Question by essayhelp: What is a excellent focus for a paper on Native Americans and smallpox?
I want to write a 12 page paper and the broad subject is something regarding Native Americans and the outbreak of smallpox. However I need a particular stance or argument to write my paper on and I have no notion where to commence. Thanks!
Very best answer:
Answer by Sweetwater
A great point to analysis is the intentional distribution of blankets contaminated with smallpox to native tribes.
“Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces…wrote
in a postscript of a letter to Bouquet [a subordinate] that smallpox
be sent among the disaffected tribes. Bouquet replied, also in a
postscript, “I will try to [contaminate] them…with some blankets
that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease
myself.”…To Bouquet’s postscript Amherst replied, “You will do
effectively to [infect] the Indians by signifies of blankets as well as to attempt
every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable
race.” On June 24, Captain Ecuyer, of the Royal Americans, noted in
his journal: “…we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out
of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired impact.”
http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.11/1columbus.html
Here is an account by native journalist, Jodi Rave.
My mother was a Spotted Bear, a Mandan-Hidatsa from the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. I’m a daughter of the Maetsi-Dogah, or Knife Clan. My great-wonderful-grandfather, Spotted Bear — the son of Raven Chief — descended from the Mandan villages normally built along the tributaries of the upper Missouri River. My wonderful-wonderful-grandmother, Stella Tail, was Hidatsa.
Most people know my tribes by way of the explorers Lewis and Clark, who wintered with my men and women in 1804 and 1805. The Mandan and Hidatsa villages along the Knife River in present-day North Dakota have been the center of a vast trade network on the Northern Plains.
By the time Lewis and Clark arrived in 1804, we had currently been in contact with white traders. A smallpox outbreak hit our tribes in 1782, much more than 20 years prior to we ever saw guys from the Corps of Discovery.
A smallpox epidemic in 1837 practically wiped out my Mandan ancestors, lowering their numbers from about 2,000 men and women to fewer than 150.
Our oral histories speak of a time of incomprehensible despair.
Our tribal people have lengthy said the spread of smallpox was intentional.
I lately talked with Gerard Baker, a Mandan-Hidatsa and major oral historian for our tribes. Baker, park superintendent at Mount Rushmore, is a fluent Hidatsa speaker and comes from a classic family. He’s also lived and worked at many of our historical village sites along the Missouri.
Baker has talked with tribal elders and spent countless hours searching at the journals of the fur traders. He’s convinced traders deliberately spread smallpox to remove us as middlemen in the trade network.
Bernard Pratte Jr., captain of the St. Peter’s, was the son of an American Fur Business owner who purchased the Missouri branch in 1834. 3 years later, Pratte insisted on maintaining a smallpox-ridden man on board as the crew made its way toward the Mandan and Hidatsa villages.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara populations — recognized right now as the 3 Affiliated Tribes — were practically eliminated inside months. The white trade flourished in our location effectively into the 1850s, said Baker.”
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/genocide.htm
There is very a bit of controversy more than regardless of whether or not smallpox infected blankets have been deliberately given to native tribes. Ward Churchill’s investigation has been normally established a fabrication, but the oral histories are nonetheless there. You could create several far more than 12 pages in researching this topic. Good luck.
Give your answer to this question beneath!
