Outbreak After Dark 2: Pilgrims & Plagues

Summary

This special Outbreak After Dark Thanksgiving episode unpacks the myths we’ve inherited about the “First Thanksgiving” — and the epidemics that shaped the world around it. From quiet fields already emptied by smallpox, to the brutal biology behind Old World pathogens, to the real alliances and betrayals that followed, we explore how disease shaped early colonial history far more than heroism or harvest feasts. With Heather, Sam, and Kate around the fire, this story goes beyond the sanitized grade-school version and examines the human cost, the scientific truth, and the ways we still misunderstand this chapter today.

Listen here or scroll down to read full episode.

Full Episode Transcript

HEATHER: Before the turkey. Before the arguments. Before the parades and pie and that one uncle’s conspiracy theory. There were microbes.

And before the Pilgrims ever stepped off the Mayflower, there was death. The land they called “New” was already littered with the bones of those it had devoured. This is not the Thanksgiving story we were told in school.      

HEATHER: Welcome to Outbreak After Dark: Pilgrims and Plagues — a Thanksgiving themed episode where we serve up a full plate of infectious truth…with a heaping side of historical accuracy.

WHAT WAS THAT PLAGUE?

HEATHER: I’m Heather — your moody disease narrator — joined as always by our library witch, Kate, and our ed-tech sage, Sam. We’re drinking, we’re debunking, and tonight, we’re digging into the biological preamble to, and backstory of, Thanksgiving.

KATE: And I brought pie. Sort of. But also, sarcasm.

SAM: I didn’t bring pie, but I have sarcasm for days.

HEATHER: Perfect. We’re fueled by carbs and cynicism — and tonight’s menu is… historically cursed.

KATE: We’re starting with Plague Bites — golden, crispy little survivors made from leftover stuffing. Proof that even the most questionable holiday dish can rise again.

SAM: Followed by Pecan Pustules — yes, they ooze. No, we’re not sorry. Think of them as dessert’s revenge for everything we did to pie crusts.

HEATHER: And to wash it all down, The Cranberry Conquest — bourbon, maple, and a whisper of smoke. It’s everything the Pilgrims didn’t deserve and none of the diseases they brought. And if you really want to lean into the “whisper of smoke,” you can use a cocktail smoker or a glass cloche — trap a little cherrywood smoke under the dome, let it swirl, and then lift it right before the first sip.

KATE: It’s theatrical. A little witchy. And, honestly, exactly how every cocktail should enter a story. There’s also a mocktail version for the pure of liver — The Cranberry Truce — same tart bite and smoky sweetness, no repentance required.

HEATHER: Both can be made with Thanksgiving leftovers — because we can admit Thanksgiving is a farce and still be trapped at the table.You’ll find all the recipes on the blog at InfectiousDose.com after my siganture at the end of the episode, below.

SAM: To carbs and questionable history.

HEATHER: Now — snacks ready, drinks poured, regrets pending — let’s begin.

You may or may not know this, but before the Pilgrims arrived on these shores in 1620, a mysterious epidemic had already swept through the coastal tribes of what’s now New England.

KATE: Yes, librarian here. I know everything.

SAM: Ha! As if they’d teach us that in the US.

HEATHER: Exactly. Between 1616 and 1619, entire villages were wiped out. Some accounts say up to ninety percent of the Wampanoag population died.

And this wasn’t some illness native to the region — it was part of a much larger pattern that historians now call the Great Dying. Beginning in the late 1400s, after Europeans first set foot in the Americas, Indigenous populations across the continents began to collapse.

The cause wasn’t divine punishment or bad luck — it was a collision of forces unleashed by European arrival. Microbes were the sharpest weapon, but not the only one. Diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza tore through communities with no prior exposure, while the chaos that followed — warfare, enslavement, famine, and displacement — deepened the devastation. Together, these forces erased entire civilizations in just a few generations.Within a century, the population of the Americas fell from an estimated sixty million people to just six million.

In New England, that global tragedy played out on a smaller, equally horrifying scale.The traders and explorers who came before the Pilgrims brought not only goods, but also the seeds of catastrophe — pathogens clinging to their clothes, rats in their cargo, and intentions that ranged from careless to cruel. It was biological and cultural colonization long before the Mayflower ever left port.

KATE: That’s before they even saw a single buckled hat.

HEATHER: Exactly. And here’s the kicker — it wasn’t smallpox. Not that time.

SAM: So, what was it?

