A commonly repeated story for the last 10 yrs or so has been the one about the US Army engaging in genocide against American Indians by giving them blankets infected with smallpox.
The story was first promulgated by a college ‘professor’ named Ward Churchill. Does that name sound familiar?
This is the same person who referred to the 9-11 victims as …“little Eichmans who deserved what they got on 9-11.”
Nice guy, eh?
He is also under going investigation for acadaemic falsehood, plagarism, falsefly claiming to be a ‘native America’ and several other areas.
Well his smallpox blanket claim is now being shown to be nothing but his warped agenda driven lies.
I have even seen references to this lie here on forumosa by some of the anti-military/USA posters.
Well here is the story about how this lie started and the facts of the matter.
[quote]The charge: Fabrication
Did Ward Churchill falsely accuse the U.S. Army in small pox epidemic? Our findings: His claim isn’t supported by the sources he has cited.
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News, June 6, 2005
The year was 1837, the place was the Upper Missouri River Valley in present-day North Dakota, the disease was smallpox, and the effects on American Indians were devastating.
None of that is in dispute.
One key fact is: how the disease got there.
Numerous historical accounts put the blame in the same place - infected travelers on a steamboat bound for a trading post called Fort Clark who unwittingly spread the illness to several members of the Mandan tribe, unleashing an epidemic that decimated the region’s indigenous population. b[/b] rockymountainnews.com/drmn/l … 39,00.html[/quote]
A rather long, but very interesting read.
This is part of a series of articles dealing with the on going investigations of Ward Churchill. A wacko who seems to have slipped thru the cracks in legitamate acadaemia.
I disagree that Ward was “allowed to slip through the cracks” of any “legitimate” academia.
He is a total crank and always was. His “findings” have never been subject to the scrutiny that they should have, but his message of anti-American, anti-White hate resonates with the leftists who control our universities and schools. This is not an isolated incident but reflects a “reality” that is very prevalent in our academia (at least in terms of social sciences, the hard sciences are hard to fudge though you can always claim sexism or racism).
He is a symptom of the lack of critical thinking or respect for critical thinking that is so evident on the left. I see it over and over again even on this forum. Everyone feels that their “feelings” are worth just as much as anyone else’s and that entitles them to view their opinions as just as valid as anyone else’s regardless of factual support, particularly if their views fit in with the neo-paradigms of power that now discuss oppression and deconstruct it to find the appropriate conclusions no matter how irrelevant. It is for this reason that I particularly enjoyed Zachary Taylor’s stripping of Edward Said’s “argument” in Orientalism.
Far more likely that this is merely another American right wing jihad against an academic whose opinions they find egregious. For example, note the source of this multi-part "expos
[quote=“flike”]Far more likely that this is merely another American right wing jihad against an academic whose opinions they find egregious. For example, note the source of this multi-part "expos
My understanding is that smallpox is most easily transmitted by coughing the virus onto someone. Getting smallpox pus from an infected person and then rubbing it onto a blanket and then infecting someone seems a long bow to draw. Isn’t the tragedy of Old World diseases in the New World simply the total lack of immunity in the New World?
From wikipedia
[quote]After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, the death of a large part of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases. Smallpox was the chief culprit. On at least one occasion, germ warfare was attempted by the British Army under Jeffrey Amherst when two smallpox-infected blankets were deliberately given to representatives of the besieging Delawares Indians during Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763. That Amherst intended to spread the disease to the natives is not doubted by historians; whether or not the attempt succeeded is a matter of debate.[details]
[quote]Historian Francis Parkman, in his book The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada [Boston: Little, Brown, 1886] refers to a postscript in an earlier letter from Amherst to Bouquet wondering whether smallpox could not be spread among the Indians:
Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them. [Vol. II, p. 39 (6th edition)][/quote]
There is written evidence of at least one attempt by the English at germ warfare against the Native Americans.
Whether US army continued the germ warfare program is in question, not whether they were concerned with the eradication or forced relocation of Native Americans. The fact is that many Native Americans were displaced from their homes, many died of smallpox, and because Native Americans wanted “valuable land” they were in many cases fought with determination.
