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–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

—   440  PBS. “Death at Jamestown,” Secrets of the Dead, 2016.

— >400  Carter. “1609-1610: Starving Time at Jamestown.” In Campbell, Disasters…, 2008, 7.

Narrative Information

Carter: “On May 13, 1607, 104 English colonists established the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown. By the following spring, only 38 settlers remained alive. The next two years would be no less devastating, with more than 400 colonists dying during the winter of 1609-1610.  Beset with disease, hunger, and antagonism from Algonquian tribes, the first European settlers at Jamestown faced tremendous adversity.  Only a handful survived what became known as the ‘starving time’.

“Embarking on their journey to North America in December 1606, 144 intrepid colonists were instructed by the Virginia Company of London, which held the colony’s charter, to establish kind relations with the Natives in order to facilitate trade and to secure a steady supply of food. Forty of the would-be settlers died at sea, leaving 104 colonists to establish the Virginia Company’s colony in the Americas….

“In 1608, after barely surviving their first winter…the colonists were resupplied twice with people and provisions.  When an additional 400 colonists arrived in August 1609, however, the population increase proved to be an unbearable burden for the burgeoning colony.  Short on food, the colonists already at Jamestown were unprepared to support the additional settlers, who arrived starving and without provisions.  The stage was set for the starving time of the winter of 1609-10.

“During the course of the winter, the settlers ate dogs, cats, horses, rats and other vermin, even leather from their shoes and boots.[1] When this proved insufficient, settlers turned to cannibalism, eventually eating the corpses of their fellow colonists….[2] On June 7, 1610, Jamestown’s residents abandoned the hapless town, but the next day their ships were met by a convoy led by the new governor of Virginia, Thomas West, Lord De La Ware, who ordered the settlers back to the colony.” (PBS. “Death at Jamestown,” Secrets of the Dead, 2016.)

“In the spring of 1610, a ship from England arrived to find 60 emaciated colonists.[3]  Resolving to rescue these famished souls, the crew took the Jamestown settlers aboard the ship, abandoned the colony, and set sail for England.  Their boat crossed paths with that of Captain Brewster and Lord De La Warre, who were on their way to Jamestown with provisions for the colonists.  The departing vessel reversed course, returned to the colony, and set to the business of reestablishing a settlement in Jamestown.” (Carter. “1609-1610: Starving Time at Jamestown.” In Campbell, Disasters…, 2008, pp. 7-8.)

PBS: “….The following winter,[4] disaster once again struck Jamestown.[5] Only 60 of 500 colonists survived the period, now known as ‘the starving time.’ Historians have never determined exactly why so many perished, although disease, famine (spurred by the worst drought in 800 years [?], as climate records indicate), and Indian attacks took their toll.

Sources

Campbell, Ballard C.  Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History:  A Reference Guide to the Nation’s Most Catastrophic Events. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2008.

Carter, Allison D. “1609-1610: Starving Time at Jamestown.” In Ballard C. Campbell, Disasters, Accidents, and Crises In American History (NY: Facts on File, 2008), pp. 7-8.

PBS. “Death at Jamestown,” Secrets of the Dead, 2016. Accessed 1-5-2018 at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/death-jamestown-background/1428/

[1] “Those who had finer clothes from England even boiled out the starch from their lace and stiff collars.  But roots, berries and laundry starch could no feed 500.”  (Mountford. “Lessons from Jamestown 1609-1610” Starving in the Land of Plenty,” Bay Journal, May 2000.)

[2] “There was an accusation of one colonist killing and eating his wife, his confession extracted under torture by George Percy after “having hung by the thumbs with weights at his feet a quarter of an hour, before he would confess the same.” He was put to death for the deed which later appeared to have simply been a matter of butchering her body and dispersing the parts to hide them from discovery. Even if all accounts are disputed, the trash pit contains fragments from a human cranium, source and mode of arrival unknown.” (Mountford, 2000.) Another account: “There was one of the companie who mortally hated his wife, and therefore secretly killed her, then cut her in pieces and hid her in diuers parts of his house: when the woman was missing, the man suspected, his house searched, and parts of her mangled body were discouered, to excuse himselfe he said that his wife died, that he hid her to satisfie his hunger, and that he fed daily vpon her. Vpon this, his house was againe searched, where they found a good quantitie of meale, oatemeale, beanes and pease. Hee therevpon was araigned, confessed the murder, and was burned for his horrible villainy.” (“A True Declaration of the Estate in Virginia,” 1610, Lib. of Congress.)