HEATHER: Historians and epidemiologists have debated that for years. The leading theory is leptospirosis — a bacterial infection caused by Leptospira interrogans, a spiral-shaped organism that swims like a microscopic corkscrew.It lives in the kidneys of animals — rats, pigs, dogs — and it’s shed in their urine. Once that urine hits puddles, streams, or damp soil, the bacteria can hang out for weeks, just waiting for someone’s bare feet, cut, or mucous membrane.

So imagine early European ships dumping waste near shore, rainwater mixing with contaminated bilge, and coastal hunters or fishermen wading into the shallows — perfect conditions for transmission.

Unlike viruses, Leptospira doesn’t need a cough or a bite. All it needs is water — and a wound.

Once inside the body, it drills through tissue layers and spreads fast. It attacks blood vessels, liver, and kidneys, causing inflammation, jaundice, and sometimes massive organ failure.In severe cases — called Weil’s disease — victims turn a sickly yellow, bleed from the eyes or lungs, and die within days.

So when the Pilgrims arrived and wrote about “a miraculous plague” that turned the dead a strange yellow hue… that matches leptospirosis almost perfectly.It wasn’t divine wrath. It was bacteria in the water.

KATE: If this were a history textbook, we’d call that “an early supply-chain issue.”

HEATHER: Nailed it…OK, so the Pilgrims didn’t land on an untouched wilderness — they landed on a biological graveyard. They found cleared fields, abandoned homes, skeletons still wrapped in mats. And to them, it looked like Providence. To the Wampanoag, it was apocalypse. In fact, here’s what King James I said about it:

“Within these late years, there hath, by God’s visitation, reigned a wonderful plague, the utter destruction, devastation, and depopulation of that whole territory, so as there is not left any that do claim or challenge any kind of interest therein. We, in our judgment, are persuaded and satisfied that the appointed time has come in which Almighty God, in his great goodness and bounty towards us, and our people, hath thought fit and determined, that those large and goodly territories, deserted as it were by their natural inhabitants, should be possessed and enjoyed by such of our subjects.”

KATE: He’s literally saying the genocide was a gift.

SAM: Yeah — “thanks, God, for the vacancy.” It’s like divine real-estate flipping.

KATE: And they wrote it down, proud of it. No hesitation, no shame — just holy paperwork.

HEATHER: Yep. To them, disease was proof of destiny — not a warning.

HEATHER: Alright, Sam — tell us the story the textbooks won’t.

STORY TIME WITH SAM

SAM (mocking schoolteacher voice): “The Pilgrims were brave! They wore funny hats! They invented pie!”

The real story goes like this: the Mayflower wasn’t packed with noble freedom-seekers; it was full of religious separatists — people who’d already fled England for Holland because the Church of England was too fancy.

They spent about a decade there, but started panicking that their kids were becoming too Dutch — too tolerant, too worldly. So they teamed up with a few secular investors — the “Strangers” — under a Virginia Company charter that was supposed to land them in northern Virginia, not Massachusetts.

Then their partner ship, the Speedwell, leaked, they downsized, and storms blew the Mayflower off course. When they finally staggered ashore, half-starved and off-map, they found what looked like divine provision —cleared fields, stored corn, even deserted villages.

But the truth was darker: the Wampanoag and their neighbors had been ravaged by epidemic just a few years earlier — a catastrophe so complete that the Pilgrims mistook tragedy for providence.

KATE: So… divine intervention, according to the colonizers.

SAM: Exactly. The Pilgrims took it as a sign, not a tragedy.And that first “Thanksgiving”? It wasn’t a Hallmark moment. It was a political cease-fire — a survival pact between a desperate colony and a nation fighting to stay alive.

HEATHER: Survival diplomacy, not friendship.

SAM: Right. And in classic colonial fashion, we turned it into a bedtime story about gratitude — with the genocide edited out and the hats edited in.

HEATHER: And that rewriting never really stopped.From the moment they stepped off the ship, the narrative was: we were meant to be here — their suffering proved it.  That same logic echoed through centuries of colonization, slavery, and public health neglect — that suffering is deserved, or even ordained.

SAM: It’s the ancestor of every “nature’s reset” post and “God’s plan” excuse we still hear today.

KATE: Or every time someone says vaccines “interfere with divine will.”

HEATHER: Exactly. The same theology that sanctified conquest still creeps into our conversations about disease.And it started right here — in those empty fields on the Massachusetts coast.

