17th Century

–Major outbreak. Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 220.
–Very virulent. Knight-Sypniewski, Margaret nee. “New England Timeline.” Mass. Origins.

Narrative Information

Knight-Sypniewski: “1648-1649 – Massachusetts. A very virulent smallpox and whooping cough sweeps from Scituate to Cape Cod and north to Boston and Roxbury.”

Kohn: “Massachusetts Smallpox Epidemic of 1648-49.”
“One of the major outbreaks of smallpox in the English colonies in America. Most of the early outbreaks of the disease were confined to one settlement or area, but the 1648 epidemic spread to numerous towns and varied widely in severity from town to town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Boston was affected, but nearby Roxbury saw many more of its inhabitants perish from the disease, which was perhaps black smallpox (purpura variola), a highly fatal form, according to some reports.

“The English colonists – men, women, and children – who had not been exposed to smallpox previously and thus developed an immunity to it were greatly alarmed when many of them suddenly complained of splitting headaches, backaches, chills, fevers, nausea, and sometimes convulsions and delirium. Over the next few days these symptoms faded as the characteristic, deep-seated smallpox rash appeared ( rash usually leaving a survivor with a permanent reminder of his or her bout with the disease); some were left with pockmarked faces, blindness, or infertility.

“The town of Scituate, south of Boston, was especially hard hit, as was Cape Cod, where an outbreak of whooping cough was concurrently afflicting many settlers. The combined diseases (smallpox and whooping cough) may have led observers to perceive the smallpox epidemic as more severe than it actually was. Nevertheless, the epidemic seriously affected so many children in Scituate and Barnstable (on Cape Cod) that the church fathers in these towns declared a ‘Day of Humiliation’ on November 15, 1649.

“Further reading: Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America; Shurkin, The Invisible Fire; Winslow, A Destroying Angel: The Conquest of Smallpox in Colonial Boston.” (Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 220.)

Sources

Knight-Sypniewski, Margaret nee. “New England Timeline.” The New England Colonists Web. Massachusetts Origins. Accessed 3-10-2021 at: https://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/NewEngTimeline.html

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

—     >100  Blanchard estimate.[1]

–~80-100  Massachusetts State Board of Health. Twenty-First Annual Report of… 1890, p. 327.[2]

—         90  Purvis, Thomas L.  Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999, p. 173.

—           ?  Shawnee, Appalachia to the Mississippi. Greene. Shawnee Heritage IV, p. 449.[3]

Connecticut:

— ~40-50  Massachusetts State Board of Health. Twenty-First Annual Report of… 1890, p. 327.

Massachusetts:

— ~40-50  Massachusetts State Board of Health. Twenty-First Annual Report of… 1890, p. 327.

Narrative Information

Duffy: “The first recorded influenza epidemic in North America occurred in 1647, when John Winthrop recorded:

An epidemical sickness was through the country among the Indians and English, French and Dutch. It took them like a cold, and light fever with it. Such as bled or used cooling drinks died those who took comfortable things, for the most part recovered, and that in a few days. Wherein a special providence of God appeared, for not a family, nor but a few persons escaping it, had it brought all so weak as it brought some, and continued so long, our hay and corn had been lost for want of help; but such was the mercy of God to his people, as few died, not above forty or fifty in the Massachusetts, and near as many at Connecticut.

“John Eliot described the epidemic as ‘a very deep cold, with some tincture of a feaver & full malignity & very dangerous if not well regarded by keeping a low diet.’ In addition to sweeping through the colonies on the mainland, the outbreak extended to the West Indies, where it struck with great severity. An estimated five to six thousand deaths occurred on the islands of St. Christopher and Barbados.[4]” (p. 186.)

Massachusetts State Board of Health:  “In 1647, according to Gov. Winthrop, ‘a malignant fever prevailed, and an epidemic influenza passed through the whole country and universally affected the colonists and natives; but it was not very mortal.  Wherein a special providence of God appeared:  for, not a family nor but few persons escaping it, our hay and corn had to be lost for want of help; but such was the mercy of God to his people as few died, — not above forty or fifty in Massachusetts and near as many at Connecticut.’”[5]  (Massachusetts State Board of Health. Twenty-First Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts (Public Document No. 34). Boston: Wright & Porter Printing Co., State Printers, 1890, p. 327.)

