Actually, Paul, that's an interesting point: there don't appear to have been ANY other outbreaks of smallpox in the early days amongst Aboriginal people, anywhere in the country, except those three - one around Sydney coming down from the north coast in 1789, one down through the western rivers in 1828-1829, and one down the coast of Western Australia in, maybe the eighteenth century.

Another intriguing fact: in my typing up of extracts from the correspondence to and from Poonindie Mission, 1855-1890, here in SA, an outbreak of diphtheria, around 1872, killed many people in Port Lincoln, but no Aboriginal people at Poonindie itself, ten miles out. A couple of the missionary's kids died from it, but no Aboriginal kids. Did they have immunity to it ?

History is infinitely more interesting than fiction, isn't it ?

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Hi Joe, again you are misrepresenting the facts. I said "what about the 5 weeks the 'First Fleet' spent in Cape Town South Africa from mid October 1787?" note from mid October, simple mathematics add 5 weeks makes it late November, from late November to late January is 2 months, unless there is a month I don't know about.

To say " Mid-October to end-January, Cape Colony to Sydney: three months. Your words. Not my words you are wrong.

Given you may not be in command of all the facts. The first fleet made 3 stopovers on its voyage to Australia, Tenerife 1 week, Rio de Janeiro 1 month and Cape Town 5 week, significant events in the whole journey.

"Are you suggesting that inoculated whites, who still carried the disease, deliberately spread it among Aboriginal people who they associated with? No, I am not suggesting for a moment, that there was any deliberate spreading, accidentally is a possibility, but not deliberate. The only incidents of deliberate spreading of smallpox to indigenous people I am aware of took place in North America, whereby smallpox blankets were deliberately given to Native Americans by European colonists and later by the US Army.

The European of the 18th century and earlier, was in the main a disease ridden individual, and took a multitude of bugs, both large and small, wherever he went. Unfortunately the European, usually unintentionally, spread his pestilence with disastrous consequences for native populations. My partner had 2 siblings in a family of 12 die young from European diseases one in 1948 from TB, and the other from polio in 1963. she does not blame anyone for that, but it is fact.

Hi paul,

Two months, three months, whatever. What's the incubation period for smallpox ? Do you have any evidence that anybody got smallpox in the Cape Colony ? Or is this just another 'Kontiki' moment, i.e. if something could have happened, then it happened ?

Yeah, we keep hearing about that happening in the US. I wonder if there is any truth in it ? Like you, I'd love to believe it, Yanks are such bastards.

We all are full of all sorts of bugs, Paul - now, today, you and me. Anthropologists going to remote areas in PNG unwittingly took all sorts of diseases with them and wondered why people there started to get crook.

Do you have evidence that TB and polio were, at one time, specific to white people ? I thought there was one possibility that one of the Pharaohs had polio, but that might have been just a rumour.

Any other rumours you want to peddle ?

Joe