CARRIERS AND COMPLICITY

SAM: So if the Pilgrims weren’t first… who was?

HEATHER: Mostly traders and fishermen — English, French, Portuguese — working this coast long before 1600. They came for cod, for fur, for fast money. Their ships hugged the shoreline, sometimes for months. They set up seasonal camps, dumped their waste into the same water they fished, and traded metal tools and liquor for food and furs. And when trade didn’t go their way, they raided. They kidnapped men to sell as interpreters or slaves.

KATE: That’s how Tisquantum — Squanto — ends up speaking English, right?

HEATHER: Yes. In 1614, an English explorer named Thomas Hunt captured him and two dozen others, planning to sell them in Spain. Squanto escaped, somehow made his way to England, and eventually, back across the Atlantic. By the time he reached his homeland again, his entire village was gone. Everyone he’d ever known — dead from the epidemic we just talked about.

SAM: So the first English word he heard on this shore was probably a command, not a greeting.

KATE: And yet he’s remembered as “the friendly Indian” who taught them to plant corn. It’s like we flattened a whole tragedy into a single helpful cameo.

HEATHER: That’s the pattern. Just a quick clarification: when we use the word ‘Indian’ in this episode, it’s only to reflect the language used in historical accounts by colonists, not a term we use today for Native American or Indigenous peoples. The coast was already mapped, traded, polluted, and infected before anyone built Plymouth. By 1620, European ships had been stopping here for nearly a century — long enough to leave behind pigs rooting through abandoned fields, weeds from foreign soil, and pathogens that had learned the map better than any navigator.

SAM: So when the Mayflower dropped anchor, the real colonists had already arrived — and they were microscopic.

HEATHER: Yeah. The Europeans who came before had already rewritten the coastline in blood — in microbes, scars, and missing people.

SAM: And the Pilgrims wrote their version, starting the story in chapter two — as if chapter one never happened.

HEATHER: That erasure is part of the mythology.If you start the story with the survivors, you never have to mention the ghosts.

KATE: Or the environmental collapse that followed. I mean, they show up to “virgin wilderness,” but it was really farmland gone feral — cornfields turned to weeds because no one was left to tend them.

HEATHER: Right.

SAM: A hundred years of contact — edited down to “and then the Pilgrims arrived.”

HEATHER: History gets tidy when you write it in someone else’s blood.

MID-EPISODE INTERLUDE — THE PLAGUE BREAK

HEATHER: Okay, everyone — time for a plague break. Stretch your legs, refill your Cranberry Conquest, and remember to hydrate — preferably with something not contaminated by seventeenth-century bilge water.

KATE: I vote we toast to basic sanitation — the true unsung hero of civilization.

SAM: And to hand-washing. Still undefeated.

HEATHER: Cheers to that. And while we’re hydrating — how are the Plague Bites holding up?

KATE: Crispy perfection. I could eat an entire pan of these little stuffing-sphere miracles.

SAM: That smoky maple, though. I’d survive a Puritan winter for this.

Okay… everyone’s refueled, caffeinated, and only mildly traumatized — perfect timing to hand things over to our resident library witch.

KATE: Ah yes — story hour. Where we pretend my candlelight reading voice doesn’t summon spirits.

SAM: To be fair, it does sound like you’ve cursed at least three e-readers.

KATE: Only the ones that auto-correct “Wampanoag.”

HEATHER: And surely American kids books on Thanksgiving are all accurate and not white-washed at all, right?

KATE’S BOOK NOOK — LIES I READ AT SCHOOL

KATE: So yeah let’s talk about the books. Books have long memories. They carry the versions of history we choose to keep — and the ones we refuse to let go of. And in this case, a three-day harvest diplomacy meeting turned into a national holiday about gratitude… and children’s books are designed to make sure we all remember it the same way. I’ve seen plenty of kids’ Thanksgiving titles that show smiling Pilgrims and helpful "Indians" — all sharing turkey under perfect autumn skies.

HEATHER: And somehow no one’s covered in pustules or starving.

KATE: Yes. The epidemics are missing. The genocide is missing. The fact that the Pilgrims could settle there only because others had died — gone.

SAM: I used to teach U.S. history units to middle schoolers. The curriculum glossed over the epidemics in one line: “Many Native people died from diseases brought by Europeans.” That’s it. No names, no villages, no human cost.

HEATHER: That’s like saying “the Titanic encountered a water issue.”