Purvis:  “1647.  Influenza.  Massachusetts, Connecticut (90 deaths).”  (“Table 6.7  Outbreaks of Epidemic Disease in Colonial America,” pp. 173-174 in Purvis, Thomas L.  Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999.)

Sources

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.

Greene, Don. Shawnee Heritage IV, Pre-1700’s M-Z. Lulu.com, 11-8-2014. Google preview accessed 3-29-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=WtAeCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Massachusetts State Board of Health. Twenty-First Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts (Public Document No. 34). Boston: Wright & Porter Printing Co., State Printers, 1890. Google digitized. Accessed 2-17-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=3vs4AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Purvis, Thomas L. Colonial America to 1763. NY: Facts On File, Inc., 1999. Google preview accessed 1-9-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=BZRJSx3uMYEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Our number based on Winthrop’s estimate of not more than 40-50 in MA and near as many in CT. We are comfortable with using high-end of this estimate in that Winthrop’s numbers only apply to MA and CT, and the influenza was noted as present elsewhere in the colonies and in Native American tribes, with it being listed as epidemic among the Shawnee that year, over a large region. We would guess that at least many dozens if not hundreds died.

[2] Our number based on Winthrop’s estimate of not more than 40-50 in MA and near as many in CT.

[3] From section titled: “Epidemics 1300-1729. Fatality estimate not noted.

[4] Cites, in footnote 2, p. 186: John Winthrop, The History of New England from 1630 to 1650, 2 vols. (Boston, 1825-26), II, 310; Packard, History of Medicine, I 96; Ebenezer Hazard MSS, I, Library of Congress; Webster, History of Epidemic Diseases, I, 188; “History of New England,” in Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Series 2, VI (1817) 531-532.

[5] Cites:  Winthrop’s Journal, Vol. II., p. 310.

— 1000s  Hopkins. A New Landscape: Changing Iroquois Settlement…1630-1783. 2010, p. 21.

— 1000s  Keesler. “Iroquois,” Chap. 5, Mohawk: Discovering the Valley of the Crystals. 2004.

Narrative Information

Bogaert:[1] “None of the chiefs was at home, but the principal chief is named Adriochten, who lived a quarter of a mile from the fort[2] in a small house, because a good many savages here in the castle died of smallpox…. I could see nothing but graves…”  (Bogaert. “Narrative of a Journey Into the Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634-1635.” Chapter 13, “Van Den Bogaert’s Journal – 1634-5.” Pp. 220-239 in Greene, Nelson (Ed.). History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1613-1925. 1925; from Schenectady Digital History Archive.)

Hopkins: “Early contact with European traders, missionaries, and diplomats also caused unprecedented social changes. European bodies carried deadly pathogens to which Native Americans had no immunity. As a result, the Five Nations weathered dramatic population losses as men and women of all ages died from repeated epidemics. Indian villages suffered death rates of at least fifty percent, and even as high as seventy percent, from exposure to new epidemics. After a smallpox epidemic struck the Mohawk in 1634, Dean Snow estimated their total  population dropped from a pre-epidemic high of 7,740 to only 2,835, a sixty-three percent decline.”[3] (Hopkins, Kelly Yvonne. A New Landscape: Changing Iroquois Settlement Patterns, Subsistence Strategies, and Environmental Use, 1630-1783 (Doctoral dissertation).  Davis, CA: University of California, Davis, 2010, pp. 20-21.)

Keesler:  “Dutch Children’s Disease Kills Thousands of Mohawks….The Dutch built Fort Orange at present day Albany in 1624, but didn’t bring children until the 1630s….

“Having survived smallpox in their youth, adult Europeans were immune to the disease, so early adult-only contacts did not cause an epidemic.  However, when the Dutch brought children to the area, many of them developed smallpox, and the disease spread among the native peoples who had no immunity. A series of  smallpox epidemics swept up the Mohawk Valley reducing the population of the Mohawks from over 7000 to some 3000. To put this in perspective, imagine half of your family and half of your community dying in just a few short years. The loss of so many children, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles would literally tear families apart, and the loss of community leaders and officials would tear villages, towns and cities apart.

