Description
The Dust of the Mindye: The use of biological warfare in the conquest of Australia, with foreword by uncle Bill Nicholson
Exhuming Australia’s buried history.
In April 1789 a smallpox plague broke out at Sydney Cove. It then swept around the entire country killing 2.5 million Australians. Only one person from the First Fleet, a sailor Joseph Jefferies, died of smallpox. Curiously he was a Native American. Historians have ever since argued about the cause of the smallpox epidemic and weather or not it was deliberate genocide. Now the answer has finally been unearthed.
The Dust of the Mindye maps the story of how two rogue First Fleet officers gained jars of smallpox scabs bought at Cape Town. They then repeated the strategy from the North American Indian Wars, using unsuspecting Jeffries to distribute infected clothing and blankets to the native population.
Paperback, 96pp, 2016
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