Assessing Ward Churchill’s Version of the 1837 Smallpox Epidemic

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Lamar University

Beaumont, TX 77710

browntf@hal.lamar.edu

Abstract:

This essay analyzes Ward Churchill’s accusations that the US Army perpetuated genocide. Churchill argues that the US Army created a smallpox epidemic among the Mandan people in 1837 by distributing infected blankets. While there was a smallpox epidemic on the Plains in 1837—historians agree, and all evidence points to the fact—that it was accidental, and the Army wasn’t involved.

Update, February 13, 2005:

This essay has been revised since I originally posted it. Some passages quoted by journalists are no longer in it. I wrote the first draft for myself, in a state of outrage over what I had discovered. I still stand by my original analysis. But I think my argument will be more effective without the editorializing. I have stripped most of the outrage, and added some more historiographical context. I want to let the facts speak for themselves

One blogger accused me of misrepresenting what Churchill said where. He has since retracted that accusation, after having read the piece more carefully. But his false accusations are still circulating on various blogs.

The first draft speculated that Churchill *may* have committed perjury. I am not a lawyer, and used the word “perjury” as any layman would, to describe dishonesty in a court proceeding. Given that the technicalities of perjury rules can vary from one venue and one situation to the next, I have removed that statement. I still contend that Churchill’s trial brief as published in Indians R Us contains all the same errors that I pointed out in my first draft. Contrary to some web critics’ accusations, I have never called for Churchill to be prosecuted for perjury or anything else. Please read more carefully, and be honest in your criticism.

Thanks to everyone who has emailed me. Some of the support I don’t want or don’t deserve. Some of the criticism has been right on the money, and incorporated into my revision.

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Did the U.S. military ever carry out a genocidal assault on American Indian peoples by means of biological warfare—i.e., distributing infected smallpox blankets? Few historians would dispute that during the Plains Indian wars, selected U.S. military forces did perpetuate massacres that can easily be construed as genocidal in intent. Furthermore, it is well-established that the British general Lord Amherst at least considered distributing smallpox-infected goods to Indians in 1763—with explicitly genocidal intent—and that his plan was carried out independently by his subordinate, Captain Ecuyer.

But did the U.S. military ever deploy smallpox blankets? Ward Churchill says they did. In a series of essays written during the 1990s, Churchill gradually elaborates his version of the origins of the smallpox epidemic that broke out on the northern plains in 1837, which probably killed twenty to thirty thousand people. Churchill charges the U.S. Army with infecting the Mandan tribe with gifts of smallpox-laden blankets, withholding treatment, and thus causing an epidemic that Churchill says killed more than 125,000 people.

Ward Churchill was previously accused of plagiarism and fabricating evidence in two published articles by University of New Mexico law Professor John Lavelle.[1] Churchill’s tale of the Mandan genocide would, unfortunately, appear to fit the pattern that LaVelle first laid out. The goal of this essay will be to situate Churchill’s version of events in an historiographical analysis of the 1837 smallpox epidemic.

Ward Churchill’s Version of the Smallpox Outbreak among the Mandans

Churchill first advanced his tale of the Mandan genocide in 1992, in the context of “a brief supporting a motion to dismiss charges” against Churchill and other activists, who were being tried for having disrupted a Columbus Day parade in Denver the year before. In Churchill’s trial brief, reprinted in his book Indians R Us (1994), he claimed immunity from the state laws under which he was being prosecuted. Churchill made the argument that protesting the parade was tantamount to combating genocide, and was thus his legal duty under international law. Towards that end, in his trial brief Churchill described several historical examples of genocide against Indians, including this one:[2]

At Fort Clark on the upper Missouri River…the U.S. Army distributed smallpox-laden blankets as gifts among the Mandan. The blankets had been gathered from a military infirmary in St. Louis where troops infected with the disease were quarantined. Although the medical practice of the day required the precise opposite procedure, army doctors ordered the Mandans to disperse once they exhibited symptoms of infection. The result was a pandemic among the Plains Indian nations which claimed at least 125,000 lives, and may have reached a toll several times that number.[3]

