Pestilence

[2018]
Lyrics & music by Jon Pizarro
Album: The White Plague



"The White Plague" is the new album of the American One-Man Band Dead Work. This new chapter draws its influences in Atmospheric Black Metal, Crust and Acoustic Folk for all fans of Panopticon, Falls of Rauros or Nechochwen Jon Pizarro (Dead Work): "This album has been a passion project of mine since I first started Dead Work back in 2012. In high school my teacher would hand out excerpts from A Peoples History by Howard Zinn to go along with our textbook readings. Viewing history from the viewpoint of the oppressed was both heartbreaking and infuriating, but also eye opening. Of all the injustices covered in that book, the one that struck hardest was the cold and calculated extermination of Indigenous populations. My father being Puerto Rican, I first started reading about the indigenous populations of the Caribbean that he would tell me about as I was growing up. It was astonishing that an entire culture could be blinked out of existence in a matter of 30 years. But the more I read, the more I realized that the Taino weren't alone. From the tip of Nunavut, Canada, down to Chile and Argentina's Tiera del Fuego, all experienced the same. And if not for my high school history teacher, who knows when I would have learned about it. American school painted a picture of a few small instances of injustice, but of an overall understanding between two people that one needed more space, and the other was obliging enough to quietly step out of the way. I wasn't entirely sure how to even cover such a massive topic musically, and so I put the idea aside for several years and focused on other projects. Every time I sat down to start a new album, or write a new song, I always came back to the same topic, but decided it wasn't the time. Then, a few years ago, I made a move to a new state, and Dead Work effectively broke up, since I was losing my bandmates. In a new location, with no friends, I finally felt like I had a fresh musical canvas to make something that was more aligned with my recent musical tastes. So slowly but surely, I started crafting new songs that felt weighted enough to deal with the topic I wanted to write about. I decided each song would describe a different facet of colonization, that when combined, led to the destruction of thousands of cultures and millions of people between North and South America. There is no way to cover each of their stories and do them justice. Some have flourished in recent decades, some have been lost to time forever. Some can trace their heritage back 500 years or more, some will never know what culture they can claim as their own. I wrestled with each of these song topics, and finally narrowed it down to the 6 most destructive (in my opinion) aspects of the colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean. Disease, Religion, Removal from and Destruction of environment, Resistance and Language. These 6 topics, coupled with the opening track, that tells the creation story of the Taino people, who were the first to come in contact with Christopher Columbus, are what I now present to you as "The White Plague". Each track will have its own description, so I would like to just finish this up by saying thank you for taking the time to listen. I know this album is filled with technical mistakes. I got in over my head when it came to playing the songs I wrote. But I would appreciate it if you look past the goofs and see the picture I tried to paint. I hope people see that I tried to tackle this subject with reverence for the lives lost, and those who continue to live under the weight of their ancestors. There is no righting so many wrongs, but acknowledgement is the first in a long line of steps to mend such old wounds. Thanks again".

Pestilence
Disease is said to have affected the Indigenous populations more than any other factor they encountered. Contagious diseases such as smallpox spread through the continents like wild fire. Having no immunities built up for these diseases they had never experienced, the native people were hit harder than anybody ever expected. Entire villages were wiped out, months and even years before the colonizers even set foot into new areas. This made calculating the population estimates of the Americas very difficult, and helped trivialize the damage done by the mere existence of European Colonizers.

Pontiac, an Ottawa Indian, confronts Colonel Henry Bouquet, a leader of the British forces, who had authorized his officers in the 1700s to spread smallpox amongst Native Americans by infecting blankets.