Disease among the Indians

 

            

      Small child with small-pox, Bangladesh, 1973.

 

I remember when I was in medical school, running across a thesis that someone had written on the health problems suffered by the Five Civilized Tribes during the "Trail of Tears," their forced removal from their homelands to Indian Territory, in what is now the State of Oklahoma. Along the 4 to 800 mile journey 1 out of 5 lost their lives. Many of the deaths were due to exposure - the winter of 1832 was especially hard. Alexis De Tocqueville, visiting from France, described blocks of ice floating down the Mississippi River. It was said that after the Indians arrived they had lost almost all of their elders and small children.  

It's really hard to imagine the hardships endured by the Indians in those days. Not only were they brutally mistreated due to the prejudice and greed of the white man, their immune systems couldn't cope with the diseases that Europeans considered minor such as chicken pox and measles, so whole tribes had been wiped out by disease even before the Trail of Tears. 

The Indians way of life before the Removal had protected them somewhat from disease. They lived in small family groups, which limited transmission of disease. They got their water from streams or wells which for the most part were not contaminated. They hunted to provide fresh meat, and by the time of the Removal had learned to cure meat by salting or smoking it.  

During the Removal Indians were forced to travel crowded together in large groups. They suffered from poor sanitation, leading to typhoid, dysentery and cholera, and unscrupulous contractors ordered food in advance and allowed it to sit out and spoil. The Indians had to choose between eating spoiled food or nothing. Many of the Chickasaw refused to follow the planned route. They made their way through the swamps, killing game along the way. This frustrated their army escorts but it probably saved lives.  

One of the few preventable diseases of the time was smallpox, a disease with a mortality rate of 30 to 50%. Vaccination of the Native American population did not start until the 1830's and it was not widespread. In 1834 there was a smallpox outbreak among the Creeks and the U.S. Army physician, Dr. W. L. Wharton, vaccinated over 7000 Indians, ameliorating the epidemic. Small pox broke out among a group of migrating Chickasaw in 1837, and it spread to the Choctaw killing over 500. The smallpox epidemic of 1837 also spread to the plains tribes, and many suffered and died. The Mandan tribe, for instance, was reduced from 1500 to 15. A witness described the devastation:  

Language, however forcible, can convey but a faint idea of the scene of desolation which the country now presents. In whatever direction you turn, nothing but sad wrecks of mortality meet the eye; lodges standing on every hill, but not a streak of smoke rising from them. Not a sound can be heard to break the awful stillness, save the ominous croak of ravens, and the mournful howl of wolves, fattening on the human carcasses that lie strewn around … Many of the handsome Arickarees, who had recovered, seeing the disfiguration of their features, committed suicide; some by throwing themselves from rocks, others by stabbing and shooting. The prairie has become a graveyard; its wild flowers bloom over the sepulchres of Indians. The atmosphere for miles is poisoned by the stench of hundreds of carcasses unburied.  

According to the memoirs of my great great Aunt, Mississippia Paul Hull, her brother Sam contracted small pox while scouting for the Army:

One of the things I remember which made such an impression on my mind was the dreadful epidemic of small pox. There were two kinds, the Black small-pox, which was usually fatal, and the red small-pox which was a milder form. My brother Sam was on a scouting expedition among the wild tribes and took the small-pox. My father heard of him being sick, and when he located him he was almost dead, but he nursed him until he got well, and brought him home.  

That was the way that small-pox was brought to our family, and we all had it. But we knew how to doctor ourselves and all of the family lived. The plains Indians had caught it by this time too and died in great numbers, sometimes an entire family died, because there was not one left to wait on the other. They did not understand how to take care of themselves and would go out and take cold. They were buried up and down the river and where the town of Pauls Valley now stands.   

This epidemic would have taken place during the 1870's when the Army was forcing the nomadic tribes onto reservations. There was a large group of Caddo Indians that lived near my great great grandfather Smith Paul's farm, and many of them died in the epidemic. My mother said that her mother used to point out a spot on Jackson Hill, overlooking Pauls Valley, where a group of Caddo's were buried.  

Small-pox was declared eradicated in 1979 by the world health organization. 

 

Footnotes:

Indian Removal, by Grant Foreman, Chap 8, P 110. Describes epidemic among Creeks

The Chickasaws, by Arrell Gibson: Chap 8, P 191. Small-pox among the Chickasaw and Choctaw

Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, by Grant Foreman. Indian Warfare Between Texas and Mexico, P 235. Epidemic among Plains tribes, including Wichita and Caddo as well.

 

Creek Removal

Chief Menawa

          Like the Seminoles, the Creeks were led in their struggle against removal by a survivor of the massacre at Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Chief Menawa, leader of the Red Stick defenders, was shot seven times during the battle. He was lying with his fallen comrades and assumed dead when he awakened to see a militiaman looting the body of a Creek warrior nearby. Menawa raised himself on one elbow and shot the soldier. Again he was shot and again left for dead, but when night fell Menawa managed to pull himself down to the river, climb into a canoe, and push himself into the current. He was discovered by a group of Creek women camped downstream from the battleground, rescued and nursed back to health.    

