— >9,090 Blanchard estimated minimum death toll.*
— ~100 Atsina (see Gros Ventre). Taylor. Sociocultural effects of epidemics… 1982, p. 45.
–150,000 Chinook city of Ne-cha-co-lee, present day Oregon. National Library of Medicine.
— ~1,500 Chinook. Blanchard guesstimate – see note below on my own overall “estimate.”
— ~300 Clatsop. Snodgrass, citing Lewis and Clark, writes they were nearly extinguished.
— <1,500 Omaha alone. Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1900, 94.
-- 400 “ William Clark Journal in Snodgrass. World Epidemics, 2017, p. 121.
-- >2,000 Osage alone. Robertson. Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. 2001, 196.
— >90 Multnomah
— 3,600 All other tribes – arbitrary assumption of at least 100 deaths in each of 36 other tribes.
–>1,500 Reddy, Marlita A. Statistical Record of Native North Americans. 1993, p. 174.
–30% to 50% of tribes. (Nez Perce, Salish, Pend d’Oreille, Kalispell, Spokane.) Heiner 2014, 20.
— Over half the Plains tribes. (Baker 2002, p. 50)
* Blanchard. We are very skeptical of the 150,000 Chinook fatality report found on the National Library of Medicine cite Native Voices. Thus, we will arbitrarily ignore this number and assume something like the two other high-fatality numbers derived from sources (over 1,500 Omaha and over 2,000 Osage, say 1,500. That results in something like 5,000 deaths in three tribes. We add the approximately 190 deaths sources note for the Multnomah at Atsina, for a total of 5,190 for five tribes. We have noted our arbitrary attribution of 300 deaths to a sixth tribe — the Clatsop. This makes for a grand total of 5,490.
We have alphabetically listed the tribes mentioned as being affected by this epidemic, and this totals 42 named tribes. If we subtract the six for which we generally have numbers that leaves thirty-six tribes for which we have question marks. If we assume something like about 100 deaths for each of these (based on 90 Multnomah and about 100 Atsina deaths), that results in 3,600 deaths. Based on all these assumptions, we derive an estimated death toll of 9,090.
We are quick to add that we do not claim this to be “the” death toll. Sources note a general death rate of 30%-50% in native tribes, when a smallpox outbreak is not in their recent past. The geographical area for this epidemic, or “pandemic” as some sources write, is vast. It stretches north from the Gulf of Mexico (Texas) up through the Canadian border. East of Texas tribes were stricken in Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa (and perhaps Mississippi, in that there was an outbreak there in 1802, with the Governor ordering vaccinations in Natchez). To the west of the line of states to the north of Texas tribes in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and northern California were stricken. This is, again, a vast area of the country. The loss of life must have been much more than the number we note, however, we are already uncomfortable in presenting the number 9,090 in that it is based on arbitrary assumptions and bears the aspect of precision. We do not, though, seek to guess what this higher number might have been.
Arkansas (?)
–? Osage Robertson. Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. 2001, p. 196.
–? Quapaw. “1801-1802. Smallpox ravages Osage and Quapaw.” Arkansas Timeline.
California (northern)(?) Heiner. Demographic and epidemiological changes on the
Flathead Reservation 1887-1935. 2014, p. 20.
Colorado (northeast) (?)
— ? Arapaho. Robertson. Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. 2001, p. 194.
— ? Kiowa (especially eastern Colorado)
Great Plains (?)
— ? Kiowa. Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444.
— ? Pawnee. Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444.
Idaho (Many)
— ? Nez Perce. Boyd. “Disease Epidemics among Indians, 1770s-1850s.”
–Many. Nez Perce. Heiner. Demographic and epidemiological…Flathead Reservation… 2014, 18.
— ? Shoshone. “Northern Plains,” 253 in Fixico.
Iowa (?)
— ? Iowa Natives. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.) [We think Thayer reference is Natives in Iowa.]
— ? Dakota Sioux. (Map of Iowa Native tribes as of 1798 in Wikipedia. “American…Iowa.”)
— ? Ioway. (Map of Iowa Native tribes as of 1798 in Wikipedia. “American…Iowa.”)
— ? Omaha Nation. (Map of Iowa Native tribes as of 1798 in Wikipedia. “American…Iowa.”)
—<1,500 Omaha alone. Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1900, 94.
-- ? Pawnee.
Kansas (?)
-- ? Kansa (northeast)
-- ? Kiowa (especially western Kansas)
-- ? Osage.
-- ? Pawnee (especially northeast Kansas)
-- ? Wichita. Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444.
Mississippi (?)
--? Whites and Natives, presumably. Snodgrass. World Epidemics. 2017, p. 121.
Missouri (?)
-- ? Missouria. Robertson. Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. 2001, p. 197.
-- ? “ “seriously depleted” Ronda. Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. 1984.
-- ? Osage. Wikipedia. “Osage Nation,” 2-22-2021 edit. Homeland map.