“Early on the Mohawks suffered the most because they lived the closest to the Dutch settlement. However, in a relatively short time all of the Iroquois nations were devastated by smallpox epidemics. No segment of their society was spared. Entire families were lost. Children that survived were orphaned. Some of the best tool and weapon makers, medicine men and healers were no more. Many traditional leaders—men and women whose wisdom and status had bound communities together and influenced almost every major decision—were gone forever. New families were formed; orphans—young and old—were adopted, and new leaders emerged. When villages were constructed in locations well away from “infected” villages and burial grounds, they were much smaller, and 3-hearth longhouses were built instead of the traditional 5-hearth longhouses.

“When all this happened it seems incredible that the Dutch didn’t know about it. But unlike the French who traveled among the Indians to trade for furs, the Dutch were content to stay at their trading post and let the Indians come to them. When the Mohawks and Oneidas stopped coming to Fort Orange in the 1630s, the Dutch suspected they were trading with the French. Three men were sent into Mohawk and Oneida territory in the winter of 1634-35 to investigate. They discovered the Mohawks were in the midst of a smallpox epidemic.

“At the time they didn’t realize the dire consequences of the epidemic, but the information they and subsequent travelers provided, plus archaeological evidence, revealed that villages were being abandoned and others established. Where 7,000 Mohawks lived in 4 large and a couple of small villages spread throughout the valley, they were transitioning to 3 or 4 small villages with a combined population of some 3,000 individuals.

“Incidentally, the journal kept by the leader of that first expedition was the first written description of the Mohawk Valley and its people. It was discovered in 1895 in Holland. Of course it was written in Dutch, so after a copy was brought to America it was translated to English. Its contents have been studied and hotly debated by historians, authors and scholars. Perhaps the most controversial data were the exact locations of the Mohawk villages. Over the years, additional translations of the journal and new  archaeological evidence added to the furor. Fortunately, linguist Charles T. Gehring, and archaeologists Dean R. Snow and William A. Starna joined forces in 1988 to edit and translate, A Journey Into Mohawk and Oneida Country 1634-1635 – The Journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert.” (Keesler. “Iroquois,” Chapter 5 in: Mohawk: Discovering the Valley of the Crystals (a book-in-progress website). 2004.)

Meuwese:  “In the winter of 1634-1635, a smallpox epidemic, possibly transmitted by French traders to the Wendats, struck hard at the Five Nations and other indigenous peoples in the Upper Saint Lawrence Valley.  Although the exact death toll of this ‘virgin soil’ epidemic remains debatable, the Five Nations and their neighbors all suffered great losses, particularly among the young and the old who were most susceptible to the deadly disease….Most ethnohistorians agree that the Five Nations and their Wendat neighbors suffered a severe population decline of more than 50% in the wake of the deadly epidemics of the 1630s.”  (Meuwese, Mark. Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade: Dutch-Indigenous Alliances in the Atlantic World, 1595-1674. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2012, p. 264.

Trigger: “Fenton (1940: 175)[4] has reasonably suggested that epidemics in the sixteenth century may have played a role in the dispersal of the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians, although there are no clear references to such epidemics in the Iroquoian area prior to 1634-1635, when Harmen van den Bogaert reported that many Mohawks had died of smallpox (Jameson 1909: 140[5])”. (Trigger, Bruce G. “Early Iroquoian Contacts with Europeans,”  pp. 344-356 in: Sturtevant William C. (Ed.). Handbook of North American Indians. Washington DC: GPO, Smithsonian Institution, 1978, p. 352.)

Sources

Bogaert, Van Den. “Narrative of a Journey Into the Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634-1635.” Chapter 13, “Van Den Bogaert’s Journal – 1634-5.” Pp. 220-239 in Greene, Nelson (Ed.). History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1613-1925. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1925. Accessed from the Schenectady Digital History Archive 1-24-2013 at: http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/resources/mvgw/history/013.html

Hopkins, Kelly Yvonne. A New Landscape: Changing Iroquois Settlement Patterns, Subsistence Strategies, and Environmental Use, 1630-1783 (Doctoral dissertation).  Davis, CA: University of California, Davis, 2010. Accessed 1-24-2013: http://gradworks.umi.com/3422771.pdf

Keesler, M. Paul. “Iroquois,” Chapter 5 in: Mohawk: Discovering the Valley of the Crystals (a book-in-progress website). 2004. Accessed 1-24-2013:  http://www.mpaulkeeslerbooks.com/Mohawk.htm