The only source that Churchill cites in support of this contention is Russell Thornton.[4] It is enlightening to compare Thornton’s rendition with Churchill’s. Thornton locates the origins of the epidemic in “a steamboat traveling the Missouri River” (94):

Steamboats had been traveling the upper Missouri River for years before 1837, dispatched by Saint Louis fur companies for trade with the Mandan and other Indians. At 3:00 P.M. on June 19, 1837, the American Fur Company steamboat St. Peter’s arrived at the Mandan villages after stopping at Fort Clark just downstream. Some aboard the steamer had smallpox when the boat docked. It soon was spread to the Mandan, perhaps by deckhands who unloaded merchandise, perhaps by chiefs who went aboard a few days later, or perhaps by women and children who went aboard at the same time.[5]

Note the discrepancies between Churchill and Thornton. Thornton locates the site of infection at the Mandan village, not at Fort Clark. Nowhere does Thornton mention the U.S. Army. Nowhere does Thornton mention “a military infirmary in St. Louis where troops infected with the disease were quarantined.” Nowhere does Thornton mention the distribution of “smallpox-laden blankets as gifts.” On the contrary—Thornton clearly hypothesizes the origins of the epidemic as being entirely accidental.

Citing Thornton, Churchill holds that “the pandemic claimed at least 125,000 lives, and may have reached a toll several times that number.” But Thornton counts only 20,400 dead from a variety of tribes, plus “many Osage”, and “three fifths of the north-central California Indians (probably an exaggeration)”. In other words, Thornton counts no more than 30,000 dead at most.[6]

Thornton disagrees with the conclusions of genocide that Churchill attributes to him, telling the Los Angeles Times: “If Churchill has sources that say otherwise, I’d like to see them. But right now I’m his source for this, and it’s wrong.”[7] Speaking on the Churchill controversy to InsideHigherEd, Thornton remarked that: “The history is bad enough—there’s no need to embellish it.”[8]

In 1998, Churchill revised his accusations against the Army in a new collection of essays, A Little Matter of Genocide. Churchill addresses the Lord Amherst affair of 1763, in which British colonial forces may have indeed distributed smallpox-infected goods to Indians in New England. Churchill argues that Amherst:

…was by no means a singular incident, although it is the best documented. Only slightly more ambiguous was the U.S. Army’s dispensing of ‘trade blankets’ to Mandans and other Indians gathered at Fort Clark, on the Missouri River in present-day North Dakota, beginning on June 20, 1837. Far from being trade goods, the blankets had been taken from a military infirmary in St. Louis quarantined for smallpox, and brought upriver aboard the steamboat St. Peter’s. When the first Indians showed symptoms of the disease on July 14, the post surgeon advised those camped near the post to scatter and seek ‘sanctuary’ in the villages of healthy relatives…there is no conclusive figure as to how many Indians died…but estimates run as high as 100,000.[9]

In this new version, Churchill elaborates on his previous essay, adding new details. A new character appears: the post surgeon. Churchill implies that this character strategically encouraged the Indians to scatter and thus spread the disease. Churchill has also downgraded his outside estimate of the number of victims to only “as high as 100,000.”

What Happened in 1837?

Churchill’s tale of genocide by means of biological warfare is shocking, but other historians disagree that it ever happened. It is well-established that a smallpox outbreak did occur in 1837, and that it was probably carried into the region on board the steamboat St. Peter.[10]

None of the sources that Churchill cites make any mention of “a military infirmary…quarantined for smallpox.” None of the sources Churchill cites make any mention of U.S. Army soldiers even being in the area of the pandemic, much less being involved with it in any way. Churchill’s sources—in particular a journal kept by the fur trader Francis Chardon—make it clear that Fort Clark was not an Army garrison. It was a remote trading outpost that was privately owned and built by the American Fur Company, and manned by a handful of white traders.[11] It was not an Army fort, nor did it contain soldiers. Not being an Army fort, it did not contain a “post surgeon” who told Indians to “scatter” and spread the disease.

