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Comment by omegaworks | Hacker News Reader

> Complications of smallpox included encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), corneal ulcerations (an open sore on the clear, front surface of the eye), and blindness.

A tragic reminder of the horror inflicted on indigenous people by the colonies that would become the United States[1]. A bioweapon used to craft the narrative of the empty, pristine continent, bestowed by God for the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny[2].

1. https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S11...

2. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/the-pri...

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One doesn't have terribly much to do with the other. Smallpox was introduced to the Americas in 1520. The only recorded attempt to deliberately infect Native Americans with it was in 1763 by a British officer. By 1803 the US government was already running smallpox vaccination programs for the Native American tribes with which they had contact. Not that the later Manifest Destiny actions weren't horrific and devastating, but they had nothing to do with creating an idea of a clean continent using disease. 19th century Americans were more than happy to invade and seize land that was fully inhabited.

The Brits of that era were equal-opportunity smallpox infectors. They captured some of George Washington's slaves, infected them with smallpox, and then released them on the battlefield at Yorktown, hoping to spread disease back to GW. They also brought smallpox into the American camp before the battle of Quebec, and there was an epidemic.

From your citation:

> Bioterrorism had already started 14 centuries before Christ, when the Hittites sent infected rams to their enemies.

The non-modern world was indeed a vary barbarous world. It is amazing how far we have come in such a short time.

Continue to vote and push forward.

None of us can really do anything about that history other than think and vote for the future.

If you look back even further, many of our ancestors were cannibals. Much of history was a pretty horrific time. All over the world.

I think (hope) that the world is getting better.

I wonder what people will look back and think of us.

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