Ward Churchill says that George Washington suggested that whites intermarry the Native Americans so that they would become white. Judging by what I’ve found out about Ward Churchill I wouldn’t just believe what he said about George Washington, just because this Ward Churchill is not as honest as he should be. But that doesn’t mean that the army in the US didn’t intentionally spread smallpox via blankets. They did (the English army in the US did) and there is written proof. And what Ward Churchill said about George Washington may well be true.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]pjdrib -
I believe the transmission of smallpox through fleas on bedding/bedclothes/clothing is a viable means also.[/quote]
I asked M-in-L (Doctor) and she said fleas are not a vector for smallpox transmission - plague etc yes, I’m contacting a friend who is an epidemiologist to ask about it.
[quote=“pjdrib”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]pjdrib -
I believe the transmission of smallpox through fleas on bedding/bedclothes/clothing is a viable means also.[/quote]
I asked M-in-L (Doctor) and she said fleas are not a vector for smallpox transmission - plague etc yes, I’m contacting a friend who is an epidemiologist to ask about it.[/quote]pjdrib -
Nix on the flea story. Looks like I was wrong with that supposition.
Google is our friend - google.com/search?hl=en&q=sm … gle+Search
[quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote=“pjdrib”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]pjdrib -
I believe the transmission of smallpox through fleas on bedding/bedclothes/clothing is a viable means also.[/quote]
I asked M-in-L (Doctor) and she said fleas are not a vector for smallpox transmission - plague etc yes, I’m contacting a friend who is an epidemiologist to ask about it.[/quote]pjdrib -
Nix on the flea story. Looks like I was wrong with that supposition.
Google is our friend - google.com/search?hl=en&q=sm … gle+Search[/quote]
Doesn’t this then raise an interesting point about the whole poisoned blanket story. What’s the point of doing it if you can’t get smallpox that way? Just coughing on a person can transfer the virus. It must have taken one brief encounter between an infected person and the poor locals with no immunity. Those lucky enough to survive that then have the rat/flea cycle of transfer of other nasties to look forward to. Of course VD comes as the icing on the cake. I suppose the New World’s revenge is tobacco.
I’m a little confused about what this post is about. Is it that the US Army isn’t as bad as we thought or that Ward churchill shouldn’t be believed? Or is it that handling smallpox-exposed blankets isn’t dangerous. If the claim is that Churchill’s scholarship is poor, I don’t think there’s much room for argument. On the other hand, it is clear that the US Arny gave smallpox-exposed blankets to American Indians, whether or not this is an effective way to spread the disease.
[quote=“pjdrib”][quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote=“pjdrib”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]pjdrib -
I believe the transmission of smallpox through fleas on bedding/bedclothes/clothing is a viable means also.[/quote]
I asked M-in-L (Doctor) and she said fleas are not a vector for smallpox transmission - plague etc yes, I’m contacting a friend who is an epidemiologist to ask about it.[/quote]pjdrib -
Nix on the flea story. Looks like I was wrong with that supposition.
Google is our friend - google.com/search?hl=en&q=sm … gle+Search[/quote]
Doesn’t this then raise an interesting point about the whole poisoned blanket story. What’s the point of doing it if you can’t get smallpox that way? Just coughing on a person can transfer the virus. It must have taken one brief encounter between an infected person and the poor locals with no immunity. Those lucky enough to survive that then have the rat/flea cycle of transfer of other nasties to look forward to. Of course VD comes as the icing on the cake. I suppose the New World’s revenge is tobacco.[/quote]
From the first link on that Google search:
[quote=“http://www.partnersforimmunization.org/smallpox.html”]A number of outbreaks occurred in laundry workers who handled linens and blankets used by smallpox patients and it is believed that virus remains viable in this type of material for extended periods. Autoclaving, laundering in hot water with bleach and disinfectants used for standard hospital infection control are effective for cleaning surfaces contaminated with smallpox virus.
[/quote]
So blankets would be a viable way to biologically attack the Native Americans.
The British had considerable experience with smallpox outbreaks, and knew that you can transmit smallpox on contaminated blankets. Furthermore, that link asserts:
This topic is to expose the damned lies of liberal academia and the unjust bashing of the glorious United States Army, boy!
The question of whether the US army purposly gave Indians small-pox infected blankets is like asking whether the truck driver backed over the person he just ran over. Biology doomed the Indians as soon as the first whites decided not to stop settling.