The only government employee who can be documented as present in the vicinity of the trading post was the local Indian Agent, who according to Chardon did not distribute blankets or anything else at the time of the pandemic, “as he has nothing to give his red children.”[12] The government agent functioned to serve the interests of the trading company, and had no independent incentive to infect the Indians.[13]

Journals and letters written by the fur traders who did man Fort Clark make it clear that they were appalled by the epidemic, in part because they had Indian wives and children and were thus a part of the Indian community.[14] The traders also had economic interests in keeping the Indians healthy. The trader Jacob Halsey—who himself contracted the smallpox—lamented that “the loss to the company by the introduction of this malady will be immense in fact incalculable as our most profitable Indians have died.”[15] The traders would not seem to have any incentive to wage biological warfare on their own families and their “most profitable Indians”, much less put their own lives at risk.

Churchill claims that vaccine was withheld by “the army”, citing Stearns & Stearns.[16] What the Stearns actually wrote was that “great care was exercised in the attempt to eliminate the transfer of the smallpox” by the traders, and that “a physician was dispatched for the sole purpose of vaccinating the affected tribes while the pestilence was at its height.” It is difficult to see how Churchill could have derived his reading of events from the Stearns.[17]

Churchill argues that the “post surgeon” ordered the Indians to scatter, thus strategically spreading the disease. But an eyewitness on the scene—the trader Jacob Halsey—complained in a letter that:

I could not prevent [the Indians] from camping round the Fort—they have caught the disease, notwithstanding I have never allowed an Indian to enter the Fort, or any communication between them & the Sick; but I presume the air was infected with it…my only hope is that the cold weather will put a stop to this disease…pray send some vaccine.[18]

This letter is printed as an appendix to Chardon’s journal, the only primary source that Churchill cites in support of his story.

What if the U.S. Army had been active in the region? Given the opportunity, would Army officers have had any motive to use biological warfare against the Mandans? Five years earlier, in 1832, Congress had passed an act and appropriated funds to establish a program for inoculating Indians on the Missouri River.[19] Given this Congressional mandate to protect Indians from smallpox, given the lack of hostilities between the U.S. military and the Mandans or any other Plains Indians at that time, and given the military’s lack of presence in the area of the Mandans at the time, Churchill’s version of events does not seem plausible, even in the context of counterfactual speculation.

Churchill argues that the disease’s vector was smallpox blankets given as gifts by the Army. None of the sources that Churchill cites mentions gift blankets. Available evidence indicates that the disease’s vector was either the trader Jacob Halsey himself, who arrived on the St. Peter already infected, or an Arikira Indian woman who also arrived on the steamboat in the same condition.[20] The primary source that Churchill cites makes it clear that the local traders considered the disease to be entirely accidental, and as unwelcome by the local whites as by the Indians.

Could Churchill’s Charge of Genocide Still Be Valid?

Is it possible that Churchill has additional sources which he did not cite that might still validate his charge against the US Army? Could it be that Churchill is guilty of no more than sloppy citations? In all fairness to Churchill, the smallpox blanket hypothesis of Plains epidemics dates back to the 19th century. In 1884, Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote of a smallpox outbreak in 1836, commenting in a footnote:

Beckwourth, the negro, was accused, I do not know how justly, of willfully sowing smallpox among the pestiferous Blackfeet, by disposing to them of certain infected articles brought from St. Louis.[21]

This story suggests that one element of Churchill’s version is not original to him—the deliberate infection, originating from St. Louis. But problems remain. Bancroft cites no sources, restricts this observation to a footnote, and does not seem confident in the rumor’s reliability. Testing the rumor against what is known, we find immediate contradictions. First, the Mandan epidemic broke out in June 1837, not 1836, and Mandan territory was distant from Blackfeet territory. Contemporary versions of the Beckwourth rumor have him visiting the Crow—not the Blackfeet—in the spring of 1837. Second, Beckwourth had been employed by the American Fur Company, and was trying to renew his contract with the company when he visited the Crow in 1837. He had operated a trading post among the Blackfeet, and married two Blackfeet women. Furthermore, Beckwourth had lived among the Crow for six to eight years, and had additional wives and relatives among that tribe as well. Beckwourth would have no more motive to deliberately infect his family members—and the potential trading partners of the company with which he was seeking a contract—than would the traders at Fort Clark.[22]

The trader Jacob Halsey wrote on November 2, 1837, that the smallpox epidemic had been introduced among the Blackfeet by a sojourning member of their own tribe, who had returned home on the steamboat St. Peter.[23] Thus Bancroft’s version of events is directly contradicted by the Halsey letter, which is contained in a book cited by Churchill.

