EARTHWORKS ON HARPETH RIVERS. 97 



thought to be a much greater blessing for the equinoctial parts of the new continent 

 than for the temperate climate of the old. 



Humboldt has recorded facts which would seem to show that the protective 

 powers of cow-pox were known in Peru before the discoveries of Jenner. 



The ravages of smallpox were not confined to the more populous and more 

 highly civilized countries of North and South America, but extended into wide 

 regions ; and the disease was introduced amongst the tribes and nations inhabiting 

 the country embraced within the present limits of the United States, at different 

 times, by the various exploring expeditions and colonies. The history of many of 

 these devastating visitations of smallpox has never been recorded, and whole tribes 

 and nations within the interior of North America have been destroyed, without a 

 single record of their miserable sufferings. William Robertson states, in his 

 " History of America," that, in 1632, the smallpox swept away such multitudes of 

 the natives of North America, and especially of the regions along the Atlantic 

 coast, that whole tribes disappeared. Lawson, Adair, and many other writers have 

 recorded the desolation wrouglit among the various tribes of Indians by smallpox 

 at various periods. 



The powerful nation of the Katalibas, which, in the early history of South Carolina, 

 numbered several thousand warriors, in 1743 could muster scarcely 400 men. 

 In 1738, smallpox destroyed one-half of the great Cherokee nation ; and the Mus- 

 kohgees, Uchees, Shawanese, Chactaws, Chickasaws, Natchez, and a host of other 

 tribes have suffered to an equal extent. 



In describing the Sewees of South Carolina, John Lawson' says : " These Sewees 

 have been formerly a large nation, though now very much decreased since the 

 English hath seated on their lands, and all other nations of Indians are observed to 

 partake of the same fate ; when the Europeans come, the Indians, being a people 

 very apt to catch any distemper, they are afflicted withal; the smallpox has 

 destroyed many thousands of these natives, who, no sooner tlian they are 

 attacked with violent fevers and the burning which attend that distemper, fling 

 themselves over-head in the water, in the very extremity of the disease, which, 

 shutting up the pores, hinders a kindly evacuation of the pestilential matter and 

 drives it back, by which means death most commonly ensues." 



In 1832, ten thousand, or about one-half of the tribe of the Pawnees, were 

 destroyed by smallpox introduced by the fur traders and whiskey sellers. In 

 1837, this malady swept through the Missouri Valley. It broke out among the 

 Mandans, and reduced the number of this tribe from 1600 to 31. It reduced the 

 Minnetarees from 1000 to 500; the Arickarees from 3000 to 1500; the Assinni- 

 boins, a tribe of 9000, and the Crows, estimated at 3000, lost about one-third of 

 their number ; and the Blackfeet, estimated at 30,000, lost about 8000. School- 

 craft estimates that, at a moderate calculation, no less than 10,000 Indians fell 

 before this terrible scourge in a few weeks. 



According to George Catlin : " The system of trade, and the smallpox, have 

 been the great and wholesale destroyers of these poor people, from the Atlantic 



' Voyage to Carolina, p. 19, 224. 



13 May, 1876. 



