(1)
>Date: April 16, 1995
>From: Betty Nuxoll <EMNQC@CUNYVM>
I have been reviewing the documents in the latest volume of
The Papers of Henry Bouquet which has many interesting texts
on relations with various Native American tribes, and on frontier
warfare. A number of the texts deal with the decision to use
small pox as a deliberate form of germ warfare against the
Indians in the 1760s. I recall much coverage of the decimation
of the Indians by disease during the Columbus anniversaries,
but I am not familiar with the historiography on the deliberate
use of smallpox or other diseases as a weapon--or indeed the
historiography on the origins of germ warfare in general.
Would any of you be able to inform me of sources on this subject?
Thanks in advance. Elizabeth M. Nuxoll. The Papers of Robert Morris
Queens College, CUNY
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(2)
>Date: April 17, 1995
>From: Bruce Mitzit <bmitzit@interaccess.com
I hope this discussion on smallpox stays on the list--i.e. discussions are
to the list and not private posts to Betty. The subject is a touchy one to
me as common wisdom, with which I disagree, has it Europeans actively used
disease as germ warfare in the 18th and 19th cent. The common wisdom
further assumes such practice enjoyed efficacious success. The statement is
made that smallpox-contaminated blankets were commonly used throughout
Americans' westward advance to remove the Indian from objection. The
notion is accepted as a truism. I have never been able to find explicit
record of such use but for the actions of Lord Amherst during the F-I wars,
who bragged about it. I've had intense discussions with scholars
knowledgable in the field of Indian/White relations who accept without
reflection the common use of this technique but, at my prodding, can find
only the Amherst example in all our history. The practical effect of
Amherst's action is debatable but is, I understand, generally accepted to
have had inconclusive effect on the target tribe.
There are practical arguments against the view of such use: how to keep the
disease confined to the the target group without spreading to tribes of
one's allies or to frontier settlements, for example? How does one wage
germ-warfare when he doesn't know what a germ is?
I would somewhere like to see work done on the US govt's efforts to
inoculate Indians against smallpox far into the unsettled territories. Such
efforts were begun just beginning the 19th century, only a few years after
an effective protection miraculously emerged from the noise of other
conflicting theological and superstitious theories of prevention and cure.
Despite bureaucratic bungling with tragic consequence (the destruction by
smallpox of the Mandan tribes of the upper Missouri in the late 1830s),
this policy of innoculation was practiced at least until the 1840s.
Despite my passion on the subject, it remains a side-bar to my major
interests, so I haven't a bibliographical collection on smallpox satisfying
either in breadth or depth, but some sources you could look into, together
with the sometimes inadequate biblio. information I presently have at hand:
_Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in history_, Donald R. Hopkins, Chicago: U
of Chicago Press, 1983
an excellent history of the disease, should be read first to understand
the dynamics of epidemic and the bug itself. A good history as well of how
civilization tried to deal with the disease from its first appearance.
_A Destroying Angel: The conquest of smallpox in colonial Boston_, Ola
Elizabeth Winslow, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974
for one example of the sense of Congress, you might want to look at the Act
of 5 May 1832, Statutes, 4:514-15.
_The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian_, E Wagner.Stearn
and Allen E. Stearn, , 1945
Thesis: _A Study of the Comparative Effects of Smallpox on Four Indian
Groups_ (being the Mandan, Hidatsa, Blackfeet, Shoshoni), Carol A. Novotne,
Missoula:U of Montana (at Mansfield Library there), 1976
_Across the Wide Missouri_, Bernard DeVoto, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947
and 1975, has an excellent (it's DeVoto, after all) account of the smallpox
epidemic ascending the upper Missouri in 1837, devotes Chap. 11 to the
event.
_Among the Sleeping Giants: occasional pieces on Lewis & Clark_, Donald
Jackson, Urbana: U of Illinois Press, 1987 briefly discusses the
bureacratic bungle I mentioned above on pages 41-42.
and for an eye-witness account in its horrific detail:
_Chardon's Journal at Ft. Clark, 1834-1839..._, Francis Chardon, Annie Abel
ed., Pierre SD, 1932
lest we assume white settlements were enjoying good health while the Mandan
and Hidatsa were being destroyed, you could look at the section beginning
page 320 in
_James Pattie's West: the Dream and the Reality_ (aka in hardcover
_American Ecclesiastes: the stories of James Pattie_), Richard Batman,
Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1986
discussing the new and terrifying plague of cholera sweeping the settled
east about the same time.