[3] “Dr. Simmons [William Simmons, Doctor of Divinity] reported: ‘…of five hundred, within six months after Captain Smith’s departure there remained not past sixty men, women and children (most miserable and poor creatures).”  (Mountford 2000)

[4] Had just noted that Captain John Smith left the colony to return to England in September 1609.

[5] Had lost 66 settlers to disease and starvation during its first year — landed May 13, 1607 and by time another ship arrived in January 1608, 66 of 104 had died.

—  66  Earle, Carville V. “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia,” Chapter 3

—  66  Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 52.

–>52  PBS. “Death at Jamestown,” Secrets of the Dead, 2016.[1]

Narrative Information

Earle (drawing upon Percy): “….When Captain Newport departed on June 22, he left 104 healthy colonists. But soon the colony took on a somber attitude. On July 6 George Percy’s journal mentioned John Asbie’s death by ‘bloudie Flixe.’ Three days later George Flowre died of the ‘swelling.’ In the space of a month 21 colonists died, causing Percy to lament that ‘our men were destroyed with cruell diseases, as Swellings, Flixes, Burning Fevers, and by warres, and some departed suddenly but for the most part they died of mere famine.’[2] By the end of September, 46 were dead, and in January, when the first supply ship arrived in Virginia, just 38 of 104 colonists were barely alive.[3]

“The abundance of death demanded an explanation. But Percy’s speculation that ‘meere famine’ was the cause of death is unconvincing. In support of his thesis we can say that the colonists’ daily ration consisted of just half a pint of wheat and another of barley, mixed in a gruel that yielded roughly half the caloric intake required for an active man of the colonists’ stature.[4] But we should not hastily accept Percy’s ‘meere famine,’….Captain John Smith…made little of the shortage of provisions, stating matter-of-factly on several occasions that the colony still had many weeks of supplies remaining. He knew that the annual sturgeon run would provide a supplementary source of food. Thousands of these fish entered the James estuary in April and May, and their run to freshwater spawning grounds continued through the summer, when the big fish came in. ‘From the later end of May till the end of June,’ wrote Smith, ‘are taken few, but young Sturgeons of 2 foot or a yard long. From thence till the midst of September, them of 2 or three yards long and fewe others. And in 4 or 5 houres with one nette were ordinarily taken 7 or 8: often more.’[5]….the Atlantic sturgeon averages over one hundred pounds….

“The food supply during Jamestown’s first summer, though unappealing, provided sufficient nourishment to ward off starvation and vitamin deficiency diseases….

“Although Percy blamed famine, his list of clinical symptoms brings us closer to the actual causes of death — typhoid, dysentery, and perhaps salt poisoning. Medical historians generally agree that Percy’s ‘flixes’ or ‘bloudie Flixes’ describe dysentery, and ‘Burning Fevers’ are symptomatic of typhoid fever.[6] The ‘Swellings,’ though perhaps associated with dysentery, could also result from salt intoxication from the salty river water.[7] These three diseases are also indicated by the incidence and rapidity of death, as chronicled by Percy. Typhoid fever progresses rapidly after infection by the bacterium Salmonella typhosa. The first week may be symptomless, as the organisms spread through the bowel wall and into the lymphatic glands. In the second week the organism enters the bloodstream, causing a rapid rise in body temperature, recognized by colonists as the ‘Burning Fever.’….Before the use of antibiotics, it is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of infected persons died. Dysentery, caused by amoebic parasites, produced the ‘bloudie Flixe.’….Dysentery is often fatal, especially when populations are weakened by other illnesses or undernourishment. Pre-antibiotic mortality rates of 12 to 25 percent have been recorded. Like typhoid, dysentery can act quickly….

“An epidemic of typhoid fever and dysentery is consonant with Percy’s description of death and sickness at Jamestown. Percy first noted disease-related deaths on July 6, and sickness and death continued ‘for the space of sixe weekes’ — a time span in keeping with the progression of typhoid fever and dysentery. Furthermore, 50 of the 104 colonists had perished by mid-September….” [pp. 96-101]

(Earle, Carville V. “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia,” Chapter 3 (pp. 96-125) in Thad W. Tate and David Ammerman (Eds.). The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society. Williamsburg, VA: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1979.)