-- ? Unnamed. Collett. “Black-Bird – Indian Chronology Untrustworthy.” [KCRSI], 8/7, Nov 1884, 362.
-- ? “ Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444.
Montana (?)
--~100 Atsina (see Gros Ventre). Taylor. Sociocultural effects of epidemics… 1982, p. 45.
-- ? Crow Nation (also called the Apsáalooke ). (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
-- ? Flathead Nation (Salish and Kootenai Tribes)
-- ? Gros Ventre (also known as A’ani, A’aninin, Haaninin, Atsina ). (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
-- ? Pend d’Oreille. (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
-- ? Semte’use. (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
-- ? Sioux. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
Nebraska (about two-thirds of Omaha)
-- ? Omaha nation. Collett. “Black-Bird – Indian Chronology Untrustworthy.” Nov 1884, p362.
-- ~2/3’s “ Kohn (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (Revised). 2001, p. 248.
--Severe. “ (down to ~300). Pritzker. Native Americans: An Encyclopedia… 1998, p.496.
--“dramatically reduced…numbers” Ronda. Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. 1984.
--<1,500 Omaha. Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival. 1900, 94.
-- ? Oto Natives. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
-- ? Pawnee (especially mid to eastern)
-- ? Ponca Tribe. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.) (Especially north-central.)
-- ? Sioux. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
New Mexico (?) Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pp. 129-444.
North Dakota (?)
--? Arikara (also known as Sahnish or Ree ). (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
--? Dakota. (Crosby. “Virgin-Soil Epidemics…Aboriginal Depopulation.” 1976, p. 295.)
--? Hidatsa (Siouan people). (Fixico. Treaties with American Indians. 2008, p. 253.)
--? Mandan. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
--? Sioux (Dakota). (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
Oklahoma (?)
--? Kiowa (large section of what now is the state of Oklahoma).
--? Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444. (From MO to TX)
Oregon (?)
--150,000 Chinook, Ne-cha-co-lee. NLB. “1802: An estimated 150,000 dead at Ne-cha-co-lee…”
-- ? Clatsop (nearly extinguished; Snodgrass citing Lewis and Clark)
-- >90 Multnomah
— ? Salish native people. (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
— ? Boyd. “Disease Epidemics among Indians, 1770s-1850s.” Oregon Encyclopedia, 2016.
Pacific Northwest
–? Boyd. Smallpox in the Pacific Northwest: the First Epidemics. “Epilogue,” 1994, p. 35.
South Dakota (?)
–? Dakota. (Crosby. “Virgin-Soil Epidemics…Aboriginal Depopulation.” 1976, p. 295.)
–? Mandan. (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
–? Ponca (south-central)
Texas (?)
— ? 1801-1802 smallpox. Table 5-11: Epidemics Among Texas Indians, 1528-1892.
— ? Caddo (east TX). Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444.
Washington (?)
–? Boyd. “Disease Epidemics among Indians, 1770s-1850s.” Oregon Encyclopedia, 4-7-2016.
–? Colville Natives. (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
–? Kalispel Tribe (also referred to as Pend d’Oreille). (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
–? Salish native people. (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
–? Spokane Tribe. (Thornton 1990, p. 91-92.)
Wyoming (?)
— ? Arapaho.
— ? Crow Nation (also called the Apsáalooke ). (Thayer 2004, p. 207.)
— ? Wyoming
Recap of Native Tribes Mentioned in Alphabetical Order
(Most Tribes did not restrict their movements to the borders of what we now refer to as States.)
1. Arapaho ?
2. Arikara ? (also known as Sahnish or Ree) (“extraordinary death rates”)
3. Assiniboine ? (“pummeled”)
4. Atsina ~100 (or Gros Ventre). (“especially deadly for the young”
5. Blackfoot ?
6. Caddo ?
7. Chinook 150,000 (another account is that “Small Pox destroyed their nation.”
8. Clatsop ? (account of one village, is “they all died with the disorder…”)
Clatsop ? (Lewis & Clark noted the “nation [was] destroyed by the smallpox]
