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The Fatal Indian Sickness of Nantucket That Decimated the Island Aborigines BY EDOUARD A. STACKPOLE
WHILE IT IS generally known that the Nantucket Indian popu lation was virtually swept away by a mysterious epidemic which caused the death of 222 of them, in the year 1763-1764, it is usually written that the disease which caused this calamity was never identified. But in recent months a number of important historical documents have been found which bring a much clearer picture and thus help to dispel the mists which have surrounded this chapter in Nantucket history. During a visit to London two years ago, I was examining some historical material at the Royal Society and came upon the following letter, written in October, 1764, in Boston, by Governor Andrew Oliver, of Massachusetts Bay Colony, to Israel Mauduit, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who was then in London as the Agent for the Colony. It reads: Considering your connexions, both as a member of the Royal Society, and of the Society for propagating the gofpel among the Indians, I tranfmit you an account of an uncommon ficknefs, which prevailed the laft year at the iflands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard which lie about fix or feven leagues from each other, and the latter about four or five leagues diftant from the Indian plantation at Mafhpee on the Continent, where it did not make its appearance at all. I had my account from the Englifh minifter, and from the phyfician at Nantucket, and from the fociety's miffionary at the Vineyard, of each of whom I made the moft fcrupulous inquiry, you may depend on the truth of it. About the beginning of Auguft, 1763, when the ficknefs began at Nantucket, the whole number of In dians belonging to that ifland was 358: of thefe, 258 had the diftemper betwixt that time and the 20th of Febru ary following, 36 only of whom recovered: of the 100, who efcaped the diftemper, 34 were converfent with with the fick, eight dwelt separate, 18 were at fea, and and 40 lived in Englifh families. The phyfician informs me, that the blood and juices appeared to be highly putrid, and that the difeafe was attended with a violent inflammatory fever, which carried them off in about five days. The feafon was uncommonly moift and cold, and the diftemper began originally among them; but having once made its appearance feems to have been propagated by contagion; although fome efcaped it, who were expofed to the infection.