Meuwese, Mark. Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade: Dutch-Indigenous Alliances in the Atlantic World, 1595-1674. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2012. Partially Google digitized. Accessed 1-24-2013: http://books.google.com/books?id=vvQIqfGffWgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Trigger, Bruce G. “Early Iroquoian Contacts with Europeans,”  pp. 344-356 in: Sturtevant William C. (Ed.). Handbook of North American Indians. Washington DC: GPO, Smithsonian Institution, 1978. Partially Google digitized.  Accessed 1-24-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=PHXIeG6JyKEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Van Den Bogaert, thought to be the author of this journal, was the surgeon at the Dutch settlement of Fort Orange, present day Albany, NY. He and two countrymen, accompanied by a Mohawk escort, visited Mohawk and Oneida sites during a 200 mile midwinter trip from Dec 11, 1634 to Jan 21, 1635.

[2] Thought by author of Schenectady History website to be Onekagonka, or Lower Castle “(probably at the Turtle Clan) on the hill on (1912) the Vrooman farm on the west bank of Wasontha Creek, west of the village of Randall [NY].”

[3] Cites: Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791, 73 vols., (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896-1901), 17:223; Conrad Heidenreich, Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians, 1600-1650, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971), 97-98; Dean R. Snow, “The Ethnohistoric Baseline of the Eastern Abenaki,” Ethnohistory, vol. 23, no. 3 (1976):291-306; Ted J. Brasser, “Early Indian-European Contacts,” in William C. Sturtevant, gen. ed., Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, Northeast, edited by Bruce G. Trigger, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1978), 78-88; Dean R. Snow, Mohawk Valley Archaeology: The Sites, Occasional Papers in

Anthropology, Number 23, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1995), 4, 279-359. William A. Starna estimated a far higher pre- and post-epidemic Mohawk population because he calculated Mohawk longhouses and villages (180 longhouses in eight villages) filled to capacity, see his “Mohawk Iroquois Populations: A Revision,” Ethnohistory, vol. 27, no. 4, (1980):371-382.

[4] Fenton, William N.  “Problems Arising from the Historic Northeastern Position of the Iroquois. Pp. 159-251 in Essays in Historical Anthropology of North America. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 100. Washington, DC.

[5] Jameson, J. Franklin (Ed.). Narratives of New Netherlands 1609-1664. NY: Scribner, 1909.

Native Americans, New England:

—      >1000  Blanchard estimate.[1]

—        >950  Plymouth col. gov. William Bradford in: Peters. Smallpox…New World. 2005, p.27.

— Multitudes.   Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague & Pestilence. 2001, p. 66.)

— Entire tribes. Krucik, George. “10 Worst Outbreaks in U.S. History.” Healthline, 1-22-2013.

Plymouth, MA Colony

— 20  123HelpMe.com. “Smallpox in New England.” Accessed 1-23-2013.

Narrative Information

123HelpMe.com. “Native Americans were completely susceptible to contracting the disease, but they weren’t the only victims. Twenty people died on the Mayflower as a result of smallpox. There was a smallpox outbreak in Plymouth Colony around 1633. Twenty people died including their only physician. This was the beginning of the colonial’s struggle with the disease.  Smallpox became distinguishable as the most destructive disease in New England in 1633. From this date forward, smallpox continued to plague New England.”  (123HelpMe.com. “Smallpox in New England.” Accessed 1-23-2013.)

