Strategic Alliances and Trail of Broken Treaties 1700-1799

1700

Virginia Native peoples succumb to smallpox.

Woman infected with smallpox. Image: Library and Archives Canada: In Quarantine: Life and Death on Grosse Ile.
Woman infected with smallpox. Image: Library and Archives Canada: In Quarantine: Life and Death on Grosse Ile.

In less than 100 years, by 1700, more than 75 percent of the Native peoples of Virginia, including the Powhatan, Mattaponi, Pamunkey, and Chickahominy, die from smallpox that was introduced by English settlers at Jamestown. The epidemic sweeps the Atlantic coast and moves inland.

Traumatic Event