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Frio Point 200 B.C. to 600A.D.

Mountains of Stone

Mountain
Man

North West
Token

Beaver Pelt

Bead Work

Grey Owl

Backrest


Wampum

Cooking Pot

Horn Spoon

North West
Coat of Arms

Stone Hammer

Seed Beads

Plainview Atlatl Point
8150-8010 B.C.

There are thirty-three historical articles on this site. The articles cover Pre-historic Indians, Anasazi and Fremont Indians, Lewis and Clark, David Thompson, Mountain Men, Plains Indians Horses, Smallpox, and Alcohol, Oregon and Mormon Trail, Martin Willey Handcart Companies, Western Expansion and Manifest Destiny to the Oregon Country and California, Forest Fires.  All of the articles contain Pictures, Maps, and based on Historical Facts.

   Comments, Questions, or Suggestions 

Plains Indian Smallpox
by
O. Ned Eddins

Native populations of the Americas lacked immunity to the infectious diseases that had ravaged Europe and Asia for centuries. Sparse populations on the Plains, and in the pristine valleys of the Rocky Mountains, prevented a buildup of communicable diseases. The "white man" diseases…measles, chicken pox, typhus, typhoid fever, dysentery, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and after 1832, cholera…were devastating to the American Indian. Lumped together, these diseases did not equal the havoc of smallpox in terms of number of deaths, realignment of tribal alliances, and subsequent changes in Canadian and American Indian Cultures.

  
                        Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep - Ovis canadensis

**The Mountain Sheep in this picture is the same as the one on the Storyteller page. This picture is a composite for an oil painting by wildlife photographer and artist, Lorna Hester Hawkins of Afton, Wyoming. 

Smallpox in the New World:

African slaves were used on the sugar plantation of the West Indies, and with them came smallpox. The first of these slaves were brought by Columbus. In 1495, fifty-seven to eighty percent of the native population of Santa Domingo and in 1515, two-thirds of the Indians of Puerto Rico were wiped out by smallpox. Ten years after Cortez arrived in Mexico, the native population had been reduced from twenty-five million to six million five hundred thousand a reduction of seventy-four percent. Even the most conservative estimates place the deaths from smallpox above sixty-five percent (Bray).

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, various sources estimate native population in North and South America at ninety to one hundred million. In the fifteen hundreds, the American Indian population in North America has been estimated at approximately twelve million, but by the early nineteen hundreds, the population had been reduced to roughly four hundred and seventy-four thousand. It is impossible to arrive at a number for the millions of American Indians killed during this period by European diseases with smallpox the deadliest by far.

Smallpox reached what was to become the United States either from Canada or the West Indies. The first major outbreak of an infectious disease recorded on the northeastern Atlantic coast was 1616-19. The Massachusetts and other Algonquin tribes in the area were reduced from an estimated thirty thousand to three hundred (Bray). When the Pilgrims landed a year later in 1620, there was few Indians left to greet them. Many observers believe this infectious disease was smallpox.

By the end of the sixteen hundreds, smallpox had spread up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as the Great Lakes. Stearn and Stearn estimated there were approximately one million one hundred and fifty thousand Indians living north of the Rio Grande in the early sixteenth-century, but by 1907, there were less than four hundred thousand (Bray). This decline was not due to smallpox alone. Other diseases played a role, as did intertribal warfare and conflicts with the United States.

It was inevitable that when Europeans came to America that European diseases were going to run rampant through the indigenous populations of the Americas. The native populations of North and South America had no immunities, or genetic tolerance, to any of the European diseases, and not all white Americans had immunities to them either. It is commonly believed that syphilis spread from Native Americans to Europeans. There is developing DNA evidence that there was syphilis in Europe prior to Columbus's time. Like every other disease there is growing evidence that Europeans brought syphilis to America.

                                       Buffalo Herd - Jackson Hole, Wyoming

With the exception of man's oldest disease, Malaria, the scourges of mankind have resulted from dense populations living in small compact areas…overcrowded cities with little or no sanitation. Before the arrival of the white man, the Plains Indians as primarily hunter-gatherers were free of communicable diseases.

Smallpox passes through the air in droplets discharged from the nose and mouth. It spreads from the lungs of an infected person into the lungs of a susceptible person. Smallpox can survive years on the clothing and bedding used by smallpox victims. In the early seventeen hundreds, a smallpox outbreak in Quebec resulted in many deaths.  In 1854, a pipeline laid through where the victims had been buried resulted in another smallpox outbreak.