Bradford: “This spring, also, those Indeans [sic] that lived aboute their trading house[2] there fell sick of the small poxe[3] and dyed most miserably; for a sorer disease cannot befall them; they fear it more then the plague; for usually they that have this disease have them in abundance, and for wante of bedding and linning and other helps, they fall into a lamentable condition, as they lye on their hard matts, the poxe breaking and mattering, and running one into another, their skin cleaving (by reason thereof) to the matts they lye on; when they turne them, a whole side will flea of at once {204} (as it were,) and they will be all of a gore blood, most fearfull to behold; and then being very sore, what with could and other distempers, they dye like rotten sheep. The condition of this people was so lamentable, and they fell downe so generally of this disease, as they were (in the end) not able to help on another; no, not to make a fire, nor to fetch a little water to drink, nor any to burie the dead; but would strive as long as they could, and when they could procure no other means to make fire, they would burn the woden trays and dishes they ate their meat in, and their very bows and arrows; and some would crawl out on all fours to get a little water, and some times dye by the way, and not be able to get in again. But those of the English house, (though at first they were afraid of the infection,) yet seeing their woeful and sad condition, and hearing their pitiful cries and lamentations, they had compassion of them, and dayly fetched them wood and water, and made them fires, got them victuals whilst they lived, and buried them when they dyed. For very few of them escaped, notwithstanding they did what they could for them, to the hazard of them selves. The cheefe Sachem him selfe now dyed, and almost all his friends and kinred. But by the marvelous goodness and providens of God not one of the English was so much as sick, or in the least measure tainted with this disease, though they dayly did these offices for them for many weeks together. And this mercie which they showed them was kindly taken, and thankfully acknowledged of all the Indeans that knew or heard of the same; and their m[aste]rs here did much commend and reward them for the same.”

(Bradford. Plimmoth Plantation, “1634,” pp. 193-195.)

Calloway: “A disease that may have been smallpox raged south of the Merrimack River in 1631, but it was slight compared to the massive epidemic that broke out in 1633. Smallpox swept along the St. Lawrence, down the Connecticut River, where it disrupted the developing fur trade, through New England and westward to Huron country, affecting almost all Indian groups in the Northeast. The death rate was appalling.

“Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony reported that one Indian village up the Connecticut River had suffered ‘such a mortalitie that of a 1000, above 900 and a half of them dyed, and many of them did rott above ground for want of a buriall.’ Dean Snow’s researches into the epidemic provide confirmation of a 95 percent depopulation.[4]

“This contagion was the first in a series of epidemics that affected the area between eastern Canada and the Great Lakes in the next decade.” (Calloway, Collin G. The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People. 1994, p. 36.)

Crosby: “The first recorded epidemic of smallpox in British or French North America erupted among the Algonkins of Massachusetts in the early 1630s: ‘Whole towns of them were swept away, in some not so much as one soul escaping Destruction.’[5] William Bradford of Plymouth Plantation, a few miles south, provided a few more details on just how hard the Algonkins nearby were hit, and how the death rates could soar to such heights in these epidemics. Some of the victims, he wrote,

Fell down so generally of this disease as they were in the end not able to help one another, no not to make a fire nor fetch a little water to drink, nor any to bury the dead.  But would strive as long s they could, and when they could procure no other means to make fire, they would burn the wooden trays and dishes they ate their meat from, and their very bows and arrows.  And some would crawl out on all fours to get a little water, and sometimes die by the way and not be able to get in again.[6]

“The disease raged through New England, on west into the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes region, and from there no one knows how much farther.”  (Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900. Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 202.)

Drake: “1633. Nov. – Chikataubut, sachem of Shawmut and its vicinity, dies of the small pox, as does also Montowampate, sachem of Saugus, and Monohaquaham of the same place.”  (Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836.  In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836.)

Kohn: “Connecticut Smallpox Epidemic of 1634 Pestilence carried by Dutch traders to the Connecticut River Indians that precipitated a catastrophic epidemic — a sequence of outbreaks over a period of about seven years — among Indians along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes and into eastern Canada. The Pequots (Mohawks of the Iroquois nation who had driven out the Mohicans) had invited both the English (Massachusetts Bay) and Dutch (New Netherlands) to the Connecticut river for trade….Although there are no comprehensive statistics, multitudes of Indians died. Individual, firsthand accounts reported that many more died than lived. According to William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation, 95 out of every 100 Indians died in the Connecticut River valley outbreak, while the English escaped infection….Smallpox devastated populations never before exposed to the disease, killing up to 90 percent of those infected….”(Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague & Pestilence. 2001, pp. 66-67.)

Krucik:  “1633-1634: Smallpox Epidemic in New England

“The first truly terrible disease outbreak came to America with the first Europeans. While smallpox has been around for thousands of years, European settlers first brought smallpox to North America in the 1600s. In 1633-1634, the disease swept through the Northeast, wiping out entire Native American tribes.”  (Krucik, George.  “10 Worst Outbreaks in U.S. History.” Healthline.com, 1-22-2013.)

