The New England epidemic
The coast was emptied three years before the Mayflower
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In the years just before the Pilgrims reached Massachusetts, an epidemic swept the coastal communities of New England. Which disease it was is unresolved — leptospirosis, plague and viral hepatitis have all been proposed. The consequence is clear enough: Plymouth was laid out on an emptied village, Patuxet, and the survival of the early colonies rested on a power vacuum that had opened just before. The story of the "empty wilderness" originates here, and it is a description of a catastrophe presented as a natural condition.
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A disease swept the coast of New England and probably killed between seven and nine in ten people in the villages there. When the Pilgrims arrived in 1620 they found cleared fields and abandoned houses, and took it as a sign from God.
Sources
- Marr & Cathey, «New Hypothesis for Cause of Epidemic among Native Americans, New England, 1616–1619», Emerging Infectious Diseases 16 (2010)
- Mann, 1491 (2005)
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