History of Smallpox Vaccination:

An English physician, Edward Jenner observed that dairymaids with a relatively mild disease called cowpox were immune to smallpox.  On May 14, 1796, Jenner infected James Phipps with serum taken from a dairymaid, Sarah Nelmes. After being infected with the cowpox, Phipps survived repeated attempts to infect him with smallpox.

Despite Jenner’s vaccination procedure, smallpox still took its toll over the next hundred years; 800,000 Russians died from smallpox during the eighteen hundreds (Bray). By 1840, smallpox vaccination in Britain was free for all infants. Vaccination was made compulsory by an Act of Parliament in the year 1853; again in 1867; and still more stringent in 1871. Deaths from smallpox in the first 10 years after the enforcement of Vaccination was 33,515, and from 1864 to 1873 the figure more than double to 70,458 deaths (see, Compulsory Vaccination in England by William Tebb). 

The mortality rate in vaccinated infants was so high that many mothers did all they could to not vaccinate their babies.  Eighty-eight years after Jenner's first use of serum (lymph) for vaccination, William Tebb wrote, “ The lymph used [for vaccination] was of unknown origin, kept in capillary glass tubes, from whence it was blown into a cup into which the lancet was dipped. No pretence of cleaning the lancet was made; it drew blood in very many instances.....no one can estimate the number of healthy, innocent children, as well as adults, who are inoculated with syphilis or other foul disease…An article in the Glasgow Herald for March 4th, 1878 stated: it is, indeed, a most serious matter to find that the deaths from the 15 diseases have increased in England and Wales from 124,799 in 1847, to 217,707 in 1875, whilst the population has only risen from 18 millions to less than 23 millions (see, Tebb Article).” 

Vaccination in America: 

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse introduced vaccination to the United States in 1800. Due to contamination and lack of preservation, the vaccines were often infected with bacteria, which sometimes resulted in sickness or death. An article in the New York Times for June 19th, 1880, stated,

“A former surgeon of an immigrant steamer informs me that it is the usual custom of steamship surgeons to get a large supply of vaccine virus at one time, and use it until it is gone, however long. This will serve to account for the serious and fatal cases of septic poisoning following Vaccination, so common in the United States, according to the information communicated by correspondents, and also for the various efforts now being made in several States to get the Vaccination Laws abolished.”  

How effective was vaccination?:

...Not only had poor sanitation and nutrition lain the foundation for disease, it was also compulsory smallpox vaccination campaigns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that played a major role in decimating the populations of: Japan (48,000 deaths), England and Wales (44,840 deaths, after 97 percent of the population had been vaccinated), Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, India (3 million -- all vaccinated), Australia, Germany (124,000 deaths), Prussia (69,000 deaths -- all re-vaccinated), and the Philippines. The epidemics ended in cities where smallpox vaccinations were either discontinued, or never begun, and after sanitary reforms were instituted (Smallpox Vaccination).

Historians and many others have asked, “Why weren't the Indians vaccinated against smallpox?” In 1832, Congress appropriated twelve hundred dollars to begin the fight against smallpox in Indian country. One year later, actual expenditures were down to seven hundred and twenty-one dollars. Based on this, there are those that believe the Government deliberately withheld smallpox vaccine from Native Americans, and thus committed Indian Genocide. If this is what you believe, consider this....why is there a controversy raging today over the safety of vaccinating large numbers of Americans with the smallpox virus (see, Smallpox Vaccination). With a perceived danger from vaccination based on today's medical technology, what would have been the danger in the early eighteen hundreds to vaccinating American Indians that had no immunity to European diseases? 

Smallpox vaccination of the Native Americans could have had disastrous results. What would have been the results of smallpox vaccination on the Native American Indians that had no immunity to European diseases, or to the domesticated animals of the Europeans? The cowpox virus could have been as deadly to Native Americans as the smallpox virus.

To understand the problems associated with any vaccination program in the eighteen hundreds, the efficacy of the vaccine and the dangers of introducing other diseases must be considered. Completely unknown at that time were such health safeguards as sterile procedures, sterile instruments, sterile vaccine, refrigeration, attenuated viruses, overnight transportation, etc, etc. During the eighteen hundreds, a great many Americans feared vaccination more than they did the risk of catching smallpox. 

Lack of funding a smallpox vaccination program and the Amherst letters have been taken by some writers and organizations to justify a cry of Indian Genocide - iwchildren.org. To this charge, I have one question...how many Native American Indians, with a well-founded distrust for the white man, were going to have their arms scratched with something out of a bottle that had previously wiped out entire Indian villages? If the Indian Nations had been vaccinated with the cowpox virus, the ensuing death loss among Native Americans would have raised a hue and cry across the land...then the cry, and rightly so, would have been the Government is committing genocide by vaccinating Indians with the cowpox virus.

