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"...biological warfare occurred in 1763, during Pontiac’s rebellion. At this time, the French had been defeated and Amherst was commander-in-chief of all British forces in N. America." https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/biological-warfare-disease-and-depopulation-zig-zag-2004/
"In a letter reportedly written by Amherst himself...
'Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.'
(quoted in The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War, p. 39)"
'Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.'
(quoted in The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War, p. 39)"
"In 1796 a vaccination for smallpox was first developed by Dr. Edward Jenner in England...
Commenting on the 1862 smallpox epidemic Boyd states:
'this epidemic might have been avoided, and the whites knew it. Vaccine was available. and the efficacy of quarantine was understood.'”
Commenting on the 1862 smallpox epidemic Boyd states:
'this epidemic might have been avoided, and the whites knew it. Vaccine was available. and the efficacy of quarantine was understood.'”
"Epidemics are not only the naturally occurring result of discrete biological processes, but also events produced by public health authorities reading a situation and taking particular courses of action."
- Ryan Eyford https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2020/04/04/a-smallpox-epidemic-colonial-quarantine-around-lake-winnipeg/
- Ryan Eyford https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2020/04/04/a-smallpox-epidemic-colonial-quarantine-around-lake-winnipeg/
"The response to the 1876 smallpox epidemic was, literally, the creation of a new government that served both as a Board of Health and as a territorial authority for Keewatin, the region north and east of the province of Manitoba and including the Icelandic reserve."
"The company [HBC], in fact, actively promoted the spread of the disease by burning Native villages on Vancouver Island...
John Tod refused to vaccinate more then 70 Secwépemc until they delivered him a year’s supply of salmon." https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/secwepemc-history-of-resistance-2005/
John Tod refused to vaccinate more then 70 Secwépemc until they delivered him a year’s supply of salmon." https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/secwepemc-history-of-resistance-2005/
Whether we're dealing with an American political commentator currently denying the genocide of Indigenous peoples, or the Canadian prime minister accepting a public inquiry's finding of genocide last year, we can see that words alone don't change a genocidal structure & reality.
Whether admitted to or not, the fact is not only that genocide occurred, but that it didn't have to occur. It was resisted by Indigenous peoples, and settlers could have made different choices. History didn't go anywhere, as the structures of today are built on its foundations.
Colonization was never an accident, and is still intentionally maintained through institutions & systems in the present day. Colonization is always an intentional war for territory & jurisdiction, and to build a new settler society by exploiting & eliminating Indigenous societies
Whether admitted to or not, debate around genocide & colonization still places them in the past rather than as the ongoing reality they still are. This was the case for example with the prime minister, who only admitted that genocide "happened", not that it's still going on.
Framing a debate around whether or not genocide of Indigenous people took place is itself a form of denial of both historical and ongoing genocide in the now.
One could almost say it's actually more harmful to admit to genocide, like the prime minister did, but place it in the past, while also creating absolutely no consequences or remedial action around this monumental crime in the present.
Canada says, yeah genocide, so what? What are we supposed to do about it? Stop?
The massive racist disparities with who is contracting & dying from COVID-19 now are also the result of colonialism & white supremacy, just as disease epidemics were in colonial history. It's not accidental. The settler state actively maintains racist & social class disparities.