For the sake of argument, give Churchill the benefit of the doubt. Excuse Churchill for being ignorant of Beckwourth’s biography, for not noticing the Halsey letter in the Chardon volume he cites, and for confusing Bancroft with Thornton. The problem remains: Where did Churchill get the idea of smallpox blankets originating in an Army infirmary? Where did Churchill get the idea that there was a post surgeon who told the Mandans to scatter and spread the disease? Where did Churchill get the idea that the Army withheld vaccine? These are the specific charges with which Churchill indicts the US Army with genocide. Not only do all of Churchill’s cited sources fail to support these charges—the broader literature fails to support the charges as well. Whence, then, did Churchill derive them?

Could Churchill have derived his story from an oral tradition? One of Churchill’s sources—Stearn & Stearn (81)—relates a story of a Mandan chief stealing an infected blanket from the steamboat. In the Stearns rendition, the trader Chardon tried to retrieve the infected blanket by promising to exchange it for clean ones. However, the source cited by the Stearns—Zenas Leonard’s narrative—does not contain this story. In fact, Leonard’s narrative ends in 1835, two years prior to the Mandan outbreak, and does not mention either Chardon or smallpox. Nor do the Stearns themselves seem to give the story much credence. Even if true, the story still directly contradicts Churchill’s claim that the army distributed infected blankets obtained from a military infirmary.

The Mandans do seem to have developed suspicions about the traders as the source of the disease. Chardon reports that on Sunday, July 30, 1837, a “Mandan Warrior” named Four Bears gave a speech blaming “the whites” for the epidemic. Chardon transcribes Four Bears’ speech into his journal, commenting that:

They threaten Death and Distruction to us all at this place, saying that I was the cause of the small pox Makeing its appearance in this country.[24]

Obviously the Mandans had a legitimate hypothesis on that point. But the contemporary Mandan grievances did not involve the Army or even mention it. Furthermore, Churchill does not cite Mandan oral history. Churchill cites sources that radically contradict his version.

Conclusion

Situating Churchill’s rendition of the epidemic in a broader historiographical analysis, one must reluctantly conclude that Churchill fabricated the most crucial details of his genocide story. Churchill radically misrepresented the sources he cites in support of his genocide charges, sources which say essentially the opposite of what Churchill attributes to them.

It is a distressing conclusion. One wants to think the best of fellow scholars. The scholarly enterprise depends on mutual trust. When one scholar violates that trust, it damages the legitimacy of the entire academy. Churchill has fabricated a genocide that never happened. It is difficult to conceive of a social scientist committing a more egregious violation.

Sources Cited by Churchill

Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.

Francis A. Chardon, Chardon’s journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839; descriptive of life on the upper Missouri; of a fur trader’s experiences among the Mandans, Gros Ventres, and their neighbors; of the ravages of the small-pox epidemic of 1837, Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press [1970]

E. Wagner Stearn & Allen E. Stearn. 1945. The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian, (Boston: B. Humphries, 1945).

More Secondary Sources on the 1837 Epidemic

Clyde D. Dollar, “The High Plains Smallpox Epidemic of 1837-38” The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan., 1977).

Guenter Lewy, “Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?” Commentary, September 2004.

Michael K. Trimble. “The 1832 Inoculation Program on the Missouri River.” Disease and Demography in the Americas. Ed. by John W. Verano & Douglas H. Ubelaker, 1992.

Michael K. Trimble. Epidemiology on the Northern Plains: A Cultural Perspective, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Missouri – Columbia, 1985.

.