          Nearly 8000 Creeks were rendered destitute by the burning of their villages and crops during the Red Stick War. The Creeks were forced to sign an admission of guilt for the war, even those who had fought alongside the Americans against their brethren. Then they were forced to cede 2/3 of their domain.

          These devastating concessions left the Creeks divided and demoralized. Finally, in 1822, on the urging of the Cherokees, their council voted to adopt written laws, and to accept missionary schools in an effort to learn to live in the white man's world. Their resolution stated, "We were here before there was the face of a white man seen on this island," and "We earnestly admonish our white brethren … to treat us with tenderness and justice." At about the same time they passed a law forbidding any chief to cede more tribal land to the whites, under penalty of death.

Opothle Yahola

          In 1825, one of the Creek chiefs who had apposed the Red Sticks, a mixed blood named William McIntosh, met with federal commissioners and drew up a treaty exchanging all the Creek land in Georgia for land in the west. What made it worse was that McIntosh was a cousin of the Governor of Georgia and had been given a $25,000 bribe. The Creek Council sent a messenger, a young chief named Opothle Yahola, to warn McIntosh of the consequences of signing the treaty. Opothle Yahola climbed on a rock in McIntosh' front yard, called him to his window, and, surrounded by his fellow chiefs, said:

Brothers, the Great Spirit has met here with his children of the woods and their pale face brethren. I see his golden locks in the sunshine; he fans the warrior's brows with his wings and whispers sweet music in the winds; the beetle joins his hymn and the mocking bird his song. You are charmed! Brothers, you are deceived! A snake has been coiled in shade and you are running into his open mouth, deceived by the double tongue of the pale face chief, and drunk with the fire water of the pale face. Brothers, our grounds are gone, and the plow of the pale face will soon turn over the bones of our fathers. Brothers, are you tame? Will you submit? Opothle Yahola says NO!

          Then, turning to McIntosh, he continued:

           "As for you, double tongued snake, before many moons have waned, your own blood shall wash out the memory of this hated treaty. Brothers, I have spoken."

          McIntosh signed the treaty anyway, and the Council sent out a war party, led by Chief Menawa, the veteran of Horseshoe Bend. The party set McIntosh' house on fire, and when the chief ran out, the death sentence was carried out. When President Adams found out that the treaty had been signed without the Council's consent, he refused to send it to Congress. Instead he called the Creek leaders to Washington, including Menawa and Opothle Yahola, and a new treaty, not much different from the McIntosh treaty, was drawn up and signed. It became known as "Menawa's Treaty," and by 1830 about 3000 tribal members had migrated west under its terms.  

          Although initial reports of Indian Territory had been favorable, some emigrants returned later with tales of disease, poverty, and attacks by hostile tribes. These stories made those remaining in the east more reluctant to leave. In 1829 the Creek Council met and voted to stay in their native homeland and submit to state laws.

          When local authorities failed to expel whites encroaching on Creek land, one chief sent a list to Washington of 1500 illegal settlers, asking for federal help. Andrew Jackson was now President, and he gave the Creeks what would become his standard reply, that he was helpless to intervene in state affairs, and that the Indians' only choice was to move west.

          By 1832 more chiefs, including Opothle Yahola, had decided that removal was inevitable, and they signed another treaty, this time agreeing to give up their remaining lands in the east. The terms of the treaty were similar to those of the Choctaws. Settlers were to be kept out of Creek land, and those who decided to stay were to be given allotments. Creeks who emigrated were to be paid for their property, given transportation west, and subsistence for one year after arrival.

          But like the Choctaws, the Creeks were given none of the protection promised by their treaty. Swindlers found ways to trick them into signing away their allotments, and they had no legal recourse in the courts. When the Indians refused to move, land hungry settlers raided their farms. In 1836, eighty year old Chief Eneah Emathla led a party of warriors to retaliate. Sadly Opothle Yahola was forced to lead his warriors against the old man to prevent further bloodshed.

          With another "Indian uprising" as an excuse, U. S. troops were sent in under General Winfield Scott, and the rebel groups were forced to surrender. About 800 Indian warriors were marched 90 miles to Montgomery, Alabama, and paraded through the streets before being loaded onto barges bound for Mobile, and then Indian Territory. The experience was so humiliating for these proud people that several warriors committed suicide. After these "hostiles" and their families arrived in Indian Territory, they were released there without food, weapons, farming tools, or even cooking utensils, to live or die. Only about half survived the trip.

          To escape being sent west, several groups of Creek Indians fled to the Cherokee and  Chickasaw nations where they were given refuge, and some went to Florida to fight with the Seminoles. Those remaining in Alabama were hunted down and either hanged or placed into slavery.

          By the end of 1837, 15,000 Creeks had been forcibly removed to Indian Territory. The hardships they underwent were similar to those of the Choctaws. They suffered diseases like smallpox and cholera. They were forced to march in freezing cold weather without proper clothing, and were left to die if they couldn't keep up. One of the steamboats crammed full with 600 Creek captives sank in the Mississippi River, killing half its passengers.

          One elderly lady began to sing a song as she marched and soon she was joined by the others:

"I have no more land. I am driven away from home, driven up the red waters, let us all go, let us all die together."

          The old chiefs Eneah Emathla and Menawa were among those who died during the Removal. Opothle Yahola continued to lead his people in the new Indian Territory.