A reader referred me to this site on an interesting and unique vaccination program by the King of Spain, Carlos IV, to vaccinate Spanish subjects around the world.

Francisco Xavier Balmis, (1753–1819), was a pioneer of international vaccination. Born in Alicante, Spain, a physician and army surgeon Francisco Xavier Balmis, was the author of the first translation into Spanish of Moreau de La Sarthe’s book on vaccine. In his edition, Balmis added a foreword to make the book more complete and understandable to the Spanish readers of both hemispheres.
Recognition of his work in this translation and his previous travels in America to collect plants and medical data, made him the best candidate to conduct his own project of spreading the vaccine in all Spanish territories from Spain and through America to the Philippines.
By order of King Carlos IV, an expedition sailed from La Coruña with the aim of sailing round the world and spread Jenner’s vaccine overseas.
On board the corvette "María Pita" were Balmis as commander of what was already called "Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna", Antonio Salvany as second in command, three surgeons, two first aid practitioners, four male nurses, and 22 orphan children.
Besides the usual medical items the expedition carried two thousand copies of Balmis’ translation of Moreau de La Sarthe’s book, which were to be handed to the medical and political authorities everywhere they were to stop along their journey.
The vaccine was maintained during the journey by sequentially vaccinating arm to arm every 9 or 10 days the 22 children who thus constituted a living transmission chain.
The expedition and the men who took part in it were an example of the spirit of that century of enlightenment, philanthropy, and a faith in science and ability of men to know and change the world.
It took almost four years to complete the voyage round the world, and that task can now be considered the first global campaign in what we now call public health, and a success in spreading world wide Jenner’s vaccine that cannot be praised enough. http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/56/11/802

It would be interesting to know the efficacy and mortality rate from Balmis' vaccination program. The procedure used by Balmis was far superior to the use of the non-sterile cowpox virus, but this technique was basically what Larpentuer did with the Indian women at Fort Union.

Smallpox and the Plains Indians:

A smallpox outbreak in 1780-82 followed the distribution and trade route of the Indian horse (Haines). The outbreak in 1800-02 spreads from the Plains Indians to the Indians along the Pacific coast. Despite heavy losses during these periods, the most devastating outbreak of smallpox was yet to come.

In 1832, the first steamboat, a small side-wheeler named, Yellow Stone, reached Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The use of steamboats on the Missouri allowed large quantities of trade goods to move up and down the river. The buffalo hide trade now become more important than the trade in furs. Remote Indian villages brought their buffalo hides to the American Fur Company posts. This set the stage for ensuing disaster.

In June of 1837, the St. Peter arrived at Fort Clark, 60 miles north of present day Bismarck, North Dakota. Knowing there were men aboard the boat with smallpox, F. A. Chardon and others of the American Fur Company tried to keep the Mandans away from the boat, but to no avail. The two Mandan villages that had provided aid to Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1804-05 were devastated. Thirty-one Mandans out of a population of sixteen hundred survived the epidemic.

The 1837 smallpox outbreaks were initially confined to the Indian tribes that lived by, or had come to trade at, the upper Missouri River trading posts. The Mandan, Blackfeet, and the Assiniboine nations suffered the highest number of deaths. The 1837-40 smallpox outbreaks were said to have a ninety-eight percent death rate among those infected (Bray).

                                                              Mandan - Hidatsa Lodge

Despite warnings from the traders, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Sioux warriors raided the empty Mandan villages and carried smallpox back to their people. Hundreds of lodges like the one above stood as mute testimony to the devastation of smallpox. As one writer wrote, “No language can picture the scene of desolation which the country presents. In whatever direction we go we see nothing but melancholy wrecks of human life. The tents are still standing on every hill, but no rising smoke announces the presence of human beings, and no sounds, but the croaking of the raven and the howling of the wolf interrupts the fearful silence (Chittenden).”  

The St. Peters continued on to Fort Union arriving there on June 24, 1837. The only Indians at the post were the Indian wives of thirty employees. Hoping to control the infection before the Assiniboine arrived for the September trade, Larpentuer noted that, “prompt measures were adopted to prevent an epidemic.” The measures taken were to vaccinate the Indian women. According to Larpentuer, “their systems were prepared according to Dr. Thomas’ Medical Book and they were vaccinated from Halsey himself…the operation proved fatal to most of our patients.” Larpentuer goes on to say, "About fifteen days afterwards there was such a stench in the fort that it could be smelt at a distance of 300 yards. It was awful--the scene in the fort where some went crazy, and others were half eatin by maggots before they died." This was during the hottest part of the summer (Chittenden). Jacob Halsey was in charge of Fort Union, and had been infected coming upriver on the boat. Five months later, he claimed only four died from the attempted vaccination. Halsey statement is in contrast to Larpentuer comments, and his account seems highly unlikely based on the virulence of the smallpox virus. 