Grob: “In December 1606 three vessels and 144 individuals left England. Before reaching American shores the group stopped in the West Indies, where they rested, ate fresh fruits and meat, and replenished their supply of water….At the end of April the expedition reached the Chesapeake Bay, and on May 13 settled on a site for the colony at Jamestown, located some fifty miles from the mouth of the James River. When the vessels departed for England in late June, 104 healthy persons remained behind at the first permanent English settlement in North American. The seemingly happy state of affairs proved short-lived. Within weeks [July-Aug?] nearly 20 percent of the colonists died. George Percy, one of the founders of the colony, provided a graphic description of events that fateful summer. ‘Our men,’ he lamented,

Were destroyed with cruell diseases as Swellings, Flixes, Burning fevers, and by Warres, and some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of mere famine. There were never Englishmen left in a forreigne Countrey in such miserie as wee were in this new discovered Virginia…our men night and day groaning in every corner of the Fort most pittifull to heare, if there were any conscience in men, it would make their harts to bleed to heare the pittifull murmurings & outcries of our sick men without reliefe every night and day for the space of sixe weekes, some departing out of the World, many times three of foure in a night, in the mornings their bodies trailed out of their Cabines like Dogges to be buried: in this sort did I see the mortalitie of divers of our people.

“John Smith observed that ‘God plagued us with such famin and sicknes, that the living were scarce able to bury the dead.’ By the end  of September nearly half of the group had perished. Ehen the first supply ship arrived in January 1608, only 38 of the 104 original settlers remained alive.”[8] (Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, pp. 51-52 and 287.)

PBS: “As they set sail from London to the distant shores of America in December 1606, the men and boys onboard the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery surely expected the best from their adventure. They’d establish a British settlement, find gold and silver, a passage to the Orient, and perhaps, the lost colony of Roanoke. The explorers, funded by a group of London entrepreneurs called the Virginia Company, could not have anticipated the fate that actually awaited most of them: drought, hunger, illness, and death.

“Their journey started off as badly as it ended. The three ships were stranded for weeks off the British coast, and food supplies dwindled. Over the course of the voyage, dozens died. But 104 colonists — many gentlemen of privilege, but also artisans, craftsmen, and laborers — survived to reach the shores of Virginia. On May 13, 1607, they decided to make landfall on the swampy ground of what was then a peninsula (and now an island) along the James River, some 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Within a month the settlers had constructed a triangle-shaped wooden for, for protection against the Spanish, who did not want the British to establish any kind of foothold in the New World.

“The settlers of the new colony — names Jamestown — were immediately besieged by attacks from Algonquian natives, rampant disease, and internal political strife. In their first winter, more than half of the colonists perished from famine and illness.” (PBS. “Death at Jamestown,” Secrets of the Dead, 2016.)

Source

Earle, Carville V. “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia,” Chapter 3 (pp. 96-125) in Thad W. Tate and David Ammerman (Eds.). The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society. Williamsburg, VA: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1979. Accessed 1-5-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=MYBRT-pd_j0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Grob, Gerald N. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2002. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=U1H5rq3IQUAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

PBS. “Death at Jamestown,” Secrets of the Dead, 2016. Accessed 1-5-2018 at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/death-jamestown-background/1428/

[1] PBS does not note the number of deaths in this overview of the show — note that “more than half of the colonists perished from famine and illness.” Earlier note that 104 colonists had arrived to create Jamestown.

[2] Earle footnote 2: “Observations by Percy,” Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 20-21. “The Proceedings of the English Colony” (1607) claims 105 colonists. Edward Arber and A. G. Bradley, eds., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England, 1580-1631 (Edinburgh, 1910), 1, 94.

[3] Earle footnote 3. Arber and Bradley, eds., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, 1, lxxvi, 9, 95; Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America, An Account of the Origin of This Nation, Written from the Records Then (1624) Concealed by the Council, Rather than from the Histories Then Licensed by the Crown (Boston and New York, 1898, 55.

[4] Earle footnote 4: Herbert Renardo Cederberg, Jr., “An Economic Analysis of English Settlement in North America, 1583-1635” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1968), 144; Arber and Bradley, eds., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, II, 391-392.

[5] Earle footnote 6: “A Discourse of Virginia per: Ed: Ma: Wingfield,” in Arber and Bradley eds., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, 8-9, 51.