Mashantucket Pequot Museum: “Deserted wigwams and abandoned villages dotted the landscape of southern New England in the early 17th century—a grim testament to the tragic effects of European colonization on Native society and culture…. Two major epidemics occurred in southern New England in the early 17th century. The first, possibly an outbreak of bubonic plague, took place during the years 1616 through 1619. The second and more widespread case was the smallpox epidemic of 1633 and 1634, which swept across the entire Northeast.

“Smallpox and the other diseases brought over by Europeans killed entire families, but the young were particularly vulnerable. The loss of so many children and young people made it difficult for the Pequot population to rebound even after the epidemics had run their course.

“Native population in New England plummeted by over 70% as a result of these epidemics, and some Native groups lost up to 95% of their members. Like other Native tribes in southern New England, the Pequots suffered extremely high mortality rates during this period, leaving behind a population in 1636 of an estimated 4,000 people—a small fraction of the tribe’s population prior to European contact….”  (Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center. “The Impact of European Diseases.”)

Peters: “The relationship between the Native Americans and the English settlers was still uneasy in 1630.  Then, in 1633, a second smallpox epidemic struck Massachusetts. Many of the Native Americans who had survived the earlier epidemic died. Twenty Plymouth colonists also succumbed. Despite these twenty deaths, the 1633 epidemic was seen as a gift from God by some Puritans. One such Puritan was Increase Mather, an outspoken clergyman and one of the first presidents of Harvard College.  He wrote this of the outbreak:

The Indians began to be quarrelsome concerning the bounds of the land they had sold to the English; but God ended the controversy by sending the smallpox amongst the Indians at Saugust, who were before that time exceeding numerous. Whole towns of hem were swept away, in some of them not so much as one Soul escaping the destruction.

“Mather was not alone in his belief that smallpox was a beneficent act of God. Records remain of many European settlers praising God for the disease. By wiping out the Indians, smallpox helped the colonists help themselves to land and resources formerly controlled by unfriendly native people. The Europeans could and did colonize virtually unchallenged in some areas.

“Smallpox did not stay confined to the shores of Massachusetts. At the time of the 1633 epidemic, Dutch traders were on the Massachusetts coast looking to establish trade relations with the Native American tribes. The Dutch retreated inland when the epidemic struck. They carried smallpox along with them. Their journey took them through the Connecticut River valley. In the winter of 1633-1634, the disease attacked the Narraganset Indians as well as other tribes living along the Connecticut River.

“William Bradford, governor of he Plymouth colony, happened to be in the area when the epidemic hit.  He described what he saw during this outbreak:

They lye on their hard matts, ye poxe breaking and mattering, and running one into another, their skin cleaving (by reason thereof) to the matts they lye on; when they turn them, a whole side will flea off at once…and hey will be all of a gore blood, most fearful to behold.  And then being very sore, what with could {cold} and other distempers, they dye like rotten sheep.

“The death toll was horrific: “Of a 1000, above 900 and a halfe of them dyed.’ Bradford later wrote, ‘and many of hem did rot above ground for want of buriall. It didn’t take long for the disease to spread throughout and beyond the boundaries of New England.”  (Peters, Stephanie True. Epidemic! Smallpox in the New World. Tarrytown, NY: Benchmark Books, 2005, 26-27.)

Sources

123HelpMe.com. “Smallpox in New England.” Accessed 1-23-2013 at: http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=40835

Bradford, William. History of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (Vol. II of two volumes). Massachusetts Historical Society, 1912. Google digital preview from copy in Harvard College Library. Accessed 9-12-2016 at: https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Plymouth_Plantation_1620_1647.html?id=N6hVgkcv3dIC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

Calloway, Collin G. The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People.  University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. Google digitized. At:  http://books.google.com/books?id=EB2Q1un0tzkC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq=1616+epidemic&source=web&ots=vi_KAtJOp-&sig=YkgHh7Afx5agGNikrWN2s9GZGCY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA36,M1

Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Phtqa_3tNykC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Drake, Samuel G.  Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836.  In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=NUwMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 1995 and 2001.

