for native children, threatening non-compliant parents with fines and imprisonment. John S. Milloy argued that these policies regarding disease were not conventional genocide, but rather policies of neglect aimed at assimilating natives. Some historians, such as Roland Chrisjohn, director of Native Studies at St. Thomas University, have argued that some European colonists, having discovered that indigenous populations were not immune to certain diseases, deliberately spread diseases to gain military advantages and subjugate local peoples. In his book The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada, Chrisjohn argues that the Canadian government followed a deliberate policy amounting to genocide against native populations. During the siege of British-held Fort Pitt in Pontiac's War, the fort's commander, Simeon Ecuyer and his subordinate William Trent distributed blankets infected with smallpox to a Lenape delegation outside the fort. During the conflict, Colonel Henry Bouquet discussed plans to deliberately infect hostile Native American tribes with his superior, General Sir Jeffery Amherst, who wrote back approvingly of Bouquet's suggestion. Historians have been divided on the effectiveness of this particular incident in causing a smallpox outbreak among Native Americans in the region, though it has been recognized as one of the first instances of biological warfare. During the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic, some scholars argued that the U.S. Army intentionally spread smallpox to Native American tribes, with scholar Ann F. Ramenofsky stating that "in the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem." Historic debates surrounding colonialism Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566) was the first Protector of the Indians appointed by the Spanish Crown. During his time in the Spanish West Indies, he witnessed many of the atrocities committed by Spanish colonists against the natives. After this experience, he reformed his view on colonialism and determined the Spanish people would suffer divine punishment if the gross mistreatment in the Indies continued. De Las Casas detailed his opinion in his book The Destruction of the Indies: A Brief Account (1552). During the sixteenth century, Spanish priest and philosopher Francisco Suarez (1548–1617) expressed his objections to colonialism in his work De Bello et de Indis (On War and the Indies). In this text and others, Suarez supported natural law and conveyed his beliefs that all humans had rights to life and liberty. Along these lines, he argued for the limitation of the