In the spirit of inclusion, I should mention the entry "diseases" in _The
Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West_, Howard R. Lamar, ed., New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974, which thoroughly disagrees with me but takes
airy assumptions and makes sweeping conclusions (as does much of this very
useful but often flawed resource) with little reference of substance.
You might also want to post this query in h-west, where I'm sure you'll get
response. A post to any of the numerous Native lists should give
satisfactory response.
Bruce Mitzit
Evanston, IL
bmitzit@interaccess.com
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(3)
>Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 13:23:27 EDT
>From: "Jeffrey W. Reed" <jreed02@emory.edu>
On the plan to use smallpox as a weapon against the Indians; Parkman, in
_The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ (Vol 2, pgs 39-40, in the new Bison edition)
discussed this proposal. The idea, apparently, came from Lord Amherst, in
a letter of orders to Col Bouquet, saying "Could it not be contrived to
send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on
this occassion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them". Bocquet
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. Bouquet then proposes using- in "the
Spanish method"- a combination of hunting dogs, rangers and light
horsemen, in an effort to "effectually extirpate or remove that vermin"
at little risk to his own men. Amherst readily agreed, hoping that the
use of smallpox infested blankets, as well as any other method be used
that "can serve to extirpate this execrable race", although he did not
think that the hunting dog idea was practical. Parkman states that there
is no evidence that Bouquet ever used the smallpox plan, although an
epedemic raged among the Ohio Indians "a few months after" the July 1763
correspondence.
Jeffrey W. Reed
jreed02emory.edu
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(4)
>Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 13:25:24 EDT
>From: David T Rayson <rays0001@gold.tc.umn.edu>
In this context of deliberately using disease as a weapon against Native
Americans, the English trader James Adair asserts that in 1738 "the
Cherake received a most depopulating shock by the small pox, which
reduced them almost one-half, in about a year's time: it was conveyed
into Charles-town by the Guinea-men, and soon after among them, by the
infected goods." The Guinea-men could either refer to slaves from the
Guinea coast or, and I think more probably, to the slavers themselves.
In any event, the transmission of such goods was deliberate and it also
came at a time of rising tension between Carolina and the Cherokee.
Trade with the Cherokee was halted for about 18 months and when it
resumed the remaining half of the Cherokee suffered another major
epidemic -- this time of suicide as the survivors viewed their scarred
faces for the first time in the mirrors sent as trade goods.
David Rayson
rays0001@gold.tc.umn.edu
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(5)
>Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 13:25:58 EDT
>From: Patrick Riordan <riordanp@mailer.fsu.edu>
Many popular books on the Indian wars of late C19 cite the use of smallpox
transmission via infected blankets. It's part of the beliefs and oral
traditions of many western native peoples, and there are numerous
reliable citations. Here's one example:
In a section on Tribes of the Columbia River region of the Pacific
Northwest, James Mooney (anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution) wrote:
"In 1847 the small pox, before unknown among them, carried off a large part
of the tribe. The Cayuse, believing that the missionaries were the cause
of it, attacked the mission on November 29, 1847, killed Dr. Whitman [a
Presbyterian missionary] and thirteen others, and destroyed the mission.
As a matter of fact, there seems little question that the infection was
brought into the country in supplies intended for the use of the mission or
of emigrants temporarily stopping there."
This was originally published in 1896 by the Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., as an accompanying paper to the _Fourteenth
Annual Report (Part 2) of the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian
Institution, 1892-93, By J.W. Powell, Director_.
You can find it in the old BAE reports, or in its reprinted format as
James Mooney, _The Ghost-Dance Religion and Wounded Knee_ (reprint; 1896,
Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1973), 743-44.
Patrick Riordan Ph.D. Candidate, Teaching Assistant
1717 Old Fort Dr. Bureaucratic State University
Tallahassee FL 32301 Voice and fax 904-656-6552
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(6)
>Date: April 18, 1995
>From: Brad D. Hume <BDHUME@ucs.indiana.edu>
A couple of points on the history of science aspect of the discussion
regarding Indians and Small Pox:
1: Knowledge of "inoculation" was brought to Europe from the near
east in the 1720s -- the process was to transfer a small amount of pus
into a healthy individual from the pustule of an infected person. Most
often the healthy individual received a much less serious case of
small pox, but not always which DID make it a frightening prospect.