9. Colville ?
10. Crow ? (“devastated”) (“pummeled”)
11. Dakota ? (“this people suffered significantly”)
12. Flathead ? (“devastated”)
13. Gros Ventre ? (see Atsina)
14. Haida (Pacific coast) ?
15. Hidatsa ? (“extraordinary death rates”)
16. Iowa ?
17. Kalispel ? (also known as Pend d’Oreille) (“devastated”)
18. Kiowa ?
19. Lummi (Pacific coast) ?
20. Mandan ? (“extraordinary death rates”)
21. Missouria ?
22. Multnomah >90 (tribe of the Chinook)
23. Nez Perce 30-50% (or “many”)
24. Nootka (Pacific coast) ?
25. Omaha >1,500 (or 2/3s; down to ~300; 15%-40% mortality; “severely infected”)
26. Osage >2,000
27. Oto ?
28. Pawnee ? (“pummeled”)
29. Pend d’Oreille ? (also known as Kalispel) (“devastated”)
30. Ponca ? (“pummeled”)
31. Quapaw ? “many…perished”
32. Salish ? (oral tradition is that lodges were full of corpses.”
33. Semte’use ?
34. Shoshone ? (“extraordinary death rates”)
35. Sto:lo ? (or Staula; Stahlo; Fraser River Indians, or Lower Fraser Salish)
36. Sioux ?
37. Spokane ? (“seriously affected.”)
38. Tillamook (Pacific coast)?
39. Tlingit (Pacific coast) ?
40. Tsimshian (Pacific coast)?
41. Wichita ?
42. Wyoming ?
Narrative Information
Baker: “….In 1801-1802 another smallpox epidemic spread along the Missouri River, devastating the Flathead, Pend d’Oreille, and Crow, and it spread into and destroyed more than half of the Plains tribes (Thornton 1987; Boyd 1998).” (Baker, p. 50 in Vale 2002.)
Boyd, 1994: “”Epilogue. Epidemic smallpox would reappear among Pacific Northwest Indians at least four more times (circa 1801-02, 1846, 1853, and 1862-63) in the next century, dependent upon the dual epidemiological requirements of introduction from the outside and presence of a large enough pool of non-immune susceptibles. It was a generation atter the 1770s before these conditions were met again. The 1801-02 smallpox epidemic, on present evidence, was certainly introduced from the Plains and affected only the peoples of the central coast. Lewis and Clark (for Chinookans) verify the year of the second outbreak (Moulton 1990: 285-86) , while John Work, speaking in 1829 for Nez Perce district peoples, noted two early outbreaks, ‘about ten years’ apart (op. cit.), and Asa Smith, for Nez Perce, dated a second epidemic to ‘two years after’ [sic; probably ‘before’] Lewis and Clark (op. cit.: 137). Several ethnographic sources suggest this outbreak was also present among Salishan peoples. Teit (1900:176, 1930: 212, 315-36, on interior Salish), Elmendorf (1960: 272 on Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island Salish, and Jenness (1995: 34, on Sto:lo, dated by Duff 1952: 28) all describe an epidemic which they date to the first decade of the 1800s.” (Boyd, Robert T. Smallpox in the Pacific Northwest: the First Epidemics (Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations). Portland State University, Spring 1994, p. 35.)
Boyd, 2013: “There is not much question about the origin of Lewis and Clark’s second reported epidemic [smallpox] in the winter of 1801-2; it most certainly arrived via the northern Rockies route. Mortality was less, probably concentrated among nonimmunes under the age of 20 (Boyd 1999b:39)
“Other than Lewis and Clark, evidence for the early smallpox epidemics comes from archaeology and from records of the Astorians. It is difficult to isolate, archaeologically, evidence of he smallpox epidemics from others that followed, but the likeliest example appears to be at the Sauvie Island village Clannarminamon excavated by the Oregon Archaeological Society in 1968, where ‘over 90…skeletal remains were encountered throughout the entire excavation area at the same depth and all in complete disarray’ (Jones 1972:182). This was the site where an 1812 observer reported that a formerly ‘very powerful tribe’ had been ‘reduced by the small Pox to 60 Men’ (Stuart 1935:32).” (Boyd. Lower Chinookan Disease and Demography. 2013, p. 237.)
Boyd, 2016: “Smallpox. The earliest documented epidemic in Oregon was smallpox. The year was most likely 1781, the date of a major epidemic throughout North America east of the Rockies, though this has been hard to pin down because most estimates come from after-the-fact observations by white explorers of pockmarked individuals. An oral tradition from the Clatsop of a shipwreck and the introduction of a spotted disease, however, dates to a decade before Robert Gray entered the Columbia in 1792, providing a close fit with the timing of the East Coast epidemic.
“The epidemic probably occurred throughout the Pacific Northwest. There are records in oral traditions or from white explorers of pockmarked individuals among the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakwakawakw (Kwakiutl), Nuuchahnulth (Nootka), Lummi, Puget Salish, Tillamook, Colville, Flathead, and Nez Perce….
“The journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition describe two instances of pockmarked people in Oregon, one from Clatsop and one from a Chinookan village near the Sandy River. William Clark wrote: “they all died with the disorder…Small Pox destroyed their nation.” ….
“By the time Robert Gray entered the Columbia in 1792 and non-Native fur traders began frequenting the Oregon Coast, Native populations were already depleted and their cultures were damaged….