[1] LaVelle, John. “The General Allotment Act ‘Eligibility’ Hoax: Distortions of Law, Policy, and History in Derogation of Indian Tribes.” 14 Wicazo Sa Review 251 (Spring 1999); Levelle, Review Essay: “Indians Are Us?” 20 American Indian Quarterly 109 (Winter 1996).

[2] Churchill published his brief in: Churchill, Ward. 1994. “Bringing the Law Back Home: Application of the Genocide Convention in the United States.” Indians Are Us? Culture and Genocide in Native North America. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, p. 11. I have not examined the original court document.

[3] Churchill, 1994, p. 35.

[4] Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival, 1987, pp. 94-96.

[5] Thornton 1987, p. 96.

[6] Thornton, p. 95. The estimate of 20,400 total dead was calculated by adding up all of Thornton’s estimates for each individual tribe. “Probably an exaggeration” is part of the quote from Thornton—his own words.

[7] David Kelly, “Colorado Professor Faces Claims of Academic Fraud: Ward L. Churchill is accused of distorting historical facts about American Indians.”Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12, 2005.

[8] Scott Jaschik. “A New Ward Churchill Controversy.” Inside Higher Ed, February 9, 2005. http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/a_new_ward_churchill_controversy

[9] Churchill 1998, A Little Matter of Genocide, p. 155.

[10] According to the trader Chardon’s diary, the steamboat arrived at Fort Clark on June 18, not June 20 as Churchill argues. Francis A. Chardon, Chardon's journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839; descriptive of life on the upper Missouri; of a fur trader's experiences among the Mandans, Gros Ventres, and their neighbors; of the ravages of the small-pox epidemic of 1837, Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press [1970 p. 118.

[11]Chardon, p. xv. All of the “forts” in the vicinity were in fact privately-owned trading outposts.

[12] Chardon, p. 188, entry for June 20, 1837.

[13] see introduction to Chardon

[14] Chardon, pp. xxi-xxiii, passim.

[15] Chardon, p. 394-396.

[16] Churchill, p. 155, “A little matter of…”.

[17] E. Wagner Stearn & Allen E. Stearn. 1945. The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian, pp. 83, 87-88.

[18] Chardon, p. 394.

[19] Chardon, note 319, p. 507; Michael K. Trimble. “The 1832 Inoculation Program on the Missouri River.” Disease and Demography in the Americas. Ed. by John W. Verano & Douglas H. Ubelaker, 1992; E. Wagner Stearn & Allen E. Stearn. 1945. The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian, pp. 73-74.

[20] Chardon, note 480, p. 316, p. 394; Michael K. Trimble. Epidemiology on the Northern Plains: A Cultural Perspective, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Missouri – Columbia, 1985.

[21] Bancroft, H. H., History of the Northwest Coast, Vol. II: 1800–1846, Vol. 28, The Works of Hubert

Howe Bancroft (A. L. Bancroft: San Francisco, Calif., 1884), note 3, p. 602.

[22] T. D. Bonner, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, University of Nebaska Press Edition, 1972. Elinor Wilson. Jim Beckwourth: Black Mountain Man, War Chief of the Crows, Trader, Trapper, Explorer, Frontiersman, Guide, Scout, Interpreter, Adventurer and Gaudy Liar, University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. James Beckwourth and Thomas D. Bonner. The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians (Harper and Brothers, 1856).

[23] Chardon, pp. 394-395.

[24] Chardon, p. 124.

I want to see Churchill fight Jellybean in a tough man contest ....

A long piece, but well worth the time for those who relish the continued, sustained humiliation of Ward "Cleaver" Churchill. Additionally, scholastic misadventure such as this is a basis for terminating Churchill, even with tenure. Hopefully this (and the rest of his stunts) gets out into the media, so CU's case for terminating the Peoria F-Troop Indian is bolstered.

"Churchill has fabricated a genocide that never happened. It is difficult to conceive of a social scientist committing a more egregious violation."

bump 4 later

Pasteur didn't arrive at the "Germ Theory of Disease" until 1857, a full 20 years AFTER Ward Churchill (and others) popularly suppose US Army agents knew all about it.

Thanks. It's a great point.

