1) What about doing something on Dr. Charles Eastman, a medical doctor
with a degree from Boston University, who became a physician for the
army and helped pick up the dead bodies at the massacre at wounded
Knee. I can't remember what tribe he was from right now but that would
be simple to verify.
2) What about the forced steralization programs of native women
conducted in the thirties and forties? This was carried out by John
Collier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Commissioner of Indian Affairs
and himself a member of one of the New York tribes. Again, I can't recall
just which one. (Gees I must be getting senile!) He was not a medical
doctor but a sociologist, I believe. Anyhow, he assisted the doctors in
carrying out their steralization policy.
3) The third suggestion is a little bit more obscure. In the late ninteenth
century the Bureau of Indian Affairs designed a series of programs to
encourage Indians to acculturate, that is to become more and more like
their non-Indian neighbors in thought and behavior. Field Matrons were
American women who the BIA hired to work with Indian women for the
purpose of changing their behavior, their relations with their husbands,
and thereby the native community itself. These Field Matrons, some
doctors, and some nurses conducted a series of treatments and
educational sessions for Shoshone women in child rearing, treatment of
tuberculosis, and treatment of trachoma. Not surprisingly, their primitive
medical advice (that of the BIA not the Native Americans) not only
caused the diseases to become more prevalent but also frequently fatal.
The program destroyed traditional medicine which had worked fairly well
up until that time and also, with the introduction of more white people,
exposure to a greater variety of diseases occurred.
There is a very good article on this in "Prologue: Quarterly of the National
Archives" Vol. 22, No. 2 page 151. It is entitled: "Philene T. Hall, Bureau
of Indian Affairs Field Matron: Planned Culture Change of Washakie
Shoshone Women by Martha C. Knack.
******************************
Helen Engle, Archivist, National Archives/New England Region
380 Trapelo Rd., Waltham, MA 02154 (617) 647-8100