KATE: And when those omissions start early, they shape everything. Even today, most people still picture Thanksgiving as this innocent moment of gratitude, instead of a story written in the shadow of contagion and violence. Or they just think about a parade, or food, or helping your neighbor. It's all leaves and turkeys and not a real historical portrayal of any of that.

SAM: Do you think schools are afraid of telling kids the full story?

KATE: Definitely afraid. It’s easier to color turkeys than to confront the trauma or the reality of the situation.

HEATHER: That’s why telling these stories matters.

HEATHER: Alright. Let’s talk about the original “natural immunity” movement — the one that killed millions.

SAM: No vaccines. No immune memory. No chance.

HEATHER: Yep. When the first Europeans arrived, they brought a microscopic menagerie — smallpox, influenza, measles, typhus — pathogens perfectly tuned to European immune systems that had seen them before. Over centuries, those populations had developed herd-level partial immunity — not protection from infection, but from annihilation.

KATE: Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples had none of that pre-exposure. Every infection was a first encounter — the immunological version of being hit by a meteor.

HEATHER: Right. Their immune systems were competent, but they’d never met these invaders. When you face a brand-new virus or bacterium, you’ve got only innate defenses — inflammation, fever, barriers. Adaptive immunity takes a week or more to kick in, and by then, diseases like smallpox had already razed whole villages.

SAM: So basically, “natural immunity” without a vaccine is like fighting a house fire when you don’t even know what a fire is — and the extinguishers are all locked in the shed outside.

HEATHER: Exactly. A vaccine is fire-safety training with hands-on extinguisher practice — your immune system learns how to handle the flames without igniting the house to do it.

KATE: And yet here we are in 2025, still hearing people insist that “natural infection is better than vaccination.”

HEATHER: If natural infection were so great, there’d still be Wampanoag villages where Plymouth stands.

SAM: RFK Jr. probably thinks the Pilgrims cured smallpox with fermented squash.

HEATHER: Oh, absolutely — “Colonial Cleanse: Detox your humors and manifest antibodies.”

KATE: Now supplemented with ivermectin and tallow.

HEATHER: If only we could get people to understand that nature’s not your coach. She’s an indifferent—and prolific—microbiologist.

HEATHER: So here’s your reminder: immunity isn’t a moral test — it’s a biological one. And history already graded us on a curve we barely survived.

WHAT WE’RE THANKFUL FOR

HEATHER: Okay… maybe it’s time to trade the sarcasm for sincerity — just for a minute. Because if history’s taught us anything, it’s that survival isn’t guaranteed, and gratitude shouldn’t be selective.

SAM: Right. We can joke about “colonial immunity,” but the truth is, we live in a world built on both discovery and devastation.The least we can do is learn from the science — and from the people who paid the highest price for our ignorance.

KATE: And be grateful that we can learn — that we have vaccines, clean water, antibiotics, and the ability to talk about all of this without fear of a church tribunal.

HEATHER: Yet. I mean, that’s shifting so….yeah. But here we light the fire, we tell hard stories — and we remember that the only real way to honor the past is to protect each other now.

HEATHER: So, as we wrap up tonight’s episode… let’s end on what we’re thankful for.

KATE: I’m thankful for books that tell the truth — even when it makes people uncomfortable.

SAM: I’m thankful for teachers and students who ask the hard questions anyway.

HEATHER: And to the Wampanoag…While we’re recording far from the Northeast where so much of this history unfolded, we honor the Wampanoag Nation, whose descendants continue their work to preserve their language, land, and traditions for future generations. And to every Native nation whose story runs deeper than any textbook ever told: We owe you more than thanks. We owe you truth.

And as the fire settles and the echoes of this history fade into the night, we look ahead to our next gathering. December’s Outbreak After Dark will bring a different kind of ghost story — a reimagining of A Christmas Carol, where the specter of tuberculosis walks beside Dickens’ familiar spirits. Another tale where science, memory, and mortality share the same cold breath.

All together (ish):

By the fire we meet…

With food, drink, and infectious creep…

And when the tale is heavy,

we hold space for those we keep…

This is Outbreak After Dark.

