[Wiser now]

Four of my grandchildren are of Cherokee descent. They are not exploiting their ancestry in ant way.
That story about our giving the Indians blankets contaminated with smallpox has shown up so often researchers literally cannot pin down it’s true origin. It is said to predate the French and Indian wars, which might just mean the idea was French. It is, without question, America’s earliest urban legend.

[hinckley buzzard]

The one documented instance was in colonial Massachusetts, where Indians were very hostile, raiding and attacking colonists. The governor general, Lord Jeffery Amherst, used the smallpox blanket trick to subdue the local tribes. It was a British colonial officer, not an American colonist. Amherst College is named after him.

[gundog]

It is said to predate the French and Indian wars...

Then it also predates germ theory. Wasn't the issue with aboriginals and smallpox that they had zero previous exposure to it?