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Speculative theory
Smallpox BlanketsAtlas
Health & Medicine · Pandemics & disease origins
The phrase “smallpox blankets” functions in public discourse as a shorthand for alleged colonial biological warfare against Indigenous peoples. A longstanding historical claim holds that British officers distributed smallpox-infected blankets to Native American groups during the colonial era.
Open the caseSmallpox6
- Documented · Smallpox outbreaks caused severe mortality among Indigenous populations in North America during the colonial period.
- Documented · The phrase “smallpox blankets” functions in public discourse as a shorthand for alleged colonial biological warfare against Indigenous peoples.
- Contested · A longstanding historical claim holds that British officers distributed smallpox-infected blankets to Native American groups during the colonial era.
- Contested · Popular retellings sometimes attribute smallpox-blanket distribution to the United States military rather than British colonial forces.
- Contested · Some secondary accounts describe colonists providing blankets associated with a smallpox hospital to Native Americans in a single recorded case.
- Contested · Some sources characterize the widespread smallpox-blankets story as a hoax or false belief, while others present it as evidence of intentional genocide or massacre.
Jeffrey Amherst1
- Documented · Jeffrey Amherst is frequently named in discussions of alleged British use of smallpox against Native Americans.
Pontiac1
- Contested · The smallpox-blankets episode is commonly linked in secondary accounts to fighting during Pontiac's War.
Other1
- Contested · Historians and commentators disagree over whether the episode was intentional biological warfare, a limited incident, or a largely exaggerated or mythical narrative.