2: In the 1790s British physician, Edward Jenner experimented with
the relationship between cowpox and smallpox. Cowpox was a much milder
and far less fatal form of the same disease. He found that transferring
cowpox to healthy individuals made them immune to smallpox as well. He
called this form of inoculation "vaccination" from the Latin for cow, vacca.
(Louis Pasteur lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, I'm
sure that was an oversight in the earlier post).
3: This is the most important point: Whether or not individuals used
blankets or any other materials to intentionally pass on smallpox would
seem to depend on their view of how the disease spread. Smallpox was one
of the only diseases that was recognized as a contagious disease until the
latter part of the nineteenth century (when work on cholera finally showed
that it and other diseases were no doubt contagious). Physicians rejected
the contagion theory through most of the nineteenth century with the
exception of smallpox. It would help clarify the discussion to know when
physicians and laypersons generally came to agree that smallpox was
contagious -- i.e., when would it have been "possible" for people to even
think of using blankets to spread a disease? Unfortunately I don't have
the answer to that question. If it is the 1720s when inoculation was first
used in Europe then questions about 17th century uses would seem out of place.
What makes the whole thing more complicated is that laypersons
often feared the spread of diseases (i.e., had a lay theory of contagions)
even before physicians accepted the evidence (they had other complicated
theories). So then we have to ask whether the individuals who wanted
to infect the Indians with smallpox or not were following the advice of
physicians (pre-1720) or not.
Thanks to all who have contributed to this discussion. My real area is
history of anthropology (1780-1860) so this has been particularly
interesting to me.
Brad D. Hume
History and Philosophy of Science
Indiana University
BDHUME@UCS.INDIANA.EDU
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(7)
>Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 08:13:18 EDT
>From: J. Douglas Deal <deal@Oswego.OSWEGO.EDU>
To follow up on the postings of Mary Beth Norton and Brad Hume, each of
whom asks important questions: I'm no medical authority (alas), but like
Norton have read that the smallpox virus can only be transmitted through
human-to-human contact (ordinarily touch or respiration). This
information is provided, for instance, in Laurie Garrett's new book, THE
COMING PLAGUE, which in many ways seems a quite sophisticated study of
infectious diseases in the world today. But, to compound the mystery,
Garrett adds in a footnote that "Smallpox may have been the most useful
weapon of biological warfare in world history," and she proceeds to
describe the 1763 Amherst & blankets case, without a hint that it might
not have worked. She then links the epidemic among the Pontiacs with
others on the Plains and in the northwest and cites as her authority the
official World Health Organization book, SMALLPOX AND ITS ERADICATION,
edited by F. Fenner (a virologist) et al. and published in 1988. Garrett
is a well-informed journalist, and her source is, one would think, a
solid scientific study. Would specialists repeat a story about the
transmission of the disease if it COULD NOT have occurred? Maybe, but
probably not. Is there an epidemiologist on the list?!
Doug Deal
History/SUNY-Oswego
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(8)
>Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 08:13:53 EDT
>From: Geoffrey Plank <plankg@ucunix.san.uc.EDU>
After disease swept through the Micmac communities of Nova Scotia around
1747, French accounts of the epidemic blamed the British, claiming that British
officers and traders intentionally spread disease by distributing infected
clothing. See "Motifs des sauvages mickmaques," in Baston du Bosq de
Beaumont, LES DERNIERS JOURS DE L'ACADIE (Geneva, 1975), 46.
This is hardly the right-from-the-horse's-mouth evidence that we have for
Amherst's program, but if it is true, it might explain where Amherst got his
idea. Amherst arrived in Nova Scotia in 1758 in anticipation of his attack on
Cape Breton Island. During his short stay in Nova Scotia, he certainly learned
the rhetoric of hating the Micmac, as his speeches to his troops in 1758 make
clear. Amherst almost certainly had very little personal interaction with the
Micmac themselves. He learned his hatred from others who had been in Nova
Scotia longer. Is it possible that he learned more than their attitudes, but
maybe also their methods of operation?
(I suspect that this might be true, but I don't think I could prove it.)