“There were more smallpox epidemics in the Pacific Northwest, and their timing—1800-1801, 1824, 1836, 1853, and 1863—suggests that the disease recurred whenever there was a sufficiently large cohort of non-immune people who had been born since the last outbreak and were, hence, vulnerable to infection. In Oregon, both the 1800-1801 and 1824 epidemics are documented, but neither seems to have been as severe as the epidemic of the late 1700s….” (Boyd. “Disease Epidemics among Indians, 1770s-1850s.” Oregon Encyclopedia, 4-7-2016.)
Collett: “….Augustus Chouteau came to St. Louis with its founder, Laclede, in 1764, and was personally cognizant of every fact relating to the city he mentions in his depositions. His statements are the accepted data of much of St. Louis’ early history. He testifies (Hunt’s Min., Vol. 1, p. 107,) that on May 15, 1801, the small-pox first made its appearance in St. Louis. There are other depositions to the same effect. In St. Louis local annals the year 1801 is universally known as année de la picotte – small pox year….It has always been an accepted fact that the small-pox was brought to St. Louis by boats coming up the river, and thence spread among the Indians. The month and date given by Chouteau was the usual time of the arrival of the merchants’ supplies. The traders left for the Missouri in the fall of the year, the large boats on the opening of navigation, at the beginning of March if possible. The first departure, after the appearance of the disease in the village, would arrive at the Maha country [Omaha] in the last months of the year 1801; the next, in May, 1802. If by those the small-pox was communicated to the Indians of the Maha locality, it may have become epidemic during the winter of 1801-2, but if by these, not until the summer of 1802. As the Omaha chief [Black-Bird] is believed to have died after the malady had become epidemic, we can scarcely escape the probable conclusion that his death occurred in 1802, but in no event earlier than the close of 1801.” (Collett. “Black-Bird – Indian Chronology Untrustworthy.” Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, 8/7, Nov 1884, p. 362.)
Crosby: “The Dakotas kept annual chronicles on leather or cloth showing by a single picture the most important event of each year. These records indicate that all or part of this people suffered significantly in the epidemics listed below, at least one of which, cholera, and possibly several others were virgin-soil. It should be noted that the considerable lapses of time between the smallpox epidemics meant that whole new generations of susceptibles were subject to infection upon the return of the disease and that the repeated ordeals must have had much of the deadliness of virgin-soil epidemics.
[Table] “Epidemics among the Dakota Indians, 1780-1851
….
“1801-1802 Smallpox (‘all sick winter’).” (Crosby, Alfred W. Jr. “Virgin-Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America.” P. 19; Chapter 2 in Nichols.)
Encyclopedia.com. Disease And Westward Expansion. 2019. Accessed 3-18-2021.
“….Smallpox. No other disease ravaged Indian peoples more than the dreaded smallpox. The first major pandemic in the nineteenth-century West occurred in 1801-1802 among tribes in the Central and Northwestern regions of the continent. This epidemic devastated people along the Missouri River with particular ferocity.”
Fixico (Ed.): “When Lewis and Clark entered the northern plains, they encountered a world that was undergoing rapid change. The expansion of trade between Native groups and Europeans in the late eighteenth century had engendered several major changes. Trade spread disease, particularly smallpox, which devastated the Native nations of the northern plains. The smallpox epidemics of 1779-1781 and 1801-1802 led to extraordinary death rates among the Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, Shoshone, and other groups of the northern plains, making them vulnerable to incursions from more nomadic groups, such as the Sioux, who quickly became the dominant force on the plains.” (Fixico. Treaties with American Indians. 2008, p. 253.)
Heiner: “1801/1802 Smallpox Epidemic”
“From oral history and recordings from fur traders and missionaries, a subsequent smallpox epidemic [1777-1782] occurred in 1801 a generation later among some tribes on the Plateau. This epidemic was similar to the one that occurred in the late 18th century, ‘in that this epidemic proceeded unwitnessed and unrecorded by Euroamerican eyes, extant accounts consist largely of oral traditions collected from Native informants in later years’ (Boyd 1985:99).
“Thornton (1987) [below] writes that the 1801 smallpox pandemic spread north along the Missouri River, devastating the Plains tribes….Salish oral tradition recounts that, ‘so many people died that the lodges were full of corpses. Some of the ‘long lodges’ were quite full of dead and dying people. So many people died, that they could not be buried and the dogs ate their bodies’ (Teit 1927:279-280). From the Salish, smallpox spread to other Plateau tribes including the Pend d’Oreille, the Kalispell, Colville, Spokane and down to the Salish tribes along the Columbia River where the smallpox epidemic eventually subsided (Thornton 1987:92). Stern and Stern (1945:76) write that ‘the Spokane suffered the worst though, all were seriously affected.’
“This smallpox epidemic also affected tribes down the Mississippi River to the Louisiana Gulf, spreading into Texas, and the Southern Plains (Thornton 1987:92). Several tribes are reported to have suffered from this epidemic severely. ‘The prairie tribes are said to had lost more than half of their populations at this time, while the Wichita, Caddo, and others in the south suffered almost as severely’ (Mooney 1898:168) [Below].
