1815-16 — Winter, Smallpox Epidemic, Comanche Nation –>4,000
— 4,000 Brooks, citing Comanche leader Chihuahua, as reported to John Jameson, p. 338.
— 4,000 Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1990, 94[1]
— 4,000 Zimmerman. “An Overview of American Indian Diversity.” PowerPoint slide 5.[2]
Narrative Information
Brooks: “Comanches had been stunned by the smallpox epidemic of 1779-1781. Another fierce outbreak swept the southern Plains in the winter of 1815-816, taking some four thousand people, according to the Comanche leader Chihuahua. Losses might have been more, assuming he spoke only of the devastation among his people, the ‘middle’ tribe of the Yamparicas. Kiowas recalled that this was the first smallpox ‘within the memory of their tribe,’ and they probably suffered proportionally to their Comanche allies. The disease struck at the wisdom and hope of these Plains peoples, taking mostly the old and young. The Texas divisions lost at least four of their paramount leaders, and clear political power did not again refocus for a generation. The full shock of their loss escapes our comprehension, but at least one strategy for recovery was clear.”[3] Determining real numbers of the women and children drawn into Plains Indian captivity is even more difficult than counting their counterparts in Spanish and Mexican society….” (Brooks. Captives & Cousins. 2008, pp. 337-338.)
Mooney: “In 1816 the smallpox made terrible ravages among all the tribes in the region of the Red and Rio Grande, being probably communicated from the Spanish settlements. The Comanche especially lost heavily (Morse, 1).[4] The Kiowa suffered in proportion, and their old men speak of this as the first epidemic of smallpox within the memory of their tribe.” (James. Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. Pages 129-in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-96. J. W. Powell (Director), Part 1 of Two Parts. Washington: GPO, 1898, p. 168.)
Sources
Brooks, James F. Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. Accessible Publishing Systems PTY, Ltd., 2008. Google digitized. Accessed 1-4-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=4X22pSWrVhsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mooney, James. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. Pages 129-445 in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-96. J. W. Powell (Director), Part 1 of Two Parts. Washington: GPO, 1898. Google digitized. Accessed 1-4-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=TxM_AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press, 1990, 292 pages. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=9iQYSQ9y60MC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Zimmerman, Larry J. “An Overview of American Indian Diversity” (PowerPoint Slides). Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Accessed 1-4-2015 at: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iupui.edu%2F~mstd%2Fexhibit1%2Fdiversity.ppt&ei=VcSpVLbOI4b4yASXnYGgAw&usg=AFQjCNFLDeiChcgplyklId8P0G-mMjz8Sw&bvm=bv.82001339,d.aWw
[1] Thornton writes: “There was another, less severe smallpox epidemic in 1815 and 1816 along the Red River and the Rio Grande. The Comanches said they lost 4,000 in it, out of a population of 10,000. Both the Iowa and the Kiowa reportedly also suffered (Mooney, 1898: 168; Stern and Stern, 1945: 78.” (p. 94)
[2] Cites Thornton on previous slide on a different topic. This could be drawn from Thornton.
[3] Footnote in original: “Chihuahua’s estimates were reported by John Jameson, newly appointed American agent at Natchitoches, in 1817. See Kavanagh, Comanche Political History, 172-173; for Kiowas, see Mooney, ‘Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians,’ Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part 2, 168.”
[4] Reference to Rev. Jedidiah Morse. A report to the secretary of war of the United States, on Indian affairs, comprising a narrative of a tour performed in the summer of 1820, under a commission from the president of the United States, for the purpose of ascertaining, for the use of government, the actual state of the Indian tribes in our country, etc. New Haven, 1822.