Did the military, by order of the government, purposely give disease contaminated blankets to the Indians to expedite westward expansion

[RonRC]

This thread is to redirect this topic away from the COVID-19 thread and give the intentional disease spread issue its own space for discussion.

Please keep in mind that the original source for the claim of purposeful spreading of disease to the Indians using contaminated blankets was an invention in the writings of Dr. Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. He claimed to have a PhD in history, but he lied. He did not have a PhD in history , but an M.A. in communications. Churchill claimed to be an Indian to get promoted in the Ethnic Studies Dept., but he lied. He was discharged from the university after an intensive Investigation of his writings and paintings. The university committee came to the conclusion that he was a plagiarist and liar. Even some of his paintings were copied directly from another artist.

It seems that he invented the story of the spread of disease using contaminated blankets. Other prominent writers and TV producers referenced Churchill and used the blanket story. Churchill referenced the people who referenced him in his later writings. The story spread and few questioned it until the investigation.

The university president, Hank Brown, who recommended that the board fire Professor Churchill, said he deserved to lose his job because he had "falsified history" and "fabricated history." (Wesson, Marianne; Clinton, Robert; Limón, José; McIntosh, Marjorie; Radelet, Michael (May 9, 2006). Report of the Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct at the University of Colorado Boulder concerning Allegations of Academic Misconduct against Professor Ward Churchill) Brown is referring to not just to the discovery of Churchill's plagiarism, but also to his questionable body of academic work—like his claim the U.S. Army embarked on a program of genocide by deliberately infecting Indians with small-pox. Sounds plausible, but, according to an investigation by the Rocky Mountain News, not supported by the available evidence. "In fact, the pages of various books he refers to not only don't buttress his argument," wrote the News, "they contradict it." UCLA professor Russell Thornton, a scholar of Native American history, calls Churchill's writings on the smallpox epidemic "just out-and-out fabrication."
The controversy attracted increased academic scrutiny of Churchill's research, the quality of which had already been seriously questioned by the legal scholar John LaVelle, historian Guenter Lewy , (Lewy, Guenter (November 22, 2004,"Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?". History News Network), sociologist Thomas Brown, and the historians R.G. Robertson and Russell Thornton, who said that Churchill had misrepresented their work. In 2005, University of Colorado Boulder administrators ordered an investigation into seven allegations of research misconduct, including three allegations of plagiarism, and four allegations of fabrication or falsification regarding the repeated claims that smallpox was intentionally spread to Native Americans by John Smith in 1614 and by the United States Army at Fort Clark in 1837. Ward Churchill - Wikipedia

There is no question that Indian tribes contracted several diseases from the Europeans. While estimates vary, approximately 20-50 million people are believed to have lived in the Americas shortly before Europeans arrived. Around 95% of them were killed by European diseases (Why Native Americans Didn’t Wipe Out Europeans With Diseases. Emily Upton. March 26, 2014. Why Native Americans Didn't Wipe Out Europeans With Diseases) (I need to research this estimate more thoroughly).

But contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t all one sided. It’s believed that one Native American disease did slip on to the European ships and sailed onward to Europe doing some major damage in the process. That disease was syphilis. Syphilis killed millions in Europe after its introduction. (Case Closed? Columbus Introduced Syphilis to Europe. Charles Q. Choi, on December 27, 2011 Scientific American)

 

[Okie Hog]

NO!!!

The only documented attempt to infect the Indians with a deadly disease took place in colonial times (1763) at Fort Pitt. That incident was confirmed during WWII when The US Library of Congress undertook the British Manuscript Project, an effort to preserve British historical documents.

Early Bioterrorism and Native Americans

William Trent was the commander of a militia unit in 1763: The incident is noted in his journal.

 

[Hanshi]

It's a shame that our colonial rulers and then later our own government practiced genocide against American Indians for centuries. And now look what group is mostly ignored by Washington. It started with war and infected blankets and hasn't ended. Oh, it's not a soapbox this time, just an old broken apple crate.

 

[RonRC]

Thank you, Falcon, for the "Early Biological War on Native Americans" document. It is new to me and covers a period I wasn't informed about. I have to change my thinking and increase my reading about the issue and the timing of the intentional spreading of infection.
Ron

 

[Okie Hog]

You are welcome.

