Were the Spanish less brutal than English colonizers?

There’s evidence that British colonists in 18th-century America gave Native Americans smallpox-infected blankets at least once—but did it work?

North American colonists’ warfare against Native Americans often was horrifyingly brutal. But one method they appear to have used—perhaps just once—shocks even more than all the bloody slaughter: The gifting of blankets and linens contaminated with smallpox. The virus causes a disease that can inflict disfiguring scars, blindness and death. The tactic constitutes a crude form of biological warfare—but accounts of the colonists using it are actually scant.

Colonial weaponizing of smallpox against Native Americans was first reported by 19th-century historian Francis Parkman. Parkman came across correspondence in which Sir Jeffery Amherst, commander in chief of the British forces in North America in the early 1760s, discussed its use with Col. Henry Bouquet, a subordinate on the western frontier during the French and Indian War.