The Assiniboine started arriving at the post while the “controlled infection” was in full force. Infected Assiniboine carried smallpox back into Canada. From Fort Union smallpox spread by boat to Fort McKenzie near the junction of the Marias and the Missouri rivers. Basically, the same story was repeated with the Blackfeet. There is no way to know how many Indians of the upper Missouri and the Plains of Canada were infected with smallpox. Estimates on the number killed range from sixty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. The most conservative estimate puts the number at more than 15,000 deaths (Chittenden).

The American Fur Company traders can certainly be criticized for the handling of the 1837 smallpox outbreak, especially the vaccination of the Indian women. However at the time and under the prevailing circumstances, the traders did the best they could. Even though the Indians were repeatedly warned to stay away from the posts, they insisted on trading their goods. It is hard to believe there was any malicious intent on the part of the fur traders when the fur company’s economic survival depended on the Indian buffalo robe trade.

The Indian Culture played a part in the high death rate. The use of the sweat lodge-cold water plunge may well have doubled the fatalities among the Plains tribes (Haines). This is not meant as criticism of the Sweat Lodge which was, and is, extremely important in the Indian Culture, but to point out that the Plains Indians had little or no concept of the dangers involved with the white-man diseases.

                                                       Brass Fur Trade Bucket

Indian warriors played a significant role in the spread of the smallpox. Warriors saw this as an opportunity to take lodge items, horses, and even scalps from corpses in enemy villages, and thus carried the smallpox virus back to their own people.

                                                      Metate with Mano

Indian Genocide:

Added Note: I have had a lot of "hate" emails from "idiotic liberals" on Indian Genocide. Most of them were so ridiculous that I didn't post them. Here is my position on Indian Genocide...There is absolutely no question that some settlers, some military leaders, some government officials, and some states i.e., Georgia and especially California would have exterminated all Indians...But...There is absolutely no evidence that the American Government had an official (or as some claim unofficial )policy of exterminating all Indians...Or that...the American Government gave smallpox blankets to any Indians (Ecuyer was British).

Indian genocide is a controversial subject on the internet and on this site. Genocide and Holocaust are words that are easy to throw around, often to grab a reader's attention, but proving them is something else. What one group calls genocide, another group may call progress. This statement is used in the same context as the saying...one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

The argument for Indian genocide is based primarily on letters written by General Jeffery Amherst during the French and Indian War. Letters by General Amherst and Colonel Bouquet mentioning spreading smallpox to Indians does not mean that this was ever carried out. Assumptions derived from letters and oral traditions are not proof of anything. Oral traditions tend to change over time and with the times. The stories also tend to change in a manner convenient to the tellers… If you tell a story long enough, it acquires the semblance of fact. (http://www.hartwilliams.com/imdpart1.htm )

In a letter (1763) to Colonel Bouquet, Lord Amherst wrote, "Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them".

Bouquet replied that he would try and use infected blankets as a means of introducing the disease among the Indians, but was wary of the effects that it would have on his own men...at least twenty-five percent or more of Bouquet's soldiers would have been susceptible to the smallpox virus.  

The Amherst letter has been used to support the proposition of germ warfare or genocide against native populations. Amherst may have discussed it in correspondence with Bouquet, but there is no evidence that Colonel Bouquet carried it out. As he mentioned in his reply, Bouquet was afraid of what it would do to his own men and with good reason. 1763 was twenty-three years before Jenner’s work on vaccination, and one hundred years before Pasteur advanced his germ theory. The only thing known about smallpox in 1763 was…age, color of skin, social status meant nothing to the smallpox virus...an infected person died or, if lucky enough to survive, was often disfigured for life. No matter how bad Amherst may have wanted to be rid of the Indians, it seems doubtful that Bouquet would unleash a disease on his soldiers that had already killed millions of his own countrymen.

There is no evidence that Col. Bouquet took any action on Amherst's letter, but there is evidence that during an Indian siege Captain Ecuyer at Fort Pitt did.

"Out of our regard for them  (two Indian chiefs) we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect (William Trent)."

The incident with Captain Ecuyer occurred during the Pontiac Rebellion. There is also evidence that Ecuyer tried to control the spread of smallpox, at least from his own men.

In a letter to Bouquet, Captain Ecuyer writes that Fort Pitt is in good state of defense against all attempts from Savages, who are daily firing upon the Fort; unluckily the Small Pox has broken out in the garrison, for which he has built an Hospital under the Draw Bridge to prevent the Spreading of that distemper (Peter d'Errico, nativeweb.org).

