Smallpox at Sydney Cove – who, when, why?

AbstractThis article sheds new light on the outbreak of smallpox at Sydney Cove in 1789. It draws on local Eora traditions, corroborated by medical and historical sources, as a basis for gaining fresh insights into this event, for reviewing recent literature, and for re-examining several circumstances that could have led to the outbreak. The records suggest that the marines landed at Port Jackson with insufficient manpower and insufficient equipment for the tasks they were to confront. I argue that by early 1789 the colony faced huge difficulties, from the number of indigenous people opposing the settlers, from problems with agriculture, and from the lack of marines' capability to defend the settlement, that deploying smallpox became a viable option as a means of defence. This article concludes that, on balance, British officials probably spread smallpox as the only means left to defend the colony.Keywords: smallpoxFirst FleetBritish marinesfirst contactAboriginal history Notes1. Campbell Macknight, “The View from Marege: Australian Knowledge of Makassar and the Impact of the Trepang Industry Across Two Centuries,” Aboriginal History 35 (2011): 121–43.2. Michael J. Bennett, “Smallpox and Cowpox Under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 and the Advent of Vaccination in Colonial Australia,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83.1 (2009): 37–62.3. We can be confident that the outbreak near Sydney and spreading across the Blue Mountains was smallpox because Aborigines near Bathurst with pockmarks were immune to smallpox in 1829–30. This immunity would not have occurred if the 1789 outbreak was any other disease. See J.H.L. Cumpston, The History of Small-Pox in Australia 1788–1908 (Melbourne: Commonwealth of Australia Quarantine Service, 1914), 153.4. Bennett, Smallpox and Cowpox, 43, 46.5. Bennett, Smallpox and Cowpox, 48.6. Although around 300 infectious particles per ml. may be required for a 50% success rate from deliberate doses – using analogy with vaccine virus, see Frank Fenner et al., Smallpox and its Eradication (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1988), 684, Note a, Table 14.15.7. John M. Neff, “Variola Virus (Smallpox),” in Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases, ed. Gerald L. Mandell et al. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979), 1350a.8. Neff, Variola Virus, 1350b. The largest and longest epidemics were caused by variola minor (common name, alastrium).9. As in Yemen, see Fenner, Smallpox and its Eradication, 1034f.10. Fenner, Smallpox and its Eradication, 1015.11. Martin I. Meltzer et al., “Modeling Potential Responses to Smallpox as a Bioterrorist Weapon,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 7.6 (November–December 2001): Appendix 1, 2.12. Hayley Hughes, Information Paper Smallpox Disease and Smallpox Vaccine (Falls Church, Virginia: United States Military Vaccine Agency, 2008), 2.13. Section 3, Smallpox Disease – What it is – Answers, Military Vaccine Agency, accessed September 1, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/MIL-smallpox.14. Noel Butlin, Our Original Aggression Aboriginal Populations of Southeastern Australia 1788–1850 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 23.15. Fenner, Smallpox and its Eradication, 179.16. H. Nishiura and M. Eichner, “Infectiousness of Smallpox Relative to Disease Age: Estimates based on Transmission Network and Incubation Period,” Epidemiology and Infection 135.7 (2007):1146.17. John White [1790] in Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales by John White with a Biographical Introduction by Rex Rienits, ed. Alec H. Chisholm (Sydney: Angus and Robertson in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1962), 133.18. Phillip to Sydney, July 9, 1788, in Frank M. Bladen, ed. Historical Records of New South Wales, vol. 1.2 (Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), 150. Also, on death and wounding of natives, see William Bradley, A Voyage to New South Wales The Journal of Lieutenant William Bradley RN of HMS Sirius 1786–1792, facs. (Sydney: The Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, 1969), 112; George B(ouchier) Worgan, Journal of a First Fleet Surgeon (Sydney: The Library Council of New South Wales, 1978), 51.19. A vegetable collector plus two rushcutters. Phillip to Sydney, July 10, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2 167–69.20. David Collins [1798], An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales with Remarks…, Volume 1, ed. Brian H. Fletcher (Sydney: AH & AW Reed, 1975), 32.21. Phillip to Sydney, September 28, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2 191.22. Collins, An Account of the English Colony, 1, 36.23. Robert Brown, “Extracts from a Journal kept by Robert Brown, on the Fishburn, Storeship,” Historical Records of New South Wales (Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), vol. 2, 410.24. Watkin Tench [1793], “A Complete Account of the Settlement in New South Wales,” in Sydney's First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge (Sydney: Angus and Robertson in Association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1961), 137.25. Anon, Letter from a Female Convict, November 14, 1788, in Historical Records, vol. 2, 747.26. Phillip to Nepean, January 4, 1787, in Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 45.27. Ralph Clark had his own box of shot; see Ralph Clark in Journal and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark 1787–1792, ed. Paul G. Finlon and R.J. Ryan (Sydney: Australian Documents Library in Association with the Library of Australian History Pty Ltd, 1981), 94. Sergeant James Scott on the Prince of Wales found 196 cartridges damaged. Phillip told Lord Sydney that they “were only supplied with what was necessary for immediate service while in port”. See Phillip to Sydney, June 5, 1787, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 106f.28. Myra Stanbury, HMS Sirius 1790: An Illustrated Catalogue of Artefacts Recovered From the Wreck Site at Norfolk Island (Adelaide: Australian Institute for Marine Archaeology Special Publication no. 7, 1994), 83.29. Phillip to Sydney, June 5, 1787, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 106f.30. Phillip to Nepean, June 5, 1787, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 107f.31. Phillip to Nepean, June 10, 1787, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 108f.32. Charles Lyte, Sir Joseph Banks 18th Century Explorer: Botanist and Entrepreneur (Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles, 1980), 230.33. Wilfrid Oldham, Britain's Convicts to the Colonies (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1990), 140.34. Alan Frost, Arthur Phillip 1738–1814: His Voyaging (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1987), 153.35. Phillip to Nepean, September 2, 1787, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 111.36. Phillip to Nepean, July 9, 1788, enclosure, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 155.37. Tench, “A Complete Account,” 162. This practice was discontinued when a signal flag was established on South Head at the entrance to Sydney Harbour.38. Worgan, Journal, 50.39. Watkin Tench [1789], “A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay with an Account of New South Wales … A Complete Account of the Settlement in New South Wales (1789),” in Fitzhardinge, Sydney's First Four Years, 48.40. John Cobley, Sydney Cove 1788 (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1962), 107.41. George Caley in Reflections on the Colony of New South Wales, ed. J.E.B. Currey (Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 1966), 40.42. On 17 August, 1788, Hunter's musquet misfired; see John Hunter [1793], An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island … (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia Facsimile, 1968), 83. Musquets misfired at Manly Cove in September 1790; see Tench, “A Complete Account,” 180.43. Theodore Ropp, War in the Modern World (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1959), 34, note 30.44. Brian J. Given, A Most Pernicious Thing: Gun Trading and Native Warfare in the Early Contact Period (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994), 103.45. Joan B. Townsend, “Firearms Against Native Arms: A Study in Comparative Efficiencies with an Alaskan Example,” Arctic Anthropology 20.2 (1983): 1–33; H.A. Parsons, The Truth About the Northern Territory, (Adelaide: Hussey and Gillingham, 1907), 5; Dorothy Shineberg, “Guns and Men in Melanesia,” Journal of Pacific History 6 (1971): 77.46. Cobley, Sydney Cove 1788, 22.47. Hunter, Transactions, 54.48. R. Money Barnes, A History of the Regiments & Uniforms of the British Army (London: Seeley Service & Co., 1951), 62; George Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia During the Years 1837, 38 and 39… (London: Thomas W. Borges & Co., 1969), 1, 105.49. Ross to Stephens, November 16, 1788, Historical Records, vol.1.2, 215–18.50. David Collins to George Collins, February 1, 1787 in David Collins, A Colonial Life, ed. John Currey (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 33; Phillip to Sydney, March 12, 1787, in Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 56–57.51. Phillip to Sydney, March 12, 