hal.lamar.edu/~browntf/Churchill1.htm
edu Abstract: This is a work in progress that I am making available due to the current interest in Ward Churchills writings. I show that Churchill has committ ed research fraud, and very possibly committed perjury as well. This art icle analyzes Churchills fabrication of a genocide. Churchill invented a story about the US Army deliberately creating a smallpox epidemic amon g the Mandan people in 1837 by distributing infected blankets. While the re was a smallpox epidemic on the Plains in 1837, it was entirely accide ntal, the Army wasnt involved, and nearly every element of Churchills story is a total invention. My goal here was to show how and why Churchi ll engaged in such blatant fraud, and why no one has challenged him on i t until now. Few historians would dispute that during the Plains Ind ian wars, selected US military forces did perpetuate massacres that ca n easily be construed as genocidal in intent. Furthermore, it is well-es tablished that the British general Lord Amherst at least considered dist ributing smallpox-infected goods to Indians in 1763with explicitly geno cidal intentand that his plan was carried out independently by his subo rdinates. In a series of essays written during the 1990s, Churchill gradually elaborates his story of the origins of the smallpox epidemic t hat broke out on the northern plains in 1837, which probably killed at l east 20 to 30,000 people. Churchill charges the US Army with deliberat ely infecting the Mandan tribe with gifts of smallpox-laden blankets, wi thholding treatment, and thus causing an epidemic that Churchill says ki lled more than 125,000 people. Ward Churchills habit of plagiarism and research fraud was well-document ed by John Lavelle.
Churchills tale of the Mandan genocide is but one more example. The first goal of this article will be to set the his torical record straight, by comparing Churchills deliberately falsified version of events against the evidence, and by attempting to determine the actual cause of the 1837 smallpox epidemic. More crucially, I want t o examine the political and cultural influences that lead to frauds such as Churchills, and to ask why Churchills fantasies take root among sc holars who should know better. Ward Churchills 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 Chur chill and other activists, who were being tried for having disrupted a C olumbus Day parade in Denver the year before. In Churchills trial brief , he claimed immunity from the state laws under which he was being prose cuted. Churchill made the argument that protesting the parade was tantam ount to combating genocide, and was thus his legal duty under internatio nal law.
At Fort Clark on the upper Missouri Riverthe US Army distributed small pox-laden blankets as gifts among the Mandan. The blankets had been gath ered from a military infirmary in St. Louis where troops infected with t he disease were quarantined. Although the medical practice of the day re quired 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.
It is enlightening to compare Thorntons rendition with Churchills. Thornton locates the origins of the epidemic in a ste amboat traveling the Missouri River (94): Steamboats had been traveling the upper Missouri River for years before 1 837, dispatched by Saint Louis fur companies for trade with the Mandan a nd other Indians. At 3:00 PM on June 19, 1837, the American Fur Compan y steamboat St. Peters arrived at the Mandan villages after stopping at Fort Clark just downstream. Some aboard the steamer had smallpox when t he boat docked. It soon was spread to the Mandan, perhaps by deckhands w ho unloaded merchandise, perhaps by chiefs who went aboard a few days la ter, or perhaps by women and children who went aboard at the same time.
Thornton locates t he site of infection at the Mandan village, not at Fort Clark. Nowhere does Thornton mention a mil itary infirmary in St. Louis where troops infected with the disease were quarantined. Nowhere does Thornton mention the distribution of smallp ox-laden blankets as gifts. On the contraryThornton clearly hypothesiz es 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 T hornton counts only 20,400 dead from a variety of tribes, plus many Osa ge, 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.
Considering that Churchill wrote this initial story as part of a trial br ief, it would appear that he may well have committed perjury, which is a felony under Colorado law.
Churchill would go on to invent new details for his story. Churchill publ ished his 1992 trial brief as part of an essay collection in 1994. In 19 98, Churchill revisited his Mandan genocide story in a new collection of essays, A Little Matter of Genocide. Churchill addresses the Lord Amher st affair of 1763, in which British colonial forces may have indeed dist ributed smallpox-infected goods to Indians in New England. Churchill arg ues that Amherst: was by no means a singular incident, although it is the best documented. Only slightly more ambiguous was the US Armys dispensing of trade b lankets to Mandans and other Indians gathered at Fort Clark, on the Mis souri River in present-day North Dakota, beginning on June 20, 1837. Far from being trade goods, the blankets had been taken from a military inf irmary in St. Louis quarantined for smallpox, and brought upriver aboard the steamboat St. When the first Indians showed symptoms of th e disease on July 14, the post surgeon advised those camped near the pos t to scatter and seek sanctuary in the villages of healthy relativest here is no conclusive figure as to how many Indians diedbut estimates r un as high as 100,000.
In this version, Churchill elaborates on his initial version, adding new details. Churchill implies th at this character strategically encouraged the Indians to scatter and th us spread the disease. Churchill has also downgraded his outside estimat e of the number of victims to only as high as 100,000. Another example of Churchills difficult relationship with the truth can be found in a footnote.
Here Churchill charges Howard Peckham wi th suppressing the Amherst story during the 1930s. What Churchill fail s to explain is how a historian in the 1930s could possibly have suppres sed a story that has been in print since 1851, when Francis Parkman firs t reported it. Churchill attributes the suppression story to Donald Grin de, another neo-Indian historian.
One wonders how Churchilla su pposedly expert author of a book on Indian genocidecould be so totally ignorant of such a well-known source as Parkman. Churchills tale of genocide by means of biological warfare is shocking. The only truth in Churchills version of the pandemic is the fact that a smallpox outbreak did occur in 1837, an d that it was probably carried into the region on board the steamboat St . Every other detail of Churchills story must have come from his imagination, because his own sources contradict him on nearly every poi nt.
None of the sources that Churchill cites make any mention of a military infirmaryquarantined for smallpox. None of the sources Churchill cites make any mention of US Army soldiers even being in the area of the pa ndemic, much less being involved with it in any way. Churchills own sou rces make it clear that Fort Clark was not an Army garrison. It was a re mote trading outpost that was privately owned and built by the American Fur Company, and manned by a handful of white traders.
Not being an Army fort, it did not contain a post surgeon who told Indians to scatter and sprea d the disease. Churchills own sources make...
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