In 1763, Fort Pitt was under siege by Indian forces under the command of Chief Pontiac (Pontiac Rebellion by Tebbel). With smallpox in the garrison at Fort Pitt and Indians attacking the fort, two blankets would have had little to do with the spread of smallpox among the Indians. A by far greater source for spreading the smallpox virus would have been infected blood from mutilated soldier and settler bodies, scalps, clothing, and in some cases cannibalism, which occurred during the Pontiac Rebellion. Every warrior that returned from Fort Pitt to Indian villages up and down the East coast with smallpox infected war trophies carried the smallpox virus with them. Contaminated warriors spreading the smallpox virus is never mentioned by proponents of Indian Genocide; it does not fit their biased agenda. This statement on smallpox is going to make a lot of people furious...good, that is the purpose.

 Before venting your ire take a few minutes to read the entire article, think about it with an open mind, and then please respond with documented facts to back up your argument.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines genocide as the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group. Based on this definition, genocide was not carried out by the United States Government against the Indian Nations. It can be argued that Government policy was directed toward wiping out an ethnic culture, but not genocide of an ethnic group. President Jefferson wrote (Wallace):

The Indian of North America was as ardent as the white man, free, brave, preferring death to surrender, moral and responsible without compulsion of government, loving to his children, caring and loyal to family and friends, and equal to whites in vivacity and activity of mind.     

President Jefferson believed that the American Indians were fully capable of being integrated into the American way of life, but not in the savage state.   

Based on the broad definition of genocide used by the United Nations,  www.preventgenocide.org, genocide was carried out against the American Indians. Based on the UN definition if a man or woman murders their family, they are guilty of genocide, but this is not the view of most people including me. A more realistic view of genocide is given by a reader's comment.

I have no interest whatsoever in smallpox, except its relationship to the fur trade. In 1837, the major trade item at the upper Missouri River posts was buffalo hides, which were at that time supplied almost exclusively by Plains Indians. Needless to say, the buffalo hide trade came to a screeching halt for the next few years.

What I do have an interest in is historical truth and accountability. A University of Colorado teacher, Ward Churchill, published an article on the United States Army giving out smallpox blankets to the Upper Missouri River tribes that led to the smallpox outbreak in 1837. Churchill totally fabricated this story in the 1990s. Churchill's article is not a matter of a different interpretation of the facts. It is an outright lie that he fabricated without a shred of evidence to back up his claims. The references that he cited totally disagreed with what he wrote. No college professor should be able to publish an article of lies, or plagiarize a painting, like Ward Churchill did and remain a teacher. 

The picture on the left was painted by Thomas Mails and is in his book The Mystic Warriors of the Plains. When Churchill sold the painting on the right, he claimed it was an original painting by him.

The defenders of Churchill would like to make this a first amendment issue, but it is not. Churchill is guilty of plagiarism, falsifying publications, lying about his ancestry, and possibly academic standing...his masters thesis cannot be found at Sangamon State in Illinois. Deep down what irks me the most about Churchill is the sheer utter stupidity of the "enlightened liberals" that defend him.

Ward Churchill (B.S. M.S.) is a college professor at the University of Colorado. Churchill set off a frenzy in an essay praising the "gallant sacrifices" of the 9/11 hijackers. He also compared the victims of the 2001 attacks to Nazis (for more comments see,  www.walterindenver.com/).

The good news is that Ward Churchill resigned Monday [2/1/05] as chairman of the University of Colorado's Ethnic Studies Department. The bad news is, as a tenured professor, he cannot be fired, and he refuses to resign from the University of Colorado. Hopefully, the State of Colorado will find a way to get rid of him.

Churchill has been fired. Hopefully, he will spend every dime of his year's severance pay on trying to get the courts to reinstate him.

...All decent people, whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, should denounce the views of Ward Churchill. Not only are his writings outrageous and insupportable, they are at odds with the facts of history (Bill Owens, Governor of Colorado).

The American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council representing the National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed thousands of innocent people’s lives.

Why does this matter? Based primarily on the lies of Ward Churchill, the use of smallpox blankets as a means of Indian genocide by the Unites States Army and  the Government is in some current textbooks used in the educational system.

The only documented case of smallpox blankets being given to Indians was by Captain Ecuyer of the British army. I challenge anyone to offer documented proof, except for the two blankets given out by Captain Ecuyer at Fort Pitt, of smallpox infected blankets being deliberately given to Indians as a means of spreading smallpox.

