Event

Smallpox-hospital blankets given at Fort Pitt, 1763

On 24 June 1763 Fort Pitt personnel gave two Delaware envoys blankets and a handkerchief from the smallpox hospital; account books show the British military sanctioned and paid for it.

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Dates: 24 Jun 1763

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William Trent wrote in his journal that "we gave them" two blankets and a handkerchief from the smallpox hospital; the journal does not say who conceived or carried out the act, per Fenn Scholarship & press 1
Simeon Ecuyer certified the invoice for the items Scholarship & press 1
Fort Pitt where smallpox broke out in June 1763 Scholarship & press 1
British government its army sanctioned and paid for the act, per Fenn Scholarship & press 1

appears in

Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst Scholarship & press 1
An invoice from the firm Levy, Trent and Company, quoted by Fenn from the Bouquet papers. Fenn notes that Trent's journal mentions one handkerchief and the invoice two.
Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst Scholarship & press 1 2
Historians disagree about the effect. Philip Ranlet and Paul Kelton are quoted by HISTORY; Elizabeth Fenn finds the timing "uncanny" but writes that blame cannot be placed squarely on the British.
Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst Scholarship & press 1
Genocide and American Indian History Scholarship & press 1 3
Ostler reports a scholarly consensus that deliberate infection was rare; Fenn suggests it may not have been as rare as it seems.

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24 Jun 1763 Smallpox-hospital blankets given at Fort Pitt, 1763

Proof 3 sources

Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst, The Journal of American History, 2000. Scholarship & press
“we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.”
Captain Ecuyer certified that the items “were had for the uses above mentioned,” and Gen. Thomas Gage ultimately approved the invoice for payment
Ecuyer reported the outbreak at Fort Pitt on June 16, and the attempt to communicate the disease took place eight days later.
but Fort Pitt account books make it clear that the British military both sanctioned and paid for the deed.
To Sundries got to Replace in kind those which were taken from people in the Hospital to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians
What the documents do show, however, is that smallpox struck hard among the Indians around Fort Pitt in the spring and summer of 1763.
As the historian Michael McConnell has pointed out, it is possible and perhaps likely that the epidemic stemmed from multiple sources of infection.
Trent reported that two Delaware dignitaries, Turtle's Heart and Mamaltee, visited Fort Pitt late at night and asked to speak with post officials.
Usually treated as an isolated anomaly, the Fort Pitt episode itself points to the possibility that biological warfare was not as rare as it might seem.
Did Colonists Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans as Biological Warfare?, HISTORY, 15 Nov 2018. Scholarship & press
There is no evidence that the scheme worked
That’s the one documented case that we have
We can’t be sure
Genocide and American Indian History, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2 Mar 2015. Scholarship & press Archived copy
But the evidence marshaled thus far has failed to dislodge a scholarly consensus that the intentional infliction of disease was rare.

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2026-11-02Add 55 stories, each checked against its sourcesAlibek96e92fe6

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