In any event, infected blankets provided a poor method of spreading smallpox: Smallpox scabs don't work well. Indeed, smallpox scabs were ground into powder and blown up folks noses to provide immunity against the disease. Puritan leader Cotton Mather used this method much to the consternation of the anti-vaxxers of the day.

https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/05/03/scabs-pus-puritans
How smallpox usually spreads:

"How Smallpox Is Spread. The disease is highly contagious. You get it mainly by breathing in the virus during close, face-to-face contact with an infected person. It usually spreads through drops of saliva when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks" Does this sound familiar?

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/smallpox-causes-treatment#1
Slightly off topic:

In July - August, 1987 i was an advisor to the military of a foreign country. While on a long field exercise i went to the maintenance shop 30 miles away to get my Suburban checked out. There i met a British doctor who worked for the military of the country; waiting on his vehicle in the repair shop.

After chatting for about an hour the doctor stated he needed some advice from an older person. Seems that two soldiers on the exercise had died of smallpox. The doctor was torn between reporting the incident and clamming up. i advised that since WHO had claimed smallpox was eradicated in 1980 that agency would not retract their announcement and would attack the messenger, as would the host country. "The British government will call you a liar and revoke your license to practice medicine." He clammed up.

 

[Buck Conner1]

.
It doesn't matter what country or kingdom you read about there is always true, close to the truth or just plain crap - written about the different periods in history of man and his rise to power.

I read a US Government report that Charley E. Hanson Jr sent me years ago about Hilter's rise to powder that most scholars felt was the most acturate information on this man. Now years later our government releases more information that his Third Reich collapsed almost 75 years ago, its successor – the Fourth Reich – is now alive and well.

That, at least, is the claim of some European and US journalists, politicians and other activists, who, in recent years, have used the phrase to attack opponents.

Like said "true, close to the truth or just plain crap written", same for the blankets, if repeated enough it will become history and not just someone's idea.

​

 

[RonRC]

There was a time, when I was much younger, that I thought that discrimination, bias, ethnic persecution, tribalism and provincialism were unique to American and European cultures. I thought that the anthropological studies that described small tribes in Africa and Asia and South American as peaceful, accepting, and tolerant were actually true. Then, I traveled to these continents and countries and learned that the anthropologist Margaret Mead and others like her fictitiously made the tribes they lived with look almost saintly.

I quickly learned otherwise.
In Japan, the main population of Japanese are strongly biased against the Anu tribe in the North of Japan.
The Malians in the south of the West African country of Mali persecuted the Tuareg population of the north.
The mainstream Chinese dramatically persecuted the Uygars of the western part of China.
The Zulu, under Dingane and Mzilikasi, of what is now South Africa, killed millions of aboriginals (Khoi San of today) and men of other tribes, taking the women and impressing the boys into the Zulu armies. Modern fighting between the Zulu and Xhosa of South Africa have depopulated certain areas once occupied by both tribes.
Brazilians in the State of Minas Gerais in central Brazil told me the the people from Marinhao up north were stupid and ignorant and were not to be trusted. I learned that Brazil did not outlaw slavery until 1888!
The Hindus of India hate the Muslims of India.
Indigenous Peoples of Nepal, called the Indigenous Nationalities (Adivasi Janajati), make up 36 per cent of the population and are the most impoverished of the peoples of the country.
Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe for decades, was a member of the Shona tribe. Mugabe's had his army massacre at least 10,000 Ndebele tribal civilians in Matabeleland because they opposed him in the elections.

The prevalence of mistreatment, persecution and discrimination of people from other groups cannot justify such behavior. It just looks to me that tribalism and ethnic conflict and persecution is not unique to any one country or group. It just is uniformly distributed throughout the world and human history and seems human in nature.
Ron

 

[Buck Conner1]

.
Then here comes Idi Amin the Ugandan president best known for his brutal regime that changed the norm with his crimes against humanity while in power from 1971-1979. Several of the other rulers that ruled with brutal crimes welcomed him with open arms when running from those that took over.

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Interesting thought:
Jan 22, 2013 - Humans are a plague on the Earth that need to be controlled by limiting population growth, according to Sir David Attenborough. Attenborough is an English broadcaster and natural historian. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history ...

Opinions are like assholes, everyone got one ......








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[plmeek]

Interesting discussion. I agree with pretty much everything presented.

It hasn't been mentioned, though, that various bio-terrorism incidents claimed or documented against natives in the 18th and early 19th century have been presented by revisionist historians that try to present history through the lens of modern moralities. And they have been further propagated by anti-government conspiracy theorists.