As some of the replies to my comments illustrate, I have been criticized for my remarks on Indian genocide. I do not denounce all liberals...only those, and their defenders,  that distort information to promote political agendas. I am opposed to anyone that distorts our historical heritage be they radical left wing liberals, or radical right wing conservatives.

The smallpox virus created havoc all over the world for hundreds of years, but for a one- or two-year period, influenza killed as many people as any known virus. The influenza outbreak of 1918-1919 killed approximately forty million people. An estimated six hundred and seventy-five thousand Americans, including Native Americans, died of influenza. This was ten times as many Americans as were killed during World War I. Of the U. S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus, not to the enemy (http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/)...nobody claims this was genocide.

Government treaties, bureaucratic bungling, the Washita, Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, and Bear River massacres, along with forced relocation resulting in the Trail of Tears and the Navajo Long Walk created some of the darkest chapters in this country’s history. However, this does not mean that the United States Government conducted a systematic and planned extermination of the American Indians. It should also be noted that American Indians, especially East of the Mississippi, committed atrocities on the settlers as bad or worse than any that the Colonists committed on the Indians.

Excellent Reader Responses (Good and Bad) are listed below.

The Indian Smallpox article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.

Related Articles: Indian Horse    Indian Alcohol   Indian Guns    Trade Beads     Oregon Country    Lewis and Clark     References

 Edward A.

I got a lot of good information from your article. However, I am dissappointed that you can take examples of Ward Churchill and describe them as typical of left wing and liberal people. Hitler used Christianity to justify killing the Jews. Would it be right to say "Look what those Chritians do." As much as I respect and admire your work, I have to do more research, simply because of your extremely narrow view of liberals. I am surprised that someone as gifted and inteligent as yourself is so willing to cast a negative light on such large group of people based on the actions of one crackpot.

Reply:
I do not denounce all liberals...only those, and their defenders,  that distort information to promote political agendas. Ward Churchill is the tip of the iceberg. I singled him out because he lied about a subject that I know something about. I wish it was just one crackpot, but it is not. Here are three major universities that are partially staffed by these radical crackpots...Harvard, University of California (Berkley), and University of Colorado (Boulder). Besides these and many other left-wing educational institutions, there are many of the Hollywood elite, a good share of the news media, and most activist groups. My interest is in early American history, and I am opposed to anyone that distorts our historical heritage be they radical left wing liberals or radical right wing conservatives.

Another View Point:

I was grateful to read your rebuttal of Ward Churchill. I have recently returned to school and I find a great deal of biased revisionist history in the text books I have to read. I do want to respond to one of the replies you had. The reply stated that the Nazis used Christianity. The Nazi doctrine was one that denied all religions except Nazi beliefs. To link Christianity to the actions of the Nazis is also a great injustice. One that the liberal left would love to place in future textbooks.

Here are some excerpts from an article on the damage being done by these pseudo-intellectuals...it is well worth the time to read the whole article.:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=%5CCommentary%5Carchive%5C200210%5CCOM20021018e.html

Revisionist History as Politically Correct Policy

by Sterling Rome

CNSNews.com Commentary
October 18, 2002

...Despite the threat of war and terrorism, there are those in the international community (and unfortunately here at home) that have not been able to adjust to the new reality that began in September of 2001. They cling to politically correct dogma while refusing to recognize that the era of myopic self-satisfaction that fostered it is certainly over.

I teach fur trade history and First Nations history. I lecture about the spread of smallpox. In terms of the Amherst and 1837 situations, what I say in my lectures is much the same as what you say on your website. You are right, and Ward Churchill is very badly wrong. There is no question.

I want to elaborate on a comment made by someone who responded to you. That person quoted Simon Ortiz as misrepresenting the 1837 affair. Ortiz is a poet. I don't like to see history too badly distorted under color of artistic licence, but at least Ortiz is not a historian.

More importantly, your reader said that Ortiz cited his statement to Evan Connell's "Son of the Morning Star," a book I like very much.

Your reader did not say what Connell actually wrote. Here it is (pp.15-16 of the 1984 North Point Press edition):

"Whatever the causes, American response to aboriginal treachery and barbarity was devastating, although inadvertent. On June 20, 1837, the steamboat St. Peter's unloaded at Fort Clark, delivering goods the Indians cherished along with something unexpected. A Mandan stole a blanket contaminated by smallpox, which started the plague in that area, and upriver at Fort Union the Indians refused to disperse, even after being warned away from the boat by whites who now understood the danger. They refused to leave because they assumed that once more they were about to be swindled. Jacob Halsey, in charge of the Fort Union depot, thought the best thing to do was to vaccinate everybody and he is said to have been surprised when a number of his subjects began vomiting, bleeding, and dying. Halsey himself caught the pox. He got over it, but his Indian wife did not.