[6] Earle footnote 10: Very useful are John Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America (Baton Rouge, La., 1953); Wyndham B. Blanton, Medicine in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (Richmond, Va., 1930), 3-77; Thomas P. Hughes, Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699, Jamestown 350^th Anniversary Historical Booklets, no. 21 (Williamsburg, Va., 1957); and Richard Harrison Shryock, Medicine and Society in America, 1660-1860 (New York, 1960), 82-116.

[7] Earle footnote 11: Hans G. Keitel, The Pathophysiology and Treatment of Body Fluid Disturbances (New York, 1962), 162-164; John Hardesty Bland, “Clinical Physiology and Four Avenues of Loss and Gain,” in Bland, ed., Clinical Metabolism of Body Water and Electrolytes (Philadelphia, 1963), 133-164.

[8] Grob footnote 6 cites: George Percy, “Discourse,” in The Genesis of the United States, ed. Alexander Brown, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), I: 167-168; Earle, “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia,” p. 367; Dana P. Arneman, “Mortality in the Early Colonies of Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay Colony: A New Interpretation” (M.A. thesis, University of South Carolina, 1990), pp. 9-10.

–100s-1000s Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague & Pestilence (Revised). 2001, p. 298.

Narrative Information

Kohn: “Seneca Indian Measles Epidemic of 1592-96

“Evidently one of the earliest outbreaks of measles (rubeola) among Native Americans, striking the Seneca Indians’ Cameron village in what is now western New York state. Indian fear, panic, and inability to cope with the very contagious, viral disease contributed to hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths between 1592 and 1596.

“Although there is a lack of hard evidence about specific and identifiable diseases among the Indians, historical researchers strongly support the belief that numerous measles outbreaks occurred in the entire Atlantic coastal region from Florida to the Great Lakes and New England from 1528 to 1596. Enough human skeletal evidence at the site of the Cameron village confirms the measles epidemic there of 1592-96.

“At various times during the sixteenth century Spanish ships’ crews and troops carried the measles virus (transmitted by direct contact or airborne droplets) to the West Indies and Florida, infecting the native peoples. Also, French fur traders who traveled up the St. Lawrence River might have carried the infection. However, the Seneca Indians most likely contracted measles through their trading and social interaction with the southeastern Indian tribes of what is now the United States.

“Sometime in 1592 the virus was transmitted to the Cameron village, where it was especially fatal among Seneca infants and children (who accounted for nearly half the death toll). Mortality among adults was less grave, undoubtedly because some older Seneca were immune, having apparently survived earlier exposure to the virus from 1564 to 1570.

“Further reading: Dobyns, Their Number Becomes Thinned: Native Dynamics in Eastern North America; Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact.” (Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague & Pestilence (Revised). 2001, p. 298.)

Istúriz: “1592-1596. The Seneca Indians in what is now central New York state suffer from an epidemic of measles.” (slide 60.)

Sources
Istúriz, Raúl E., MD. Merging Infectious Reservoirs. Europe Meeting America at the Dawn of the Modera Age. Accessed 3-26-2021 at: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjCpqKqxs7vAhW0FlkFHe9TDssQFjADegQIAhAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.escmid.org%2Fescmid_publications%2Fescmid_elibrary%2Fmaterial%2F%3Fmid%3D1404&usg=AOvVaw0fnsH3y7d56D1AC0DCR5ni

Kohn, George Childs (Editor). Encyclopedia of Plague & Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.

–Hundreds?  Blanchard estimate based on New England Historical Society note of devastation.

–Decimated. Roberts, Chap. 19 “Maine” in Native America (D. S. Murphree, ed.), pp. 473-474.

–Devastated. New England Historical Society. “Exactly How New England’s Indian Pop…”

Narrative Information

Roberts: “Like both the Micmacs and the Maliseets [of Maine], the Passamaquoddy Indians moved with the seasons….When the Europeans came, the Passamaquoddies assisted them in surviving in the area. The Europeans passed on diseases, which very quickly reduced the Passamaquoddy population from around 20,000 to about 4,000. In 1586 a typhus epidemic broke out, further decimating the population. Due to its decreasing population, the Passamaquoddy tribe quickly aligned itself with the Maliseet and Micmac tribes and eventually aligned with Penobscot and Abenaki tribes to form the Wabanaki Confederacy.” (Roberts, Chapter 19 “Maine” in Native America (Daniel S. Murphree, editor), pp. 473-474.)