Plateau mortality from this second smallpox epidemic seems lower than the earlier smallpox epidemic (Teit 1927 [1985]) Asa Smith recorded the second smallpox epidemic among the Nez Perce ‘was a milder form, perhaps the varioloid & did not prove so fatal. Many however died. Marks of this disease are now to be seen on the faces of many of the old people. (Drury 1958: 137)….” (Heiner. Demographic and epidemiological changes on the Flathead Reservation 1887-1935. “1801/1802 Smallpox Epidemic.” 2014, pp. 17-18.)
Kohn: “Omaha Indian Smallpox Epidemic of 1802”
“Outbreak of smallpox that killed about two-thirds of the Omaha, a Siouan tribe of North American Indians living in the Missouri River valley of present-day northeast Nebraska.
“Increasing trade and contact between the Plains Indians and Europeans resulted in the former being more and more infected by smallpox and other ‘foreign’ communicable diseases in the late eighteenth century; smallpox seriously attacked the Mandan, Shoshone, and Blackfoot tribes in the upper and middle Missouri River regions after 1780…It is most likely that the smallpox (variola) virus also reached the Omaha Indians in the lower Missouri region, for explorers had observed pockmarked Omahas (the disease leaves pockmarks on the skin of survivors).
“The Omaha, who had actively engaged in trade with white Europeans, were severely infected by smallpox in 1802. The systemic infection was acute and spread rapidly through the Omaha villages, some of whose members became desperate and crazed and burned their houses to try to stop the spread of the lethal disease. Some Indians put their wives and children to death so that they might be spared the agonies of smallpox, frequently including blindness and, usually, disfigurement. At the time the mortality rate was higher among the Omaha than it was among Europeans, of whom 15 percent to 40 percent usually died.
“At the height of the 1802 epidemic, the Omaha chief Wash-gun-sah-ba, better known as Blackbird, who had been one of the first Indians in the Missouri Valley to trade with whites, was stricken by smallpox. His loyal people did not desert him, but instead they drew around his bedside and unwittingly became infected themselves. (It is one of the most communicable of diseases, requiring only a breath to blow the variola virus from one mouth to another.) Honoring Blackbird’s dying request, the surviving Omahas buried him astride his favorite horse on the summit of a bluff overlooking the Missouri Valley, so that he could observe the whites’ boats coming up the river to trade with his people.
“In 1803 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent to explore the vast Louisiana Territory and later reported the Omaha smallpox epidemic and catastrophe (the tribe was sizably depopulated) to U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who in turn directed Lewis and Clark to promote vaccination among the Indians in this new territory of the United States. The Indians, despite their sufferings, remained wary of vaccination.
“Further reading: Heagerty, Four Centuries of Medical History in Canada; Hopkins, Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History.” (Kohn (ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised). 2001, pp. 248-249.)
McCoy: “Boyd asserted that the first smallpox epidemic arrived in the Pacific Northwest between 1775 and 1781 and started as a result of Euro-American exploration and trade along the North Pacific coast. Boyd noted that this epidemic most likely emerged from contact with Spanish ships and their crews in 1774. Disease transference intensified during this period since the purpose of most of these expeditions in the late eighteenth century was to obtain furs and the exchange of goods and foods probably enhanced the chances of Native Americans contracting deadly diseases….According to Boyd, another smallpox epidemic occurred in 1801-1802, four years before the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived on the Plateau. Hunn noted that approximately fifty percent of the population perished in these two epidemics….” (McCoy. Chief Joseph, Yellow Wolf and the Creation of Nez Perce History in the Pacific Northwest. 2004, p. 49.)
Mooney: “….we know that in 1801 a Pawnee war party, returning from New Mexico, brought the smallpox home with them, with the result that it spread among the tribes from the Missouri to the coast of Texas. The prairie tribes are said to have lost more than half their population at this time, while the Wichita, Caddo, and others in the south suffered almost as severely (Morse, 2; Lewis and Clark, 4) .” (Mooney. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898, pages 129-444.)
Nash and Strobel: “Although the overall numbers for disease losses are hard to quantify, the impact of epidemics was dramatic. Scholars argue that as many as half of the Amerindian population of the plains died in the smallpox pandemic of 1779-1781. Another major smallpox epidemic occurred in 1801-1802. Researchers also argue that Plains Indian farming populations were generally more severely afflicted by disease than the horse cultures that surrounded them. The disease factor shifted the power advantage even further to the nomadic horse peoples. The 2,000 Mandans farmers who lived in villages along the Missouri River in North Dakota, for example, suffered a devastating smallpox outbreak in 1837. Largely due to disease, the Mandan population in the region had already declined from an original estimated populace of 15,000 people in the first half of the eighteenth century. By October 1837 there were only 138 Mandans still alive. Nearby Hidatsa and Arikara settlements also suffered, losing an estimated half of their population.” (Nash and Strobel. Daily Life of Native Americans from Post-Columbian Through Nineteenth-Century America. p. 223.)