"Five opportunistic Assiniboin, thinking to benefit from the chaos at Fort Union, nimbly scaled the palisade and stole two horses. They were chased and caught by a detachment of soldiers who persuaded them to give up the horses, so the incident ended in no trouble -- expect that one of the soldiers happened to be infected and the Assiniboin horse thieves innocently took the disease home. Eight hundred of their people died.

"From the Assiniboin it spread to the Cree. Seven thousands Cree died. Then it reached the Blackfoot."

I know something about the 1837 outbreak. But I have not done much of my own primary research into it, and I do not know how much of Connell's version is accurate.

But it is obvious that Connell simply does not say what Ortiz quoted.

Reply:
Thank you very much for pointing out what Connell actually wrote. This is a far cry from Ortiz statement based on Connell's book.

Based on Chittenden and Larpenteur's account, most of what Connell's states is inaccurate, but I have no objection to this. As you stated about poets,  a writer of a novel should not be held to the same standard as a college professor's published articles.

One other thing that I would like to point out, because Churchill, Ortiz, and Connell make reference to it, is that with the closing of Fort Atkinson in 1827 there were no soldiers stationed on the Missouri River during the 1830's. If there were no soldiers present during the 1837 smallpox, how could soldiers have given the Indians smallpox blankets. It was this fabrication by Churchill that made other historians check Churchill's sited references. 

 Another  Reader's View on Genocide:

Genocide means killing each and every member of group. The word genocide literally means killing a gene and the way to do that is to kill each and everyone who has that gene. The UN definition of genocide applies even if one member of a group is killed or mistreated. Let’s face it if you use the UN definition of any crime then US is guilty because according to the UN the US is guilty of everything.

This is what genocide really means:

 Genocide is an official policy or an accepted policy where.
1. Every member of a certain group is killed in battle whether they surrender or not.
2. Killing every member of a certain group after they surrendered to authorities.
3. Preventing the escape of every member a certain group so they can be killed.
4. Killing any one who is a descendent of a member of a certain group.
5. The use of forced sterilization to prevent members of a certain group from reproducing while they are being held for eventual extermination.

It was German policy to wipe out Jews in battle. It was German policy to kill every Jew who surrendered to German authorities. It was German policy to check people’s back ground and if they had any “Jewish Blood” and kill them. Jews weren’t allowed to leave countries under German control and attempts were made to return Jews to German control so they could be killed.    

 Here is what Armenian genocide was like:
1. Able bodied Armenian men were taken into custody and immediately   killed or worked to death.
2. Other Armenian groups were taken into custody and immediately killed.
3. Then the remaining Armenians were taken on a death march and executed.

None of the above was U.S. policy or happened on a regular basis.  There was never an attempt to kill each and every Indian. When were Indians prevented from leaving the U.S.? When were Indians peacefully living among white people rounded up and killed just because they were Indians? None of those things happened.

 The use of the word genocide to mean anything other then the systematic attempt by one group to kill every member of another group is insulting to people like Jews and Armenians who really suffered from genocide.

Here is a reader that actually signed his name - Moron

Moron, repeats the above reader's view point then adds: You contradict yourself. So, which is it, Ned? Is it the killing of every member of a group, or, as you later modify your definition to better suit your argument, merely the *attempt* to kill every member of a group?...[This fits Rob's definition whom I admire because he signed his name and left an email address.]

By your modified definition, there was no genocide committed against the Jews by Hitler's regime. They didn't succeed, therefore, no genocide.

Reply:

Many people that know me claim I have never changed my mind on anything, and I certainly haven't changed it on genocide. I agree with another reader's view point on the genocide of Jews and Armenian people.

A Different View on the Spread of Smallpox:

The event of the siege of Ft. William Henry just a few years earlier during the French and Indian War helps to place the Ft. Pitt episode in context.  The besieged British negotiated a surrender with the French, allowing their able-bodied forces to withdraw in good order and turning the fort over to the French with the understanding that the sick and wounded in the fort who were unable to withdraw would be protected by the French.  However, once in control of the fort, the French showed little willingness to deprive their Indian allies of an opportunity to realize the fruits of victory just because of a pact with the British, so they "favored" the Indians with an opportunity to loot and massacre in the surrendered fort.  The warriors took their spoils and then dispersed to their tribes with their prizes of victory.  However, the French had reason to rue their "generosity" because among the "prizes" that the warriors brought back to their tribes was smallpox, and there ensued an epidemic among the northern tribes.  I regret that I cannot recall the book on the French and Indian War that mentioned the smallpox epidemic, but a substantially identical account of the incident from the French point of view appears in the Jesuit Relations for the year, 1757 I think, but without mention of the connection to the smallpox epidemic. 

