6. The Great Dying in New England, 1616-1619
Among the discoveries of the Pilgrims in what became Plymouth Colony were dozens of abandoned towns, surrounded by cleared fields empty of crops. Evidence of a once-thriving population was a stark comparison to the relative lack of natives. For some of the English settlers, it was evidence of a providential miracle. God had swept the natives away before the arrival of the English, an act which made the land, “much the more fit for the English Nation to inhabit”. Before the arrival of the Pilgrims, European explorers had visited the region, and reported a large population of Indians, including Wampanoag and Abenaki, occupied the lands.
Between 1616 and 1619, a disease of an unknown nature spread through the region along the woodland paths used by the Abenaki to trade with their neighbors to the south. Up to 90% of the Wampanoags were killed by the epidemic. Historians agree that the disease was European in origin, brought to New England by explorers or fishermen. Some symptoms were reported, which included severe headache, bleeding from nose and ears, a filling of the lungs, muscle pains, and finally death. Meningitis, smallpox, leptospirosis, typhus, and other diseases have been proposed as the source of the epidemic. It changed history by ensuring the arriving Pilgrims had access to land, in which to develop Plymouth Colony, and eventually Massachusetts.