National Park Service. Coastal Tribes.
“Information on the Coastal Indians. Recorded by Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1805-1806.”
“Clark. Saturday November 23rd 1805.
“In the evening seven Indians of the Clatsop Nation came over in a canoe….This nation is the remains of a large nation destroyed by the smallpox or some other [malady] which those people were not acquainted with. They speak the same language of the Chinooks and resemble them…”
Pritzker: “….By the early nineteenth century, heavy involvement in the non-native trade had altered Omaha material culture. A severe smallpox epidemic in 1802 reduced the population to around 300.” (Pritzker, Barry M. Native Americans: An Encyclopedia of History Culture, and Peoples (Volume I-II). 1998, p. 496.)
Public History PDX (A Project of the Department of History at Portland State University):
“A Lower Columbia Chinook Historical Timeline.”
“….1801 An epidemic (likely smallpox strikes the Northwest Coast”
Robertson: “….In 1802, his horrified tribe [Omaha, chief Blackbird] witnessed the impossible as the rotting face claimed the revered and fearsome chief. About 300 Omahas survived the epidemic, too few to ever again menace fur traffic on the Missouri….
“In addition to the Omahas, the epidemic of 1801 and 1802 also pummeled the Pawnees, Poncas, Iowas, Kiowas, Arikaras, Mandans, Hidatsas, Assiniboines, and Crows. Carried by Indian hunting and war parties, the disease diffused across the Continental Divide to the Flathead tribe, then west to the Pend d’Oreilles, Kalispels and Spokanes. Hudson’s Bay Company factor Peter Fidler, who worked on the South Saskatchewan River, wrote that the Atsinas caught smallpox from a party of visiting Arapahos. The Arapahos lived around the South Platte River (in northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska) and were related to the Atsinas. The tribes regularly visited back and forth. According to Fidler, the Arapahos had been infected by Indians from the lower Missouri River. Among the Atsinas, the disease was especially deadly for the young, who lacked the immunity many of their elders had acquired during the epidemic of the early 1780s.
“At every village and camp it touched, Variola major rent the fabric of social order, destroying not only Indian families but also tribal direction and continuity. Traditional crafts and cultural links with the past disappeared amid fevers and blistered skin. This second major smallpox epidemic in twenty years completed the destruction of the once-vast native trading system. Indian survivors now had no choice but to turn to the white traders and their manufactured goods. Luxuries of the past became necessities. Smallpox had claimed so many female artisans among the Missouri River tribes that the craft of making pottery vanished. Having no one to teach them to mold clay into post and harden them with fire, coming generations of Indian women would be compelled to purchase metal kettles from the white traders. Similarly, future ranks of Native American boys would never gain the skills that had permitted their grandfathers’ grandfathers to hunt with bows instead of guns.
“In the Arkansas River Valley (in eastern Arkansas, above the mouth of the Arkansas River), the Quapaws – who had been ravaged by smallpox in 1698 – fell prey to this latest epidemic. So too did their northwestern neighbor, the Osages, who lived near the Marais des Cygnes and upper Osage rivers (in southwestern Missouri). For years the Osages had used the Quapaws as a protective but weak buffer against the aggressive and well-armed Choctaws and Chickasaws, who occupied the territory west of the Mississippi River (in western Tennessee and western Mississippi)….
“After being hit by smallpox in the spring of 1801, so many Quapaws perished, the tribe lost its ability to hold the line between the Osages and their Choctaw and Chickasaw foes.
“As it did to the Quapaws, the smallpox epidemic of 1801 and 1802 also invaded the Osages, killing at least half the tribe, better than 2,000 people by some estimates. After the pestilence died out, the surviving Osages had to face the Choctaws and Chickasaws with almost no help from the Quapaws….the Osages began a long slide toward compromise and subjugation. Within a few decades, this once-powerful tribe would find itself bunched together in the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) amid its former foes.
“Among the Missouri Indians, from whom the Missouri River took its name, the smallpox epidemics of the early 1780s and 1800s so reduced their numbers that their warriors could no longer defend the tribe against the Pawnees and Lakotas. Shortly after the latest epidemic ended, the Missouri Indians threw themselves on the mercy of their Otoe allies, who lived along the lower Platte River. The Otoes welcomed the Missouris into their villages and granted them protection against their common enemies, but the Otoes never accepted the Missouris as equals.
“While the Missouris were begging succor from the Otoes, most of the Hidatsas who had survived the epidemic of 1801 and 1802 were dwelling in a large town on the north side of the Knife River, about five miles upstream from its confluence with the Missouri. The nearly 900 lodges the tribe had boasted in the days before its contact with white traders had shrunk to about 130, enough homes for perhaps 2,700 people. ….