In reality, soldiers and officers of the 18th and early 19th century didn't know what bio-terrorism was. People didn't even understand what caused small pox and other communicable diseases back then. Diseases such as cholera, small pox, and the Black Death were generally thought to be caused by a noxious form of "bad air".

If Lord Jeffrey Amherst or anyone else fighting Indians back then thought they could infect the enemy by giving them contaminated blankets, they were just guessing and hoping. Before Louis Pasteur and his experiments, no one knew what "germs" were and how they worked.

 

[[email protected]]

There was a time, when I was much younger, that I thought that discrimination, bias, ethnic persecution, tribalism and provincialism were unique to American and European cultures. I thought that the anthropological studies that described small tribes in Africa and Asia and South American as peaceful, accepting, and tolerant were actually true. Then, I traveled to these continents and countries and learned that the anthropologist Margaret Mead and others like her fictitiously made the tribes they lived with look almost saintly.

I quickly learned otherwise.
In Japan, the main population of Japanese are strongly biased against the Anu tribe in the North of Japan.
The Malians in the south of the West African country of Mali persecuted the Tuareg population of the north.
The mainstream Chinese dramatically persecuted the Uygars of the western part of China.
The Zulu, under Dingane and Mzilikasi, of what is now South Africa, killed millions of aboriginals (Khoi San of today) and men of other tribes, taking the women and impressing the boys into the Zulu armies. Modern fighting between the Zulu and Xhosa of South Africa have depopulated certain areas once occupied by both tribes.
Brazilians in the State of Minas Gerais in central Brazil told me the the people from Marinhao up north were stupid and ignorant and were not to be trusted. I learned that Brazil did not outlaw slavery until 1888!
The Hindus of India hate the Muslims of India.
Indigenous Peoples of Nepal, called the Indigenous Nationalities (Adivasi Janajati), make up 36 per cent of the population and are the most impoverished of the peoples of the country.
Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe for decades, was a member of the Shona tribe. Mugabe's had his army massacre at least 10,000 Ndebele tribal civilians in Matabeleland because they opposed him in the elections.

The prevalence of mistreatment, persecution and discrimination of people from other groups cannot justify such behavior. It just looks to me that tribalism and ethnic conflict and persecution is not unique to any one country or group. It just is uniformly distributed throughout the world and human history and seems human in nature.
Ron

Tribalism is innate in the human psychology this is just demonstrable examples resulting of 10,000 years of human history and survival because of tribalism.

 

[Ninering62]

Tribalism is innate in the human psychology this is just demonstrable examples resulting of 10,000 years of human history and survival because of tribalism.

Outstanding post. Thank you

 

[4065shooter]

There was a time, when I was much younger, that I thought that discrimination, bias, ethnic persecution, tribalism and provincialism were unique to American and European cultures. I thought that the anthropological studies that described small tribes in Africa and Asia and South American as peaceful, accepting, and tolerant were actually true. Then, I traveled to these continents and countries and learned that the anthropologist Margaret Mead and others like her fictitiously made the tribes they lived with look almost saintly.

I quickly learned otherwise.
In Japan, the main population of Japanese are strongly biased against the Anu tribe in the North of Japan.
The Malians in the south of the West African country of Mali persecuted the Tuareg population of the north.
The mainstream Chinese dramatically persecuted the Uygars of the western part of China.
The Zulu, under Dingane and Mzilikasi, of what is now South Africa, killed millions of aboriginals (Khoi San of today) and men of other tribes, taking the women and impressing the boys into the Zulu armies. Modern fighting between the Zulu and Xhosa of South Africa have depopulated certain areas once occupied by both tribes.
Brazilians in the State of Minas Gerais in central Brazil told me the the people from Marinhao up north were stupid and ignorant and were not to be trusted. I learned that Brazil did not outlaw slavery until 1888!
The Hindus of India hate the Muslims of India.
Indigenous Peoples of Nepal, called the Indigenous Nationalities (Adivasi Janajati), make up 36 per cent of the population and are the most impoverished of the peoples of the country.
Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe for decades, was a member of the Shona tribe. Mugabe's had his army massacre at least 10,000 Ndebele tribal civilians in Matabeleland because they opposed him in the elections.

The prevalence of mistreatment, persecution and discrimination of people from other groups cannot justify such behavior. It just looks to me that tribalism and ethnic conflict and persecution is not unique to any one country or group. It just is uniformly distributed throughout the world and human history and seems human in nature.
Ron

Well said Ron. This fake history is still widely taught to our children today.