[quote=“twocs”]There is written evidence of at least one attempt by the English at germ warfare against the Native Americans.
Whether US army continued the germ warfare program is in question, not whether they were concerned with the eradication or forced relocation of Native Americans. The fact is that many Native Americans were displaced from their homes, many died of smallpox, and because Native Americans wanted “valuable land” they were in many cases fought with determination.
Ward Churchill says that George Washington suggested that whites intermarry the Native Americans so that they would become white. Judging by what I’ve found out about Ward Churchill I wouldn’t just believe what he said about George Washington, just because this Ward Churchill is not as honest as he should be. But that doesn’t mean that the army in the US didn’t intentionally spread smallpox via blankets. They did (the English army in the US did) and there is written proof. And what Ward Churchill said about George Washington may well be true.[/quote]
This is a very intelligent post, however, I doubt that it will receive an intelligent counter argument.
Note: If this particular technique was never used by the US army, as we were all taught that it was, (and if this is indeed an example of an academic fudging the facts so that he can make his case about the evils of the United States appear just that much more deliciously damning) then I think TainanCowboy was quite right to help set the record straight here. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that we’d seen a member of the hallowed halls doing something similar.
That said, the “bravo/notworthy” emoticons above are not sarcastic praise. Even if the blankets were not used by the US army, my own view is that the treatment of Native Americans is one of the most shameful aspects of US history – and I think that this is a brilliant quote by rowboat.
I also don’t like fudging of facts, no matter how well intentioned. Not that the whole blankets story is well intentioned at all.
Anyway, I think that the actions of a large group of people (like an army) have to be weighed in context more than actions of an individual. Responsibility is shifted, people follow orders, blame is cast on the peons. Trying to damn an entire army with events that allegedly happened a hundred years ago, in a different era, is irrelevant.
It’s just kind of strange that TainanCowboy said it’s a common thing to argue here on forumosa.com. I searched for “smallpox” and “Ward Churchill” and didn’t find much evidence like that. Maybe he posted it on the wrong board?
All the same, I find the topic quite interesting. It’s also relevant to current topics like biological warfare. There have been some great posts made by other people on this thread.
I wish I could find great evidence of how people have improved since the first uses of biological weapons until today. 300 years ago they were trying to wipe out the Native Americans. It was only 20 or so years ago that the US was selling weapons that today it can’t allow. The Pope was a Nazi soldier, and Nazis along with the Japanese used chemical weapons. I think what we’re trying to show is that we can forgive for the past but we must try to make the future better by forbidding these terrible attacks like germ warfare.
It’s just kind of strange that TainanCowboy said it’s a common thing to argue here on forumosa.com. I searched for “smallpox” and “Ward Churchill” and didn’t find much evidence like that. Maybe he posted it on the wrong board?[/quote]Uh…not quite accurate. I made the statement in my OP that I had even seen the Ward Churchill statement mentioned here on a forumosa.com thread. A bit different and with quite a different connotation than your posting that I had said it was a “…common thing to argue…”. Ward Churchill and his less than truthfull career, the subject of this thread, has been the subject of a multi-part investigative piece by the Rocky Mountain Times. An extreme amount of information is being unearthed about his fraud, plagarism and deceit that he has used to further his personal agenda. The ducks, as it were, are being lined up. What will result is a good guess at this point. He has been the darling of certain radical leftist fringe groups for quite a long time. It should be fun to watch how quick they distance themselves from him as his reputation goes up in smoke. ( Which is what it was built upon)[quote=“twocs”]All the same, I find the topic quite interesting. It’s also relevant to current topics like biological warfare. There have been some great posts made by other people on this thread.
I wish I could find great evidence of how people have improved since the first uses of biological weapons until today. 300 years ago they were trying to wipe out the Native Americans. It was only 20 or so years ago that the US was selling weapons that today it can’t allow. The Pope was a Nazi soldier, and Nazis along with the Japanese used chemical weapons. I think what we’re trying to show is that we can forgive for the past but we must try to make the future better by forbidding these terrible attacks like germ warfare.[/quote]The Pope was a Nazi Soldier…???
Oh my, you are believing some of the wacko theories on the internet…lol
I do agree that NBC warfare is a terrible thing. In that we agree.
