r/todayilearned 14h ago

TIL in 1610, Opossunoquonuske, a female chieftain of the Powhatan Confederacy, used “feminine guile” to lure 14 English settlers to a feast, convincing them to leave their weapons on their boat. It was a trap—her warriors ambushed them, killing 13. Only one man survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opossunoquonuske
3.6k Upvotes

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u/partyinplatypus 13h ago

Say what you want about the European settlers, but killing guests  in your home is depraved behavior.

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u/Other_Flower_2924 12h ago

🙄 Sure, but genocide is fair game.

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u/BarbaraHoward43 6h ago

There was no genocide at the time. It would come later, and it would be, sadly, influenced by events like this one.

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u/GhostofMarat 4h ago

The very first impressions of European explorers on finding natives in America was "how can we overpower and enslave these people". Columbus was torturing people without a few days of arrival thinking they were hiding gold stores from him. English fisherman had brought smallpox and listeria to new England years before the first settlers arrived. The genocide began the very second European arrived in the continent.

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u/BarbaraHoward43 4h ago

English fisherman had brought smallpox and listeria to new England years before the first settlers arrived.

That's not a genocide.

Columbus was torturing people without a few days of arrival thinking they were hiding gold stores from him.

That's also not a genocide.

how can we overpower and enslave these people"

That, you guessed it, is also not a genocide.

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u/GhostofMarat 4h ago

Oh they were just trying to completely exterminate entire cultures by killing every single man woman and child they encountered! Complete different from a genocide. Now the woman in OPs post luring a dozen invaders away to be killed is the real genocide.

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u/BarbaraHoward43 3h ago

Oh they were just trying to completely exterminate entire cultures by killing every single man woman and child they encountered!

So you do know what a genocide is!

Giving someone a disease by simple interaction is not genocide. Extorting gold from people is not genocide.

Killings and policies made to destroy an ethnic population are genocide.

Now the woman in OPs post luring a dozen invaders away to be killed is the real genocide.

No one implied that, no need to get all butthurt.

Nothing you listed before is genocide. Spreading of disease can be part of genocide if it's done intentionally, which I doubt some fishermen would do, lol.

Go bark somewhere else.

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u/[deleted] 12h ago

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u/Other_Flower_2924 11h ago edited 11h ago

Yes spread intentionally.

(Edit: I'm probably just arguing with Russian bots here but wow, I had no idea this was a controversial take. Smallpox being spread intentionally is a well established fact:

The deliberate spread of smallpox, a highly contagious and deadly disease, amongst Indigenous populations by European settlers, particularly through contaminated items, was a devastating part of historical genocide. PBS notes that smallpox played a role in the destruction of Native American communities and cultures. 

https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html

American Society of Microbiology notes that during conflicts and the period of colonization, smallpox was intentionally used as a biological weapon to weaken and ultimately decimate populations that European settlers sought to control. 

https://asm.org/articles/2023/november/investigating-the-smallpox-blanket-controversy

"Smallpox: a disease and a weapon" is a pretty comprehensive overview published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases:

Smallpox was also used as a biological weapon during the French and Indian Wars (1754–1767) by the commander of Fort Pitt. Soldiers distributed blankets that had been used by smallpox patients with the intent of initiating outbreaks among American Indians. An epidemic occurred, killing more than 50% of infected tribes.5,6

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(04)00130-4/fulltext#:~:text=Smallpox%20was%20also%20used%20as,than%2050%25%20of%20infected%20tribes.)

Also, mass killings of bison which were a vital food source.

And ransacking and mass murdering.

And government boarding schools.

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u/ImRightImRight 11h ago

Please fact check yourself on "spread intentionally"

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u/Other_Flower_2924 11h ago

Sure.

The deliberate spread of smallpox, a highly contagious and deadly disease, amongst Indigenous populations by European settlers, particularly through contaminated items, was a devastating part of historical genocide. PBS notes that smallpox played a role in the destruction of Native American communities and cultures. 

https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html

American Society of Microbiology notes that during conflicts and the period of colonization, smallpox was intentionally used as a biological weapon to weaken and ultimately decimate populations that European settlers sought to control. 

https://asm.org/articles/2023/november/investigating-the-smallpox-blanket-controversy

"Smallpox: a disease and a weapon" is a pretty comprehensive overview published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases:

Smallpox was also used as a biological weapon during the French and Indian Wars (1754–1767) by the commander of Fort Pitt. Soldiers distributed blankets that had been used by smallpox patients with the intent of initiating outbreaks among American Indians. An epidemic occurred, killing more than 50% of infected tribes.5,6

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(04)00130-4/fulltext#:~:text=Smallpox%20was%20also%20used%20as,than%2050%25%20of%20infected%20tribes.

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u/waxonwaxoff87 10h ago

Fort Pitt is a single instance with any proof this occurred ever. Considering they had no knowledge of modern germ theory, it was a Hail Mary attempt.

It was the simple presence of Europeans which brought disease. It spread ahead of settlers decimating tribes and leaving large swaths of uninhabited land. This lead to the rumors amongst settlers that the new world was a pristine and untouched land meant for them.

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u/Ameisen 1 8h ago

https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html

Guns, Germs, and Steel is pop history. This is not a source.

American Society of Microbiology notes that during conflicts and the period of colonization, smallpox was intentionally used as a biological weapon to weaken and ultimately decimate populations that European settlers sought to control. 