New England Historical Society: “Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians, among the first to make contact with Europeans, were devastated by a typhus epidemic in 1586. Other diseases brought the Passamaquoddy population to 4,000 from 20,000.”

Source

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/

Roberts, Ronda. Chapter 19, “Maine” in Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 2. Daniel S. Murphree (editor). Santa Barbara, Denver and Oxford, UK: Greenwood, 2012. Google preview accessed 4-2-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=QWxg0Il8M74C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

–600 Elsner and Kara. Hurricanes of the North Atlantic: Climate and Society. 1999, p. 178.
— ? “…decimated the settlement and destroyed de Luna’s fleet.” Hurricanes: Science and Society.
— “ Rappaport, Fernandez-Partagas, Bevin. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1996.
— ? Worth. Names several drowned officials, about dozen lost ships; unknown loss on shore.

Narrative Information

Elsner and Kara: “The Tampa Bay hurricane of 1559 killed at least 600 onboard 13 ships.” (Elsner and Kara. Hurricanes of the North Atlantic: Climate and Society. 1999, p. 178.)

Hurricanes: Science and Society: “1559- Florida Hurricane Ruins Spanish Settlement.”

“The Spanish conquistador Don Tristan de Luna y Arellano was sent to conquer Florida in 1559. On August 15, 1559, he landed near present day Pensacola, establishing the first European settlement in the continental United States. Just weeks later, on the evening of September 19, 1559, a hurricane, which lasted for 24 hours, decimated the settlement and destroyed de Luna’s fleet. Those who survived tried to reestablish the settlement, but due to famine and attacks, their attempts failed. The site was abandoned in 1561.

“Fast Facts:
• After de Luna’s colony was destroyed, it was concluded that Florida was too dangerous to colonize and the Spanish did not attempt to settle on the U.S. Gulf Coast again until 1693, 134 years later.
• In 1992, the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research discovered the remains of a Spanish sailing ship, a galleon, off Emanuel Point during a survey of Pensacola Bay. It is thought that this may be one of Tristan de Luna’s sunken ships. Thousands of artifacts and field specimens have been recovered and a substantial portion of the ship’s hull architecture has been recorded.
“Sources:
• History of Pensacola, Florida. Wikipedia. 2009.

• Tristan de Luna y Arellano. Wikipedia. 2009.

• Smith, R.C., Spirek, J., Bratten, J., and Scott-Ireton, D. 1995. The Emaunel Point Ship: Archaeological Investigations, 1992-1995, Preliminary Report. Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources.
http://www.flheritage.com/reports/Emanuel1995.pdf

• Smith, R.C., Bratten, J.R., Cozzi, J.C., and Plaskett, K. The Emanuel Point Ship Archaeological Investigations 1997-1998. Report of Investigations #68, Archaeology Institute, University of West Florida.
Worth: “During the evening of Tuesday, September 19, 1559, some 458 years ago, strong winds from the north heralded the arrival of a great hurricane in Pensacola Bay. The storm was not the first to assail the bay, nor would it be the last, but the 1559 hurricane did manage to change the course of human history by destroying a fleet of Spanish colonial ships riding at anchor off the newly-founded settlement called Santa María de Ochuse.

“Five weeks earlier, on August 14-15, the fleet of 12 ships carrying some 1,500 soldiers and settlers entered Pensacola Bay (then known by its native name of Ochuse) with the intention of establishing a port settlement, pushing inland to the native chiefdom of Coosa located in modern northwest Georgia, and then crossing the Appalachian summit and descending eastward to found a Spanish colony along the Atlantic coast at a place known as the Punta de Santa Elena, at modern-day Parris Island, South Carolina. Following nearly half a century of failed private attempts to establish a Spanish colonial presence in southeastern North America, King Phillip II had finally provided substantial royal funding and support to launch the largest colonial effort yet attempted in the land they called Florida, in order to block the imminent threat of French colonization.

