1690 — Spring-Fall, Smallpox, Iroquois Native Americans, esp. upper New York –~300-500

—           500  Brandão. Your Fyre Shall Burn No More. 1997 & 2000, p. 150, Appendix B.

—           100  Warriors with English army.

— 400  In villages.

—           500  Havard. Great Peace of Montreal of 1701, p. 65.

–400 Iroquois

–100 Mahicans

—         ~300  Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953 and 1979, p. 72.

—         >300  Frontenac, New France Governor General, letter to Minister, 11-12-1690, p. 461.

—         ~300  Hopkins. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. 1983 and 2002, p. 240.

–Devastated. Richter. The Ordeal of the Longhouse. P. 173.

 

Narrative Information

 

Brandão: “in the spring of 1690 smallpox was reported among the Mohawks gathering to attack New France. It had yet to spread to the rest of the tribes (with the army or in Iroquoia?) because they were out hunting. By the fall of that year the French reported that one hundred Iroquois with the army had died of smallpox, and four hundred others had died in their villages.” (Brandao. Your Fyre Shall Burn No More. P. 150, Appendix B.)

 

Duffy: “Smallpox prevailed generally throughout North America from 1688-1691….In 1690, according to Frontenac,[1] the English, allied with the Mohegans and Iroquois, planned an assault on Quebec but when Mohegan emissaries, still bearing the marks of smallpox were sent to the Iroquois, they were accused of bringing the plague. Subsequently the Iroquois became contaminated and about three hundred died. The rest then refused to join the expedition.”[2]

 

Frontenac to the Minister, 11-12-1690: Describes on p. 459 an attack by the English with “nearly 2,000 men and some guns [cannon]” on Quebec in mid-October, during which “they assuredly lost in killed and wounded more than five hundred men.” [p. 460]

 

“I omitted to inform you, My Lord, that one of the circumstances which disappointed them the most was, that the arrangement they had made with the Iroquois did not succeed as they expected. For I learn from all the advices I have received, that when the fleet was to appear before Quebec, those of Manathe and Orange were to made a descent to the number of 3000, English, Mohegans (Loups) and Iroquois, for the purpose of investing us; repair before said town by the upper part of the river whilst the others cooperated from below. The affair would be very embarrassing, had not God interposed. The same advices state that the English and Mohegans (Loups) having been attacked by the Small pox, sent to the rendezvous some persons who were still red with the marks of it; which greatly incensed the Iroquois who told [end p. 460] them they were bringing the plague among them. That disorder did in fact break out in their midst, and destroyed more than three hundred of them, and finally, discontent having increased, the Iroquois had retired to their villages, after they had pillaged some English people….” [p. 461] (O’Callaghan, E. B. (ed.). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York…, 1855, pp. 460-461.)

 

Havard: “In 1690 smallpox was said to have ‘killed four hundred Iroquois and one hundred Mahingans {Mahicans},’….” (Havard. Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. 1992 and 2001, p. 65.)

 

Hopkins: “King William’s War, which pitted the British and French and their Indian allies against each other, helped spread smallpox throughout New England and Canada in 1690, and many who survived the fighting died of the disease. During the war, the English planned a two-pronged attack on Quebec, capital of New France. Unfortunately for them, the British and Mohegan emissaries who were sent to arrange part of the joint assault with the Iroquois bore scars of recent smallpox, and the Iroquois accused them of bringing the infection with them. The Iroquois did become, or already were, infected, and after about three hundred died, the others refused to join the expedition. The English thus had to abandon this part of their campaign, which had called for two thousand troops and one thousand, five hundred Indians to march on Quebec from the south (Duffy 1951; Heagerty 1928).” (Hopkins. The Greatest Killer, 1983 and 2002, p. 240.)

 

Richter: “…the four western League nations were devastated by the summer 1690 smallpox epidemic that prevented their warriors from participating in that year’s Anglo-Iroquois assault on Canada.” (Richter. The Ordeal of the Longhouse. P. 173.)

 

Sources

 

Brandão, José António. Your Fyre Shall Burn No More: Iroquois Policy toward New France and Its Native Allies to 1701. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, First Bison Books printing, 2000. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=qi5hMqyPXLYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

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

 

Havard, Gilles (translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott). Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century. Montreal & Kingston, London, Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, printed in French in 1992 and English, 2001. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at:  https://books.google.com/books?id=o18BBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Hopkins, Donald R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1983 and 2002. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=z2zMKsc1Sn0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

O’Callaghan, E. B. (ed.). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured in Holland, England and France, by John Romeyn Brodhead, Esq., Agent, Under and by Virtue of an Act of the Legislature (Vol. IX). Albany: Weed, Parson and Company, Printers, 1855. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=786B9kHkLZQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Richter, Daniel K. The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Google preview accessed 3-28-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=fEbqCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

[1] Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, Governor General of New France at the time. (Wikipedia. “Louis de Buade de Frontenac.” 3-27-2018 edit.

[2] In footnote 5 cites: Count de Frontenac to the Minister, December [actually November] 12, 1690, in O’Callaghan (ed.), Documents Relative to Colonial History, IX (1855), 459-61.