The Massachusetts smallpox epidemic or Colonial epidemic was a smallpox outbreak that hit

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

in 1633. Smallpox outbreaks were not confined to 1633 however, and occurred nearly every ten years. __TOC__

European infection

Europeans brought smallpox to North America when they first began colonizing. Most Europeans were immune to the disease due to living conditions in overpopulated Europe. However, 20 settlers on the Mayflower were infected including their only physician

Samuel Fuller Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American film director, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, and World War II veteran known for directing low-budget B movie, genre movies with controversial themes, often ...

. While the European settlers remained mostly unaffected by smallpox in 1630, they witnessed their Native American neighbors fall victim to it rapidly. A New England colonist in 1630 said the Native Americans "fell down so generally of this disease as they were in the end not able to help one another, not to make a fire, nor to fetch a little water to drink, nor any to bury the dead...". Yet despite the destruction wrought by smallpox, it was seen as a gift from God by some Puritans. Including

Increase Mather Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administrati ...

, a clergyman and one of Harvard College's first presidents, who stated that the smallpox epidemic was God's solution to the Native American and Puritan land disputes.

Native American infection

Nearby Native Americans were not immune to smallpox and by 1618, a year after the first epidemic swept through Massachusetts, more than two-thirds of the Massachusetts Native Americans including the Mohawks, native people in the Lake Ontario area and the Iroquois were killed from infection. The epidemic continued and by 1633, smallpox infected entire tribes and left the people unable to care for each other or bury their dead.

References

1633 in the Thirteen Colonies 17th-century health disasters Colonial Massachusetts Smallpox epidemics 17th-century epidemics {{epidemic-stub