RECIPES

🦃 Plague Bites (leftover stuffing hack)

Ingredients

·         Leftover stuffing (any kind)

·         1 egg (for binding, optional if stuffing is firm)

·         Cooking spray or butter (for pan)

·         Cranberry sauce (for “pustule” garnish)

Directions

1.      Prep: Preheat oven to 350°F and grease a mini muffin tin.

2.      Mix: In a bowl, mash leftover stuffing. Add egg if it’s too crumbly.

3.      Shape: Scoop into muffin tin, pressing firmly.

4.      Bake: 15–20 min until crisp on top.

5.      Top: Add a small dot of cranberry sauce for that signature “plague pustule.”

✨ A second life for leftover stuffing—and disturbingly good.

🥧 Pecan Pustules (Leftover pecan pie hack)

Ingredients

• Leftover pecan pie (filling + crust)

• Extra baked pie crust, graham crackers, or cookies (for binding)

• Whipped cream or marshmallow fluff

• Dried cranberries (for “pustule” garnish)

Directions

1. Mash: In a bowl, mash leftover pecan pie (crust + filling together).

2. Bind: If too sticky, mix in crumbled crust or graham cracker until moldable (not too much, it wrecks it if you add too much. Trust me.)

3. Roll: Shape into small balls or press into mini muffin liners.

4. Chill: Refrigerate 20–30 minutes to firm up.

5. Top: Add a dollop of whipped cream or marshmallow.

6. Garnish: Press a dried cranberry into the topping to make a “pustule.”

✨ Gross name. Delicious taste.

🍂 Cranberry Conquest

Bourbon | Maple | A Whisper of Smoke

Ingredients (per serving):

• 2 oz bourbon (rye works if you want more bite)

• ¾ oz pure maple syrup (the darker the better — think Grade B)

• 1 oz unsweetened cranberry juice (for tang and color)

• ½ oz fresh lemon juice

• 1–2 dashes Angostura or orange bitters (I prefer orange)

• Tiny pinch smoked salt or 1 drop liquid smoke (optional but dramatic)

• Ice

• Garnish: Sugared cranberries or a small rosemary sprig lightly torched or smoked

Directions:

1. In a shaker: Add bourbon, cranberry juice, lemon juice, maple syrup, bitters, and ice.

2. Shake until chilled and slightly frothy (about 10 seconds).

3. Strain into a rocks glass over a large cube.

4. Optional smoke finish:

   • Either sprinkle the tiniest pinch of smoked salt on top or wave a smoldering rosemary sprig over the glass before adding as garnish.

   • The aroma gives that “whisper of smoke” effect without overpowering.

5. Garnish with sugared cranberries skewered on a pick — your “pox pearls.”

Batch tip: Scale 1:1:½ for bourbon : cranberry : orange juice. Add bitters, chill, and top with ginger beer right before serving.

• Visual: Deep red with amber undertones

• Aroma: Bourbon warmth, maple sweetness, and the faint woodsmoke hint of autumn.

Optional Smoke Cloche Finish:If you have a cocktail smoker or cloche, add your finished Cranberry Conquest under the dome and infuse it with applewood or cherrywood smoke for 10–15 seconds before serving.

It won’t change the flavor much, but the visual is gorgeous.

🍁 Cranberry Truce (Zero Proof)

Cranberry | Maple | A Whisper of Smoke

Ingredients (per serving):

• 2 oz strong brewed black tea (Earl Grey or smoked black tea like Lapsang Souchong)

• 2 oz unsweetened cranberry juice

• ½ oz pure maple syrup

• ½ oz fresh lemon juice

• 1 dash orange or aromatic bitters (alcohol-free bitters like All The Bitter, or omit if needed - orange extract is a good susbtitute in this one!)

• Tiny pinch smoked salt or 1 drop liquid smoke (optional but very effective)

• Ice

• Garnish: Sugared cranberries or a charred rosemary sprig

Directions:

1. Brew the tea: Make it strong — about double normal strength — and let it cool.

2. Shake together tea, cranberry juice, maple syrup, lemon juice, and bitters with ice until cold.

3. Strain into a rocks glass over a large cube.

4. Add your smoke element:

   • For a campfire aroma, hold a rosemary sprig over a flame until it smokes slightly, then drop it in as garnish.

   • Or add just a pinch of smoked salt for that “whisper” effect.

5. Garnish with sugared cranberries or a rosemary sprig — or both.

🔥 Flavor & Feel

• Deep ruby color with a smoky maple aroma — rich, tart, and just slightly earthy.

• The tea gives it tannins and body, so it feels like a cocktail, not a juice blend.

• Perfect to sip warm or chilled, depending on mood

  
  

Use the Optional Smoke Cloche Finish for the mocktail too! It's so worth it!