In his autobiography, Franklin cites this genocidal strategy as being successful on the East Coast and calls for its use in colonizing further lands. The supposed leader of "brotherly love" writes: “And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these 'savages' in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the seacoast.”