“In slightly more than a generation, smallpox had reduced the Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras from five or six dozen villages to only eight. Before Variola major, the three tribes had possessed the strength to safeguard their domain. But after undergoing two major epidemics, they were powerless to do anything except delay the juggernaut of Lakota expansion.” (Robertson. Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. 2001, pp. 194-198.)
Snodgrass. World Epidemics: A Cultural Chronology of Disease from Prehistory to the Era of Zika (Second Edition). 2017.
“early 1801 Smallpox blanketed the Great Plains from Canada to the Tex-Mex border. As described by the log of William Clark and Meriwether Lewis and by Nebraska historian Mari Sandoz in The Beaver Men: Spearheads of Empire (1964), the pox generated hostility between Native Americans and European insurgents. The fur trade between the French of Louisiana and the Iowa, Quapaw, Salish, Wichita, Pend-d’Oreille, Caddo, and Spokane tribes virtually ceased after an epidemic rendered natives too weak to trap and process pelts. The Osage lost 2,000 of their nation. The battered Missouri joined the Otoe. The 250 remaining Ponca fell victim of the Dakota. Pawnee numbers declined by 75 percent.
“Tribes lost as much as 90 percent of the former population. The Omaha, at half their former strength, burned their villages and became nomads and raiders. Parents feared that disfigured survivors would produce the same pock marking on the unborn.
“Too woo traders back to the pelt business, native trappers heaped skins on an island for smoking to kill pathogens. The French attempted to halt the spread of contagion less out of humanistic concern than on behalf of their dwindling income. The Omaha were so wary of Europeans that they halted a convoy of Spanish who tried to establish business in the upper Missouri region. Along the Pacific coast a hemorrhagic form of the pestilence struck the Flathead, Lummi, Nootka, Tsimshian, Tlingit, Haida, Tillamook, and Nez Perce, leaving severe disfiguration and disabilities and turning corpses black. Lewis and Clark noted the extinction of the Clatsop and Chinook.” (Snodgrass 2017, p. 120.)
Snodgrass: “summer 1801 The Atsina or Gros Ventre, prairie dwellers of southern Canada, caught smallpox from the Arapaho of the Missouri River region. An epidemic extended across the Columbia Plateau and reached the Salish of Vancouver Island on Canada’s Pacific coast. In the early 1900s, Mourning Dove, also known as Christine Quintasket, co-founder of the Colville Indian Association and the first woman elected to the Colville Tribal Council, explained how native medical care worsened smallpox in the previous century. She described her grandmother’s memories of its first appearance in the Northwest. Because people tried to sweat out the disease in steamy lodges and then plunged into cold streams, they quickly worsened and perished, sometimes by drowning or pneumonia.” (Snodgrass 2017, p. 121.)
Snodgrass: “January 1, 1802 Only a third of the Omaha on northeastern Nebraska survived an epidemic of smallpox, which they encountered from trade with whites. Tribe members shuddered at the advance of the unknown scourge from lodge to lodge. Some were crazed by fever and fled to the prairie to perish alone. The faithful honored their 50-year-old Chief Blackbird and mounted his body on a horse under a burial mound atop a ridge overlooking the Missouri River. Braves suspended scalps that Blackbird had taken from a pole extending from the cairn, which became a Nebraska landmark known as Blackbird Hill. In their weakened state, the surviving Omaha were unable to fight off invading Sioux from the Dakotas.
“On August 11, 1804, William Clark, one of the two leaders President Thomas Jefferson dispatched on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, wrote in his diary:
We landed at the foot of the hill on which Black Bird I, the late King of the Mahar who Died 4 years ago, & 400 of his nation with the Smallpox was buried, and went up and fixed a white flag bound with Blue, white & red on the Grave, which was about 12 foot Base & circular, on the top of a Pinnacle about 300 foot above the water of he river. From the top of this hill may be Seen the bends or meandering of the river for 60 or 70 miles round….Above the Bluff on this Creek the Mahars had the Smallpox & 400 of them Died 4 years ago [Journals, 1987].
“Clark, who dated the epidemic to 1800, commented on Blackbird’s equestrian burial, which had already become a frontier legend. Clark later remarked that the Omaha suffered so severely from disease that they abandoned ancestral lands.” (Snodgrass. World Epidemics, 2017, p. 121.)
Snodgrass: “spring 1802 When smallpox struck the Mississippi Territory, Governor William Charles Cole Claiborne took bold action to avert an epidemic. To save the town of Natchez, he initiated the territory’s first mass vaccination against the pox.” (Snodgrass. World Epidemics, 2017, p. 121.)
Taylor: “1801-1803: Pandemic—Smallpox, Measles, and Respiratory Infections.”
“Between the years 1801 and 1803, a pandemic appears to have occurred in the Northern Plains area. Smallpox entered the area from the south and a respiratory disease from the northeast. A third disease, perhaps measles, was present in the east.