1787, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 56f.52. Phillip to Nepean, July 9, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 153.53. Newton Fowell to his Father, July 31, 1790 in The Sirius Letters - The Complete Letters of Newton Fowell, ed. Nancy Irvine (Sydney: The Fairfax Library, 1988), 115.54. Phillip to Nepean, July 9, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 153. Phillip told Lord Sydney that he wanted to send three or four companies to Parramatta (head of the harbour); see Phillip to Sydney, July 9, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 150f.55. See Appendix to this article.56. See George Raper, Plan of Port Jackson, coast of New South Wales…as Survey'd by Cap'n Hunter 1788, National Library of Australia, accessed September 1, 2013, http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm3458.57. Phillip to Nepean, July 9, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 153.58. Watkin Tench in An Authentic Journal of the Expedition Under Commodore Phillips to Botany Bay with an Account of the Settlement …, An Officer (London: C Forster, 1789), 27.59. Tench, “A Narrative,” 74.60. Ralph Clark to William Collins, September 30, 1788; see Ralph Clark, in Fidlon, Journal and Letters, 269.61. John Thomas Bigge, Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry on the State of Agriculture and Trade in the Colony of New South Wales (London: The House of Commons, 1823), 12.62. Phillip to Sydney, September 28, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 189.63. Aborigines attacked fishing parties with spears at night; see Jacob Nagle in The Nagle Journal, A Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the year 1775 to 1841, ed. John C. Dann (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), 96.64. John Easty, Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay, 1787–1793: A First Fleet Journal (Sydney: The Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, 1965), 107, 109, 112. A release of smallpox at this point could produce the epidemic observed in April.65. See report of 1763 Fort Pitt smallpox event in Elizabeth A. Fenn's “Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst,” Journal of American History 86.4 (2000): 1553f.66. Major (Robert) Donkin, Military Collection and Remarks (New York: H. Gaine, 1777), 215f.67. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, Colonel Henry Boquet (and Captain Simeon Ecuyer) in 1763; see Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War After the Indian War (London: MacMillan & Co., 1907), 44f; General Thomas Gage and possibly Sir William Howe in 1775; see Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 88f; Concerning John Murray (Earl of Dunmore) in 1775–76, Major Robert Donkin in 1777, Generals Alexander Leslie and Charles Cornwallis in 1781, and Guy Charleton in 1775–76, see Fenn, Biological Warfare, 1567–73. Concerning British commander of Fort Mackinac (Mackinaw) in 1782, see Helen Jaskoski, ed., Early Native American Writing New Critical Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 146f and an alternative account at 147f. Another account is by William W. Warren in History of the Ojibway Nation (Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, Inc., 1957), 259–62. For British commanders at Montreal circa 1757, see Jaskoski, Early Native American Writing, 141–45.68. Fenn, Pox Americana, 92.69. Cyril Field, Britain's Sea-Soldiers (Liverpool: Lyceum Press, 1924), 153, footnote 4. In south India, a General Order to inoculate all East India Company soldiers was issued in December 1787; see Niels Brimnes, “Variolation, Vaccination and Popular Resistance in Early Colonial South India,” Medical History 48 (2004): 202.70. David Day, Claiming a Continent a History of Australia (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1996), 63. Robert Murray had previously included a deliberate spread by “a scared or vengeful convict or soldier” – see Bob Murray, “Epidemic Wiped out Half the Population,” Sun-Herald, January 31, 1988, 45.71. Bennett, “Smallpox and Cowpox,” 49.72. Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989), 188f.73. Collins, An Account of the English Colony, 47.74. Collins, An Account of the English Colony, 53.75. Fowell, The Sirius Letters, 113. The British probably burnt some corpses; see Foley, Repossession of Our Spirit Traditional Owners of Northern Sydney (Canberra: Aboriginal History Inc., 2001), 56.76. Alexander Logbook entry for June 1, 1788 in Historical Records, vol. 2, 401.77. Easty, Memorandum of the Transactions, entry for December 29, 1788, 108.78. Editorial, New South Wales Medical Gazette, 1871–72, cited in J.H.L. Cumpston, The History of Small-Pox in Australia1788–1908 (Melbourne: Quarantine Service: Commonwealth of Australia, 1914), 148.79. Concerning Botany Bay, see Phillip to Lord Sydney, October 30, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 1.2, 208. Concerning down the harbour, see Arthur Bowes Smyth, Journal, entry for March 4, 1788.80. First cases would have been relatively mild, as inoculation cases. Second and third generation instances, one to two months later, would have been more lethal. There was an interval of two to three weeks between each generation of cases – see Fenner, Smallpox and its Eradication, 208.81. William Charles Wentworth, Description of New South Wales, facsimile edition (Adelaide: Griffin Bros., 1978), 44.82. Edward M. Curr, The Australian Race: Its Origin, Languages, and the Routes by Which it Spread Itself Over That Continent (Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1886), 226.83. See William Dawes Notebooks, Book C, 9, accessed September 1, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/berewalgal.84. Davis, “First 150 Years,” in Aborigines of the West Their Past and Their Present, ed. Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1980), 58. Davis's comments were attacked by Peter Biskup, Canberra College of Advanced Education, as indicating a “biased, one-sided brand of new Australian history, as false as the old one has been.” See Biskup, “Aboriginal History,” in New History Studying Australia Today, ed. G. Osborne and W.F. Mandle (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1982), 30. In his thesis “Aboriginal Dreaming Tracks or Trading Paths: The Common Ways” (Phd Arts, Griffith University, 2006), Dale Kerwin notes “Aboriginal people have long argued that smallpox was introduced by Europeans in 1788,” 45. There is no material basis for implicating the French in releasing smallpox in New South Wales. Such suggestions in Aboriginal lore and from Watkin Tench (1795) and Dr Thomas Jamison (1804) date from before the spread of smallpox was sufficiently understood. See “La Perouse at Botany Bay,” in History of New South Wales from the Records, ed. G.B. Barton (Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1889), 1, 522ff.; and G.W. Rusden, History of Australia, 2nd ed. (London: Melville, Mullen & Slade, 1897) 1, note 7, 128f.85. Foley, Repossession of Our Spirit, 96–98.86. Peter Sköld, The Two Faces of Smallpox: A Disease and its Prevention in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Sweden (Umeå: Sweden: University of Umeå, 1996), 77.87. Pan S. Codella, “The Case of Smallpox of Theodorus Prodomus (XIIth Cent. A.D.),” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 20 (1946): 212.88. Joel N. Shurkin, Invisible Fire The Story of Mankind's Victory Over the Ancient Scourge of Smallpox (New York: G.P. Putman's Sons, 1979), 58.89. Replica blankets can be viewed as part of the Endeavour display at the National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney.90. Walter E. Roth, Ethnological Studies Among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane: Edmund Gregory Government Printer, 1897), 100.91. J.V.S. Megaw, “Marks of Natives Everywhere,” Mankind: Official Journal of the Anthropological Societies of Australia 8.3 (1975): 231. Frederick McCarthy, “Artists of the Sandstone” (typescript, MS 3495, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Studies, n.d., Canberra), 593.92. Without carbon dating, the age of burials can be vastly exaggerated. See Colin Pardoe's note, Stop the Press, in “Sharing the Past: Aboriginal Influence on Archaeological Practice, A Case Study From New South Wales,” Aboriginal History 14 (1990): 221. Carbon dating cannot date material more recent than the seventeenth century.93. L(eonard) Freeman, “Metrical Features of Aboriginal Crania From Coastal New South Wales, Australia,” Records of the Australian Museum 26.12 (1964): 311.94. Jack Carroll, The Mosman That Was (Sydney: P. Leahy, 1950), 6; Les “Tummy” Kewin also reports a skeleton was uncovered near Balmoral Beach; see http://tinyurl.com/Balmoral-NSW (accessed 1 September 2013). Traditional burials were not concentrated into sites; see Jo MacDonald, Salvage Excavation of Human Skeletal Remains at Ocean and Octavia Streets, Narrabeen Site #45-6-2747 (Sydney: Jo MacDonald Cultural Heritage Management Pty. Ltd., Australian Archaeological Consultancy Monograph Series, 2, Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc., 2008), 14.95. Maggie Brady and Yin Paradies, “Health and Wellbeing,” in Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia, ed. Bill Arthur and Frances Morphy (Sydney: The Macquarie Library, 2005), 156.96. Lionel Frost, Janet