That's Butterbean, but I doubt it would last more than 30 secs....

So, in short, WC is proposing that the US Army was conducting biologicial warfare 20 years before they knew there was such a thing as biological warfare....

Very interesting.......stupid, (on WC's part) but interesting......

Butterbean would have fun with him for about 30 seconds.

Pasteur didn't arrive at the "Germ Theory of Disease" until 1857

These claims of germ warfare against Indians go back to at least 1763. Jeffrey Amherst, the British military commander, is thought by some to have distributed smallpox infected blankets among the Indians during Pontiac's War. The only evidence provided, that I know about, are less than a handful of ambiguously worded letters and second and third hand speculations.

I would think it would be possible to know that a sickness could be spread in such and such a way without knowing the cause of contagion was something called a germ. Europeans had a long, close knowledge of the disease, but I tend to think any infection was accidental. After all, how do you infect the blankets, continue to handle them, and avoid spreading the disease among your own people who might not have an immunity?

Professor Brown seems to give more credence to the Amherst speculations than I would. Skipped over it in the first reading. Slow down, Racehorse!

Furthermore, it is well-established that the British general Lord Amherst at least considered distributing smallpox-infected goods to Indians in 1763—with explicitly genocidal intent—and that his plan was carried out independently by his subordinate, Captain Ecuyer.
In 1998, Churchill revised his accusations against the Army in a new collection of essays, A Little Matter of Genocide. Churchill addresses the Lord Amherst affair of 1763, in which British colonial forces may have indeed distributed smallpox-infected goods to Indians in New England. Churchill argues that Amherst: …was by no means a singular incident, although it is the best documented.

They maybe had not yet developed germ theory, but they were intelligent people and were able to understand there were relationships that could lead to or prevent disease.
In 1796 Edward Jenner without the benefits of "germ theory"
found that milkmaids who had cowpox did not get Smallpox, and initiated Cowpox inoculations to prevent Smallpox.
He knew nothing about "germs". Likewise I suspect people of that time were generally aware that shared personal items from a sick person could spread the disease.

bump

"Pasteur didn't arrive at the "Germ Theory of Disease" until 1857, a full 20 years AFTER Ward Churchill (and others) popularly suppose US Army agents knew all about it."

Not necessarily significant, actually. see: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_variolation.html among other sites on the history of Smallpox.

Europeans were well aware that there were ways to spread and prevent the disease well before Pasteur. However, I find it significant that the government had a vaccination program in place several years before the outbreak; can you imagine what it might have been like if they had not? Churchill is a chump, IMHO. If he were an honest historian, he'd have noted that, too. I suppose it's too much to ask that he accept that the truth shall be known, and the the truth shall set you free...

Churchill did`nt just make ludicrous statements about 9/11.He has used his position and the complicit MSM to build a little academic empire based on fabrications and falsehoods.
While I suspect Churchill will remain an icon to the alternative universe left that is as far as it will go.
Thankfully through investigations like yours his stupidity and lies have found him out.I don`t think too many rational objective people view him as anything more than a loony crackpot.
I hope the libs continue to slobber at his feet,it further distances them from America.
All in the MSM and academia should take note.Your days of spewing unsubstantiated liberal lies without challenge are over.

John Adams children and wife were inoculated from the pustules of people with mild cases of smallpox, a custom said to have been taught the colonists by African slaves. It was dangerous and occasionally people died.

The University of Colorado Boulder is contemplating a
buyoff Retirement package for Ward .Wonder if they included
a warm blanket (as smallpox is out of favor -and Churchills
academic supposition as offensive as it was wrong-- I propose a retirement gift more in tune with the times blankets soaked in HIVpositive fluids.)Oh if only he would
follow the lead of Hunter Thompson and save the University
cost of bearing his existance.I still say the mor eI learn about the odious phony Indian and professor of fraud. The
more convinced I am CU Boulde rought REplace a majority of it's Regents.

That may be true, but they did know that giving someone the blanket of a smallpox victim would spread the disease, they just didnt know why.

Anyways, I ant defending Curchill, I hope he hangs!