ Gookin also estimated 3,000 men living in Massachusetts before the epidemic, which when extrapolated for family size is consistent with Salisbury’s overall estimate. Salisbury estimated that the size of the Patuxet tribe before the epidemic was 2,000.” “No estimates are available of the number of Portuguese, Breton, and Bristol fishermen; Basque whalers; French fur traders; or English codders who had established a presence on the North Atlantic coast since the early sixteenth century. In 1578, an observer noted 100 Spanish sails, 20–30 Basque whalers, ~150 French and Breton fishing ships, and 50 English sails along the coast of Newfoundland. English traders and fishermen had daily contact with indigenous persons but lived on ships or in segregated enclaves on land where salt-dried codfish stations (favored by the English) were built along Massachusetts Bay….” (Marr and Cathey. “New Hypothesis for Cause of Epidemic among Native Americans, New England 1616-1619.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 16, No. 2, Feb 2010, pp. 281-286.) National Institutes of Health: “AD 1616: Yellow fever kills two-thirds of the Wampanoag. European traders carry yellow fever to the Wampanoag Nation, located on the Atlantic coast between what is now known as Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. An estimated 45,000 die—two-thirds of the nation. Elders and children are hardest hit. The loss of elders endangers the language, as does the loss of children to carry it on. The diminished population is less able to defend its territory and its culture from incursions.” (U.S. National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. “Timeline.” National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.) New England Historical Society: “….There were about 60,000 Indians living in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut at the beginning of the 17th century, according to Sherburne Cook. Maine had a robust population of Abenaki tribes – more than 20,000 Penobscot, Micmac and Passamaquoddy Indians -- by some estimates…. “In 1616, a terrible plaque swept along the Massachusetts coast, wreaking the most devastation north of Boston. It’s not clear what it was -- perhaps smallpox, perhaps yellow fever, perhaps bubonic plague. Whatever it was, it was terrifying. So much of the Indian population died there weren’t enough left to bury the dead. English colonist Thomas Morton described the heaps of dead Indians ‘a new found Golgotha.’ “As many as 90 percent of the 4,500 Indians of the Massachusetts tribe perished. The disease cleared the Boston Harbor islands of inhabitants…. “The plague of 1616-1618 cleared nearly all the Wampanoag along the coast from Plymouth to Boston, but was far less severe south of Plymouth….” (New England Historical Society. “Exactly How New England’s Indian Population Was Nearly Wiped Out.” Accessed 4-2-2018.) PBS: “In southeastern Massachusetts, east of Narragansett Bay: that’s Wampanoag territory. To the north of us was the Massachusett; to the west was the Nipmuc; to the south were the Narragansett -- the Pequot -- Mohegan -- Niantic. We estimate that within that area we had about 69 villages. A village could be anywhere from a hundred people to 2,000. So, rounded off at a thousand average, and you’ve got close to 70,000 people. “In 1616 -- before the coming of the Pilgrims -- there was a huge plague. It started in Maine, brought over by European fishermen …. It swept a 15-mile-wide path right down the coast. Sort of took a left through the middle of Wampanoag country and stopped at Narragansett Bay. The Wampanoags, and I think any other group that it hit, suffered anywhere from 50 to a 90% loss in population.” (Linda Coombs, Wampanoag Historian.) Thornton: “It is hard to ascertain to what extent the Indians of New England and New York had been depopulated before colonies were founded. In is anyone’s guess, but we do know considerable population reduction had occurred before Plymouth was founded in 1620. To give an example, ‘the first great Indian plague of North America on record for the seventeenth century nearly exterminated the Massachusetts tribe of the Algonquin nation.’ ….The nature of the epidemic has also been debated. According to different scholars, it was perhaps the bubonic plague or even yellow fever; it may have been smallpox. Donald R. Hopkins (1983: 234) stated that smallpox from 1617 to 1619 ‘wiped out nine-tenths of the Indian population along the Massachusetts coast.’ The tribes likely affected were the Abnaki, the Wampanoag, the Massachusetts, and the Pawtucket (Williams, 1909:347) ….Whatever and whenever it was, the New England Indians were said to have ‘died on heaps.’” (Thornton. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1990, pp. 70-71.) Sources Cook, Sherburne Friend. The Indian Population of New England in the Seventeenth Century (University of California Publications in Anthropology, Volume 12). Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1976. Google preview accessed 4-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=aHGjsHiyUZEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Davis, William T. (Editor). Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation 1606-1646 (Original Narratives of Early American History). NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920. Accessed 3-10-2021: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bradford_s_History_of_Plymouth_Plantatio/uVIWAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bradford%27s+history+of+plimoth+plantation&pg=PA23&printsec=frontcover Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979. Grumet, Robert S. Historic Contact: Indian People and Colonists in Today’s Northeastern United States in the Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. Google preview accessed 4-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=hpXDV3p1Km0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Hoornbeek, Billee. “An Investigation into the Cause or Causes of the Epidemic Which Decimated the Indian Population of New England, 1616-1619.” Chapter 4 in Piotrowski, Thaddeus (Editor). The Indian Heritage of New Hampshire and Northern New England. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2002. Johnson, Madeleine. “The Pilgrims Should Have Been Thankful for a Spirochete.” Slate, 10-20-2012. Accessed 3-4-2017 at: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/11/leptospirosis_and_pilgrims_the_wampanoag_may_have_been_killed_off_by_an.html Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001. Marr, John S. and John T. Cathey. “New Hypothesis for Cause of Epidemic among Native Americans, New England 1616-1619.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 16, No. 2, Feb 2010, pp. 281-286. Accessed 2-4-2013 at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957993/ New England Historical Society. “Exactly How New England’s Indian Population Was Nearly Wiped Out.” Accessed 4-2-2018 at: http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/exactly-new-englands-indian-population-nearly-wiped/ PBS. American Experience. “The Pilgrims: European Plague in Native New England, 1616-1619.” Accessed 4-2-2018 at: https://witf.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/americanexperience27p-soc-plague/wgbh-americanexperience-the-pilgrims-european-plague-in-native-new-england-1616-1619/#.WsKbFJch2nI Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press, 1990, 292 pages. United States National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. “Timeline.” Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 9-17-2012 at: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/197.html Wikipedia. “Massasoit.” 3-20-2018 edit. Accessed 4-2-2018 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massasoit Wikipedia. “Pennacook.” 12-17-2017 edit. Accessed 4-2-2018 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennacook