Why did the USA give smallpox poisoned blankets to Indians?
In the early 19th century, we got on a kick of ‘manifest destiny’. We believed it was our destiny to take over the whole continent, all the way west to the Pacific Ocean. Some American politicians and spiritual leaders actually believed this was God’s will. In fact there were politicians in the early days of America who actually preached that God was killing the Indians off with diseases like smallpox, measles, influenza, etc.–diseases that we had built up immunities to–to make room for us to take over their land! Under the circumstances, infecting Indians with smallpox was seen as a patriotic gesture!
They didn’t. This is a maliciously spread accusation that isn’t true. There is no doubt that Smallpox was a European disease that the Indians had no natural resistance to, nor that it decimated the plains Indians, but there is no truth at all to the myth of the deliberate distribution of smallpox blankets. In fact, one of the worst problems was caused by the government vaccinating Indians AGAINST smallpox….. they didn’t realize that the vaccine, made from cowpox which was a minor illness to Europeans, was almost as deadly to Indians who’d never contacted cowpox as smallpox was. Here….. http://www.thefurtrapper.com/indian_smal… is an excellent article about the effect of smallpox on the Indians.