“Smallpox struck St. Louis for the first time in 1799 (Houck 1980:62). During the winter of 179901800, this disease infected the Omaha, Iowa, and other groups living on the lower Missouri River (Delassus [Dolassus?]1952:631). Shortly afterward, the Pawnee contracted the disease (Dougherty 1931b). By summer, smallpox had spread into the Central Plains to the Arapaho who infected the Atsina by 1801. Atsina mortality was ‘upwards of 100 all young people” (Fidler 1976:294) but did not spread to other ethnic groups to the north and east (1976:317). The Crow also contracted smallpox during this epidemic from their allies, the Arapaho (1976:321; Larocque 1911:59), but the only estimates of mortality for this ethnic group also include those for the 1780-82 smallpox epidemic. (Teit (1930:315-316) reported that the Crow infected the Salish and smallpox spread westward into the Columbia as a severe epidemic. Spaulding (Spaulding and Smith 1958:137) was told of this epidemic by Nez Perce, and he saw the smallpox scars. Because he was told this epidemic was much less severe, Spalding hypothesized that the epidemic was alastrim rather than smallpox. Alastrim, or Variola minor, is a much less severe form of smallpox. The difference between the effects of this epidemic on the Salish and the Nez Perce probably does not lie in a difference in diseases but rather in a perception of the disease. The Nez Perce possibly had a greater number of immune individuals in the population than did the Salish, many of whom appear to have relocated to the eastern margin of the Salishan-speaking territory to more easily engage in bison hunting.
“Sioux winter-counts record that some Sioux bands contracted smallpox during this epidemic, while others did not. The infection was spread to the Sioux after that group attacked the Omaha during the epidemic (Tabeau 1939:100). …. (Taylor, John F. Sociocultural effects of epidemics on the Northern Plains. University of Montana, 1982. Accessed 3-18-2021.)
Thayer: “In 1801-1802, an epidemic in the U.S. Midwest and Northwest killed many among the Omaha, Ponca, Oto, and Iowa. It moved up the Missouri River to devastate the Arikara, Gros Ventre, Mandan, Crow, and Sioux. It also traveled down the Mississippi to affect tribes in the southern plains, Texas, and the South.” (Thayer, Bradley A. Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict. 2004, p. 207.)
Thornton: “The 1801–1802 smallpox pandemic occurred among tribes of the central and northwestern regions of the United States. During it the Omaha were all but destroyed, as were their neighbors the Ponca, the Oto, and the Iowa. The pandemic spread north along the Missouri River, devastating the Arikara, the Gros Ventre, the Mandan, the Crox, and the Sioux. Smallpox was transmitted to the Pacific Northwest when the Crow carried it to what was to become Washington Territory and the Flathead Indians. In the Northwest it also infected the Semte’use, the Pend d’Oreille, the Kalispel, the Colville, the Spokane, and the Salish tribes along the Columbia River, where it eventually subsided. It is said that in the Northwest, ‘the Spokane suffered the worst, though all were seriously affected’ (Stern and Stern, 1945: 76).
“The pandemic even raged down the Mississippi River to the Louisiana gulf, here it did not stop but spread into Texas, the rest of the Southwest, and the southern plains. It was brought to the Kiowa in northeastern Texas by a Pawnee war party returning from present-day New Mexico. From the Kiowa, the smallpox spread to adjacent Indian peoples; ‘The prairie tribes are said to have lost more than half their population at this time, while the Wichita, Caddo, and others in the south suffered almost as severely’ (Mooney, James. 1898: 168).” (Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. 1987, 1990, pp. 91-92.)
U.S. National Library of Medicine. “1802: An estimated 150,000 dead at Ne-cha-co-lee, a Chinook city.”
“The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrives at a Chinook village in Oregon that had recently been home to 150,000 Chinook. Clark hears from a survivor that the settlement’s name, Ni-cha-co-lee, means ‘the wreck of five houses of a very large Village.’ In their journals, Lewis and Clark record that the survivor ‘was badly marked with the Small Pox and made Signs that they all died with the disorder that marked her face.’
“The smallpox epidemic traveled along river systems, which served as trade routs for Native peoples. In Oregon, Lewis and Clark meet the Clatsop tribe who report that the smallpox epidemic traveled through villages along the Columbia River to the Pacific, then north over other trade routes to communities on Washington’s Sound.” (National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Native Voices. Timeline. Accessed 3-18-2021.)
Weatherford: “….Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans, who lacked immunities to European infectious diseases, died. Smallpox was the deadliest: an outbreak in 1739 killed nearly half the Cherokee people, while another from 1801 to 1802 killed two-thirds of the Omaha….” (Weatherford, Doris. A History of Women in the United States: State-by-State Reference (Vol. 1). Grolier, 2003, p. 16.)
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