While the intentions of Amherst were clearly criminal by modern standards, the Ft. William Henry episode raises the question of whether it would have been within the power of the besieged British at Ft. Pitt to have avoided the spread of the epidemic to the Indians.  Clearly, it was the intent of the Indians to overrun the fort, which likely would have led to a repetition of the Ft. William Henry episode.

This reader did not leave a name.

I commend you on writing something on this subject which reflects some research as well as an objective and coherent approach to this matter. There are many who speak on this issue armed with nothing more than ill will towards truth, and an anti-white racial agenda .I encourage your efforts, yet I must point out that tuberculosis, typhus, and many other communicable diseases were present among the natives other than syphilis, and in fact were transmitted to white people from natives. These are not referred to as "indian diseases", nor should they be. By the way smallpox does not simply look for blankets and clothes to reside. The rapid spread of this awful virus can also be attributed to its tendency to live in bird feathers.

Another View Point:

I must object to the "Reader Response" on this page.  It almost seems that the author of this particular response is insinuating that such diseases like TB and typhus originated from Indians, not whites.  Yes, Indians probably did aid in the spreading of these "Old World" diseases, but not until AFTER the whites had already spread it to them, where they claimed many lives. Overall, I would classify this "Reader Response" as deriving from the ever present Eurocentric ideology of always trying to "down play" such tragedies as much as possible.  Moreover, "leading" the reader with the final response of "bird feathers," and further insinuating that the Indians doomed themselves by keeping such articles around.  A truly educated person knows that this doesn't represent the majority of cases when/how Indians were infected.  I find these types of responses very typical but more so annoying.

This writer did not leave their name:

Smallpox aside the U.S. government and state/territorial governments made many efforts to exterminate Native American tribes thru scalp bounties, destroying buffalo, and relocating tribes to desolate areas where they could not make a living. The words "extirpate" and "exterminate" were frequently used. In Calif. we have one of worst records as small, peaceful, tribes were ruthlessly butchered for sport in massacres reported in local papers in the 1850s. Native Americans of Cuba were wiped out by Spanish without help from disease-just dogs and swords.

Many honest Americans aided Native Americans, and we should be proud of their efforts just as we admit and condemn the actions of Custer, Chivington, Andrew Jackson, the Rangers and others who destroyed Native America so dishonest whites could steal the lands.

Congressman David Crockett was an American hero who spoke against the forced removal of Choctaw from their homes. He lost his seat in congress for his outspoken defense of Native American rights. Several U.S. Army officers, including Gen. Wool, also supported the Cherokee right to remain in Georgia. Most people don't know this, they should.

Reply:
I wish writers would leave their names on their post so that I can give them credit. There are many good points brought out in this response. I would like to add a couple more points: the Moravian Indians Massacre [Zane Grey, one of the best early fictional history writers totally distorts the facts on the Moravian Massacre] and the Trail of Tears. The United States Supreme Court ruled that that the State of Georgia could not remove the Cherokee from their lands. Georgia officials ignored the Supreme Court ruling, and used military force to remove the Cherokee. The forced removal by the State of Georgia resulted in the Trail of Tears. Over one-third of the Cherokee, forced to leave their homes, starved or froze to death.   

Article References

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Article References:
Bailey, Thomas A., Kennedy, David M., The American Pageant - A history of the Republic. Tenth Edition. D.C. Heath and Company. Lexington, Mass., 1994. 

Bray, R. S.. Armies of Pestilence-The Impact of Disease on History. Barnes & Nobel Inc., New York, 1994.

Chittenden, Hiram Martin. The American Fur Trade of the Far West.  Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, Volume II, 1986.

DeVoto, Bernard. Across the Wide Missouri. Houghton Muffin Company, Boston, Mass., 1947.

Haines, Francis.  The Plains Indians –Their Origins, Migrations and Cultural Development.  Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd., Toronto, Canada, 1976.

Stearn, E. and Stearn. A. "Smallpox Immunization of the Amerindian." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 13:601-13.)

Tebbel, John and Jennison , Kieth. The American Indian Wars. Castle Books. Edison, N.J. 2003.

Wallace, Anthony. Jefferson and the Indians - The Tragic Fate of the First Americans, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1999.

Internet Sites:

American Indian Genocide

Smallpox Vaccination

Compulsory Vaccination in England by William Tebb

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html

http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/nathist/jenner.html

http://www.iwchildren.org/missionary.htm

http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/inoc1794/inoc.htm