Skip to content
1882
Volume 64, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 0008-8994
  • E-ISSN: 1600-0498

Abstract

Abstract

Smallpox's devastating impact on Indigenous Peoples of the Americas figures prominently in the historical literature. But when did this horrific experience end? Historians have not noticed, and there are good reasons why they have not, at least for Indigenous Peoples of the United States. Between 1898 and 1903, federal agents and tribal officials enforced quarantines, isolated infected individuals, and vaccinated communities in response to a nation-wide epidemic. Smallpox consequently disappeared. But the evidence we can use to identify this ending leads us in directions other than acknowledging a significant historical milestone. Federal agents detailed efforts to erase Indigenous cultures and described ongoing health problems not related to smallpox, making the passage of the old scourge less significant. Stories that Indigenous Peoples produced after eradication, moreover, contained no celebration of smallpox's demise. These stories instead refer to the disease's arrival as the beginning of colonial trauma that had yet to come to its own end.

Open-access
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1484/J.CNT.5.128365
2022-06-01
2025-12-05

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/cnt/64/1/J.CNT.5.128365.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1484/J.CNT.5.128365&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Barbeau, M. (1960). Huron-Wyandot traditional narratives in translations and Native texts. Ottawa, Canada: Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationary.
  2. Blue, R. (1913). Contagious and infectious diseases among the Indians (62nd Congress, 3rd Session, Senate Document 1038). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  3. Calloway, C. (2018). First Peoples: A documentary survey of American Indian history (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.
  4. Deloria, E. (1988). Waterlilly. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.
  5. Dollar, C. (1977). The High Plains smallpox epidemic of 1837–38. Western Historical Quarterly, 8, 1538.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Dorson, R. (1961). Ethnohistory and ethnic folklore. Ethnohistory, 8, 1230.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Dowd, G. E. (2015). Groundless: Rumors, legends, and hoaxes on the early American frontier. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.
  8. Edwards, T. & Kelton, P. (2020). Germs, genocides, and America's Indigenous Peoples. Journal of American History, 107, 5276.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Fenn, E. (2000). Biological warfare in eighteenth-century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst. Journal of American History, 86, 15521580.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Frost, R. (1990). The Pueblo Indian smallpox epidemic in New Mexico, 1898–1899. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 64, 417445.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Hoxie, F. (1984). A final promise: The campaign to assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.
  12. Institute for Government Research . (1928). The problem of Indian administration. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.
  13. Isenberg, A. (2017). Empire of remedy: Vaccination, natives, and narratives in the North American West. Pacific Historian Review, 86, 84113.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Jones, D. S. (2004). Rationalizing epidemics: Meanings and uses of American Indian mortality since 1600. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
  15. Kelton, P. (2015). Cherokee medicine colonial germs: An Indigenous nation's fight against smallpox, 1518–1824. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma.
  16. Linderman, F. (1972). Pretty Shield: Medicine woman of the Crows. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.
  17. Mayor, A. (1995). The Nessus shirt in the New World: Smallpox blankets in history and legend. Journal of American Folklore, 108, 5477.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Meyer, M. (1991). “We can not get a living as we used to”: Dispossession and the White Earth Anishinaabeg, 1889–1920. American Historical Review, 96, 368394.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Osburn, K. (1998). Southern Ute women: Autonomy and assimilation on the reservations, 1887–1934. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico.
  20. Ostler, J. (2015). “To extirpate the Indians”: An Indigenous consciousness of genocide in the Ohio Valley and Lower Great Lakes, 1750s–1810. William and Mary Quarterly, 72, 587622.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Prucha, F. P. (1984). The great father: The United States government and the American Indian (2 Vols.). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.
  22. Pearson, J. D. (2003). Lewis Cass and the politics of disease: The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832. Wicazo Sa Review, 18, 935. https://doi.org/10.1353/wic.2003.0017
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Stearn, E. W., & Stearn, A. W. (1945). The effect of smallpox on the destiny of the Amerindian. Boston, MA: Bruce Humphries.
  24. Trennert, R. (1992). White man's medicine vs. Hopi tradition. Journal of Arizona History, 33, 349366.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. United States Office of Indian Affairs . (1898). Annual report of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1898. Indian Affairs. Report of the Commissioner. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  26. United States Office of Indian Affairs . (1899). Annual report of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1899. Indian Affairs. Report of the Commissioner (2 Vols.). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  27. United States Office of Indian Affairs . (1900). Annual report of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1900. Indian Affairs. Report of the Commissioner (2 Vols.). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  28. United States Office of Indian Affairs . (1901). Annual report of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1901. Indian Affairs. Report of the Commissioner (2 Vols.). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  29. United States Office of Indian Affairs . (1902). Annual report of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1902. Indian Affairs. Report of the Commissioner (2 Vols.). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  30. United States Office of Indian Affairs . (1903). Annual report of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1903. Indian Affairs. Report of the Commissioner (2 Vols.). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
  31. Willrich, M. (2011). Pox: An American history. New York, NY: Penguin.
/content/journals/10.1484/J.CNT.5.128365
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
This is a required field.
Please enter a valid email address.
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An error occurred.
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error:
Please enter a valid_number test
aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYnJlcG9sc29ubGluZS5uZXQv