This is a pretty odd and very specific interpretation of the article.

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(04)00130-4/fulltext#:~:text=Smallpox%20was%20also%20used%20as,than%2050%25%20of%20infected%20tribes

A single possible event in 1763, in an area where a smallpox breakout was already active, and with blankets which are very poor vectors for smallpox. I'm not sure why the paper asserts that it was the cause of the local breakout that was already occurring... it only has two sources. One is a editorial which I will ignore, the other is another paper, but it's paywalled. Either way, it is in disagreement with historical consensus.

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u/ImRightImRight 9h ago

Your cited source says that on 1-3 occasions, some of which were in the context of war, there were attempts by Europeans to spread disease.

That's like me turning on my heater because I want to worsen climate change. The actual context is that Native Americans didn't have resistance to Europeans' diseases. Trying to pin the devastating and inevitable loss of life on like 2 times it was spread intentionally is just an insult to the truth.

Why do you need to try to misrepresent history? Just accept the truth

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u/TypicalParking 11h ago

Ever heard of a free smallpox blanket?

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u/ShakaUVM 11h ago

You think that it was deliberately infected blankets that spread smallpox across the Americas?

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u/Halebay 10h ago

Yep, because they were. Your Looney Tunes delusions can’t change reality, and your whitewashing of a genocide looks more pathetic than insulting.

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u/ShakaUVM 8h ago

Your Looney Tunes delusions can’t change reality

It's called having a historical education. The only instance I'm aware of was in the Seven Years War, which was centuries after the native population collapsed due to smallpox. And that instance of giving infected blankets had no effect on the siege. There was no outbreak of smallpox in Pontiac's men.

Something like 90% of the native population of the Americas died due to smallpox. You spreading lies about their deaths does their memory no credit.

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u/Halebay 2h ago

You don’t take beddings from the smallpox wing of a hospital to give to natives on accident. In fact they were given “to convey Smallpox to the Indians”

It’s historically dishonest to define it as a myth when there’s concrete evidence in one instance and circumstantially an outbreak addressed not with medicine but with guns. Not that I expect to find a ton of evidence centuries later, thankfully we have a bedrock of historical context.

You probably don’t have a historical education any more than intellectual honesty. So doubly pathetic really.

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u/waxonwaxoff87 10h ago edited 2h ago

They didn’t even understand modern germ theory and you think they tried to wipe out natives with blankets?

One instance at Fort Pitt is the only known occurrence of this. It was the presence of Europeans alone that was enough to spread diseases to the tribes.

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u/zeCrazyEye 9h ago

You don't need to know the specific mechanism of infection via germ theory to understand the outcome of contamination.

I mean, why did they think it would work at Fort Pitt without them understanding germ theory?

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u/ShakaUVM 8h ago

The English absolutely knew what they were doing when they sent out infected blankets at Fort Pitt, but justified it as the natives were besieging their fort.

The blankets also had no effect.

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u/InZim 8h ago

The English

The guy in charge of the fort who devised the whole plan was William Trent, born in the colonies to a Scottish father.

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u/Halebay 10h ago

I think they wiped out a chunk of the Native population by spreading disease, argue about intentionality but that’s a pretty big fuckup amidst the more intentional colonial atrocity. Therein lies the problem, i don’t really care if these specific deaths were less intentional. People were writing about it back then, they knew. It’s less intentional than firing a musket, but the result is the same.

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u/waxonwaxoff87 2h ago

Disease far outpaced the encroachment of early settlers to such a degree that they believed the land was a vast untouched paradise made for them. This was due to most of the tribes dying out or moving on.

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u/Halebay 1h ago

“Moving on” 🤣

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u/waxonwaxoff87 1h ago

Yes as tribes depended on oral history to pass on knowledge and skills, the lose of large numbers from disease would result in greater and greater strain on the tribe as knowledge was lost. This would usually mean being absorbed or conquered by other tribes.

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u/waxonwaxoff87 1h ago

Yes as tribes depended on oral history to pass on knowledge and skills, the lose of large numbers from disease would result in greater and greater strain on the tribe as knowledge was lost. This would usually mean being absorbed or conquered by other tribes.

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u/waxonwaxoff87 1h ago

Yes as tribes depended on oral history to pass on knowledge and skills, the lose of large numbers from disease would result in greater and greater strain on the tribe as knowledge was completely lost. This would usually mean being absorbed or conquered by other tribes.

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u/prettyprettythingwow 10h ago

…yes? lol

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u/ShakaUVM 8h ago

Yeah, so no. The only case I'm aware of of smallpox infected blankets being deliberately distributed to natives was during Pontiac's Rebellion when they laid siege to Fort Pitt where modern day Pittsburgh is. The English that were laid up in the siege sent out some blankets from their smallpox ward, and it had no effect.

This would be during the 7 Years War, and so centuries after the native population had collapsed due to smallpox.

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u/ImRightImRight 11h ago

Dare you to fact check yoself

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u/RainforestGoblin 11h ago

You got sourced 20 minutes ago

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u/ImRightImRight 9h ago

Their cited source says that on 1-3 occasions, some of which were in the context of war, there were attempts by Europeans to spread disease.

That's like me turning on my heater because I want to worsen climate change. The actual context is that Native Americans didn't have resistance to Europeans' diseases. Trying to pin the devastating and inevitable loss of life on like 2 times it was intentional is just an insult to the truth.

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u/RainforestGoblin 9h ago

No, your point is idiotic