Krucik, George. “10 Worst Outbreaks in U.S. History.” Healthline.com, 1-22-2013. Accessed 1-24-2013: http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/10-worst-disease-outbreaks#2

Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center. “The Impact of European Diseases.”  Accessed 1-23-2013: http://www.pequotmuseum.org/SocietyCulture/TheImpactofDisease/

Peters, Stephanie True. Epidemic! Smallpox in the New World. Tarrytown, NY: Benchmark Books, 2005. Partially Google digitized. Accessed 1-24-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=v0zEiM_hijsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[1] Over 1,000 is, we believe a conservative number.  Cited, below, is Plymouth Colony Governor Bradford to the effect that over 950 out of 1,000 Natives near the colony died of the disease.  In addition, we know that 20 Plymouth colonists died. Whole tribes are said to have been decimated or wiped out in New England.  Thus, it is plausible that well over one thousand died. It may well be the case that thousands died.

[2] Dutch trading house on Connecticut River in today’s Connecticut.

[3] Editor’s footnote 1: “The epidemic which had raged in November of the previous year passed from tribe to tribe, and spread over wide territory. Brébeuf, missionary among the Hurons in 1635, noted that almost no one who returned by canoe from trading was not afflicted with this contagion. ‘It has been so universal among the savages of our acquaintance that I do not know if one has escaped its attacks.’ He described the sickness as beginning with violent fever, which was followed by a sort of measles or smallpox ‘different, how ever, from that common in France, accompanied in several cases by blindness for some days, or by dimness of sight, and terminated at length by diarrhoea which has carried off many.’ Jesuit Relations (Thwaites), viii, 87, 89; Parkman, Jesuits in North America, 87.” Goes on to write, in next paragraph: “Roger Williams noted that the customary visit to the sick, ‘a poore empty visit and presence’ among the Indians, was omitted in infectious diseases; ‘and then all forsake them and flie, that I have often seene a poore House left alone in the wild Woods, all being fled, the living not able to bury the dead; so terrible is the apprehension of an infectious disease, that not only persons, but the Houses and the whole Towne takes flight.’ He recorded a word, ‘mamaskishaumitch,’ meaning the ‘last pox, that is, this visitation of 1633-34. Key into the Language of America (Narragansett Club), 210. Thomas Morton corroborates the desertion of the dying by the living. New English Canaan (Prince Society), 132. Winter, reported from Richmond Island, in August, 1634, ‘Theris a great many of the Indyans dead this yeare, both east and west from us, and a great many dyes still to the eastward from us.’ Trelawny Papers, 47.”

[4] Cited is:  Dean R. Snow and Kim M. Lamphear, “European Contact and Indian Depopulation in the Northeast:  The Timing of the First Epidemics.”  Ethnohistory, Vol. 35, Winter 1988, pp. 15-33.

[5] John Duffy. “Smallpox and the Indians in the American Colonies.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 25, Jul-Aug 1951, p. 327.

[6] William Bradford.  Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison.  New York: Knopf, 1952, p. 271.

–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

–45,000  NIH. Native Voices. “Timeline…1616: Yellow fever kills two-thirds of…Wampanoag.”

Narrative Information

NIH: “AD 1616: Yellow fever kills two-thirds of the Wampanoag.[1] 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.”)

Another View

Marr and Cathey Abstract: “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. Local ecology and high-risk quotidian[2] practices of the native population favored exposure and were not shared by Europeans. Reduction of the population may have been incremental, episodic, and continuous; local customs continuously exposed this population to hyperendemic leptospiral infection over months or years, and only a fraction survived. Previous proposals do not adequately account for signature signs (epistaxis, jaundice) and do not consider customs that may have been instrumental to the near annihilation of Native Americans, which facilitated successful colonization of the Massachusetts Bay area.”

Source

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

Marr, John S. and John T. Cathey. “New Hypothesis for cause of Epidemic among Native Americans, New England, 1616-1619.” Emerging Infections Diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Vol. 16, No. 2, February 2010, pp. 281-286. Accessed 3-4-2017 at:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/2/09-0276_article

United States National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. “Timeline. AD 1616: Yellow fever kills two-thirds of the Wampanoag.” Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 9-17-2012 at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/197.html

[1] This is stated rather authoritatively. We have seen other theories as well as a 1916-1999 time frame for the disease which carried off so many Natives. Madeleine Johnson in “The Pilgrims Should Have Been Thankful for a Spirochete.” (Slate, 10-20-2012), writes that Leptospirosis, from rat urine, “conveniently cleared coastal New England of Native Americans just prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival…”

[2] Everyday life.