Great Dying begins.

Diseases spread by contact with European fisherman and traders [rats from ships-PBS] begin in Maine and spreads to Cape Cod. Over the next four years, some 75 to 90% of the estimated 75,000 (144,000-ENE) Native American population along the New England coast die, including 2,500 [more than 10,000-Quill] in Massachusetts. The diseases, for which Native Americans had yet to develop immunities, include bubonic plague, chicken pox, diphtheria, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, tuberculosis, and yellow fever. The English see the epidemics as a sign of Divine Providence, and Cotton Mather later writes, “The woods were almost cleared of these pernicious creatures to make room for a better growth.”