McCalman, and Rebecca Kippen in The Cambridge History of Australia, vol. 1, ed. Alison Bashford and Stuart MacIntyre (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 295, 322; Peter Hiscock, Archaeology of Ancient Australia (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 13f; Malcolm Prentis in A Study in Black & White: The Aborigines in Australian History, 3rd ed. (Sydney: Rosenburg, 2009), 35.97. J. Burton Cleland, “Some Diseases to, or of Interest in Australia,” in Cumpston, History of Small-Pox, Appendix B, 167, 169.98. Judy Campbell, Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, “The of the Smallpox in Sydney in Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Bennett, Smallpox and Cowpox, Macknight, View from Campbell, Invisible Alan Frost, Botany Bay (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, First Fleet Smallpox Aboriginal History Campbell, Invisible 107, to smallpox occurred at in 1789. was no outbreak to be see P. “Smallpox and Vaccination on Medical as a for History,” in Medicine in the ed. A. and 1989), in the East three of Settlement Indian Public Health Service, From at see in Cumpston, History of Small-Pox, and Peter This is What Historical by Aborigines (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, McCarthy, in Aboriginal Australia, and Trade with Torres New and and in at Dale Aboriginal Dreaming and Trading Routes The of the Australian Press, Robert The State of A Description of the its and … (London: and Co., Edmund to 2, in Journal and Western Australian Historical Judy Campbell, “Smallpox in Aboriginal Australia, Historical Studies (1983): For Botany Bay, see in A Aboriginal History of Perouse New South Wales Board of Studies, For Port Jackson, see Life in (Sydney: Service, lack by a Bradley notes that the Fowell notes Curr, Australian Macknight, View from Butlin, Our Original Butlin, Our Original Brian History and National in Australia,” Journal of the Royal Australian Historical 83.1 Campbell Noel on this see Campbell, Invisible to J. and in England not as were or See Black in (London: The Institute of The was a The when the no was and light on British and people in the to from British and “a of may the of and not if they see English to Lord was the as if had been See “The and the Lord History Journal The would if were would see of the on a for the Trade was in the House of on June Phillips and Fenn, Biological Warfare, Charles that it may have been in that to the of his Royal see “Aboriginal a to Noel that Arthur Phillip and his out to Aborigines and in with with in and Smallpox and Aboriginal 29, and he argued that Phillip the of his and his to the Aborigines in in Australia The of a Nation (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), Frank in his Australia - A New History of the Great Southern & New York: The Press, would also be at with see note “The Sydney's 1789 Smallpox the Site Gazette, of the First Government House Site that of and the of they would not at Historical Records, vol. 1.2, See and Arthur G. Documents to the History of (Ottawa: See & Commonwealth at 17 Phillip to of July 3, 1788, Historical Records, vol. 2, David The History of & Phillip of An Account of the Settlement at Sydney Cove (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, the as for a see and in Colonial Australia, in and and in Australian History, ed. A. (New York: October 2, 1788, Collins, An Account of the English Colony, 1, Tench, A Complete and on Captain James Campbell to is in the See George Arthur Phillip of New South Wales (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, Collins that left a a and a See Collins, An Account of the English Colony, 1, Bradley, A Voyage to New South Wales, Lieutenant Ralph Clark Aborigines as to be in his to July 12, 1788 in Fidlon, Journal and Letters of Clark, this Lieutenant Clark was of any in as I of this Clark to November 1788 in Journal and Letters of Clark, Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia Cambridge University Press, This is an Phillip to Sydney, February in Historical Records, vol. 1.2, Stuart 14 at The of Aboriginal Aboriginal and Practice, Volume 1 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2, The After the Dreaming Black and White an View (Sydney: Australian 1968), “The History of Aboriginal History in Aborigines New in the Study of Aboriginal ed. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, from see ed., in the British to Australia, New and the Pacific (Canberra: Australian National University Press, Aboriginal A History 1788, ed. (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, Macknight, View from

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