Cowpox is rarely fatal to humans but confers immunity to smallpox.
Can it be that some of the early settlers of the Americas were selected because they were immune to smallpox?
First of all, some of them could have been persons of European descent or mixed European descent from the Barbary states. As Wikipedia points out in its page on "Smallpox Vaccine:"
Besides Barbary Pirates, can it be that King George had spies who had noticed that many in the official colonies were growing Enlightenment-minded and dissatisfied with royal rule long before the 1770s?
In 1763 the king made two moves. He banned the colonists from expanding westward further than a boundary running about up the middle of the Appalachians, and he had smallpox-tainted blankets sent to the natives in the Ohio valley.
England at the time claimed all the land north of Florida between the Eastern Atlantic coast and the Mississippi river. Perhaps the King's plan was for the land west of the Indian Reserve boundary line to fill up with cowhands who were thought to be more likely to be the King's men than the colonists in the official colonies? Perhaps it was understood that they never caught smallpox and perhaps it was simply assumed they had already had it, because a person can only get a full-blown infection once?
Can it be they feared the king would someday want them to return to being cowhands after their disease resistance was no longer useful? They did not come out in large numbers for the king in the Revolution and those that did were deported to Canada or the British Caribbean. This may be why the ownership of English land in North America was given to the United States after the Revolution.
Can it be that some of the early settlers of the Americas were selected because they were immune to smallpox?
First of all, some of them could have been persons of European descent or mixed European descent from the Barbary states. As Wikipedia points out in its page on "Smallpox Vaccine:"
Quote:Variolation was also practiced throughout the latter half of the 17th century by physicians in Turkey, Persia, and Africa. In 1714 and 1716, two reports of the Ottoman Empire Turkish method of inoculation were made to the Royal Society in England, by Emmanuel Timoni, a doctor affiliated with the British Embassy in Constantinople, and Giacomo Pylarini.
Besides Barbary Pirates, can it be that King George had spies who had noticed that many in the official colonies were growing Enlightenment-minded and dissatisfied with royal rule long before the 1770s?
In 1763 the king made two moves. He banned the colonists from expanding westward further than a boundary running about up the middle of the Appalachians, and he had smallpox-tainted blankets sent to the natives in the Ohio valley.
England at the time claimed all the land north of Florida between the Eastern Atlantic coast and the Mississippi river. Perhaps the King's plan was for the land west of the Indian Reserve boundary line to fill up with cowhands who were thought to be more likely to be the King's men than the colonists in the official colonies? Perhaps it was understood that they never caught smallpox and perhaps it was simply assumed they had already had it, because a person can only get a full-blown infection once?
Can it be they feared the king would someday want them to return to being cowhands after their disease resistance was no longer useful? They did not come out in large numbers for the king in the Revolution and those that did were deported to Canada or the British Caribbean. This may be why the ownership of English land in North America was given to the United States after the Revolution.
