What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people. How does Keeler use logic in this paragraph from "Thanksgiving: A Native American View" ? She uses statistics and details about disease to show how badly the Europeans treated the American Indians. She quotes Mather to make readers feel angry with the Pilgrims. She uses such terms as “treachery” and “decimated” to prove that the Pilgrims were bad to the American Indians. She uses the statistic of a 90 percent death toll to prove that the Pilgrims were bad people.