“At the head of the expedition was governor and general don Tristán de Luna y Arellano, veteran of the Coronado expedition to the American Southwest nearly 20 years before. Leading a group of some 550 cavalry and infantry soldiers and nearly 1,000 others including wives and children, servants, slaves, and even a group of some 200 Aztec warriors and craftsmen from the Valley of Mexico, Luna directed his forces to reconnoiter the bay in search of a suitable site for settlement. Discovering a high, level terrace next to a bluff overlooking the heart of the bay, as far inland as possible while still in view of the bay’s mouth, the Spaniards spent the next weeks clearing the forest, laying out a rectangular grid of streets and some 140 land lots, and initiating the construction of housing for the colonists on the landform now known as Emanuel Point. Though many initially refreshed themselves on land after the nearly two-month voyage from Veracruz, documentary records reveal that the settlers promptly offloaded the majority of their equipment, supplies, and personal possessions, leaving only the vast stores of corn, wheat, wine, olive oil, and other staple foods on board the ships until a sufficient warehouse had been constructed to house them on land.

“One by one, during early September the ships’ crews were certified to be issued their remaining expedition pay as they completed the offloading process. As the unloading was completed, Luna dispatched a detachment of two companies inland along the Escambia River at the head of the bay in search of native villages and informants who could help guide them to Coosa. While awaiting their return, two ships were even prepped for a transatlantic voyage to make a direct report in Spain, while another was sent back to New Spain to report on the successful landing. All seemed well, and as housing approached completion at the new settlement, attention doubtless turned to public structures such as the royal warehouse.

“Even though Spanish residents of Puerto Rico had already been devastated by the approaching hurricane on September 12, Luna’s colonists had no warning when the storm rolled into Pensacola Bay seven days later. Descriptions of the storm indicate that the winds started out of the north, but swirled in all directions around the colony for a full 24 hours, devastating the fleet and young settlement at Emanuel Point. Anchor cables were broken, ships were driven into shallower water and literally broken apart by the waves and wind. On board the flagship Jesús, ready to sail for Spain, its captain Diego López drowned, as did one of the Dominican missionaries named fray Bartolomé Matheos, and a soldier named Melchor González. While the total loss of life on the ships is unknown, nearly all the food stores for the colony were destroyed with the ships. Only a single small vessel was reported to have “miraculously” ended up on dry land in the midst of a grove of trees, and which was completely scavenged afterward. Documents suggest the settlers fared better on land, but the fledgling settlement was doubtless devastated after only a few weeks of clearing and construction. And most importantly of all, Luna was now in charge of well over a thousand people who had virtually no food available to them, and only four ships still afloat, including a caravel, two barks, and a small frigate. One of the barks was sent to Veracruz with the tragic news, and another to Havana for emergency supplies. Two hundred soldiers were also quickly dispatched deep inland to the north in search of native populations with food supplies.

“For the Luna colonists, the struggle to survive had just begun. The next two years would witness an amazing and dramatic sequence of events, including the relocation of most settlers into central Alabama at a native town called Nanipacana for some four months, the arrival of four successive relief fleets from New Spain, the gradual evacuation of more and more of the settlers from Florida, and a series of bitter legal disputes between Luna and his followers, which generated much of the documentation that remains of the expedition. But that is another tale. On another Tuesday, September 19, Pensacola was the scene of a massive hurricane that changed the history of North America forever, illustrating the pivotal role that such storms played and continue to play in human affairs.” (Worth, John. “September 19, 1559: A Hurricane That Changed History.” 9-19-2017.)

Source

Elsner, James B. and A. Birol Kara. Hurricanes of the North Atlantic: Climate and Society. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Hurricanes: Science and Society: “1559- Florida Hurricane Ruins Spanish Settlement.” Accessed 3-16-2020 at: http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/pre1900s/1559/

Rappaport, Edward N., Jose Fernandez-Partagas, and Jack Bevin. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1996. Miami, FL: National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center (Honolulu), NOAA, 1997. Accessed 3-16-2020 at: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadlyapp2.shtml?

Worth, John. “September 19, 1559: A Hurricane That Changed History.” 9-19-2017. Accessed 3-16-2020 at: https://www.wuwf.org/post/september-19-1559-hurricane-changed-history

— 1,700  Roth, David (NWS). Texas Hurricane History.  Jan 17, 2010 update, p. 8.[1]

 Blanchard note: Have not seen other mentions of such a loss of life on or along the Texas lower coast, thus this might not be reliable.

Source

 Roth, David (National Weather Service). Texas Hurricane History. Camp Springs, MD:  NWS.  1-17-2010 update. Accessed 3-4-2017 at: http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/txhur.pdf

[1] From Table: “Texas Hurricanes — 1527 through 2009.” There is no description.