The impact of Disease on the Native People of the Canadian Plains during the 1800s

The impact of Disease on the Native People of the Canadian Plains during the 1800s

Introduction

The lives of the Indian tribes had been transformed forever due to the coming of the Europeans in their region. According to Crosby the invasion of the Old World in to the Americas led the introduction of new plants and animals that intensely changed the cultural practices of Indians and the local ecosystem. However, the effect of these biological entities got light when compared to the onrush of the epidemics brought by the European settlers to the indigenous people. These diseases were unfamiliar to the local Indian tribes. Morbidity and mortality levels became high due to the intrusion of Europeans in to New World. Indians experienced a dreadful fate due to the plagues conveyed by the explorers over the Atlantic. Most tribes suffered ill- health and declines in population. The critical aspect was the orientation of contagious diseases that belonged to the Eastern Hemisphere. Smallpox, influenza, cholera and measles were among those of infectious diseases. About fifty epidemics spanned across the Canadian plains from 1730 to 1837. The most overwhelming epidemic was of Small Pox which stamped out more than 17000 Indians in the Canadian plains. About half of them were of Blackfoot tribe. That certain epidemic was prevailed in 1837-1838.

The induced Epidemics by Europeans were followed by great wars and conflicts, deterioration of sustenance and subsistence means and resulting food crisis, societal collapse which stultified capability of tribes to care for their ailing and profound cultural stress.

Description

The diffusion of European induced diseases was as annihilating and damaging to the tribes of Canadian plains as were the wars or the coercive removal from their native lands. The consequences of the contact with the European people were very impairing, debilitating and deadliest because of the contagious nature of diseases.

It is approximated that the population decline of the indigenous people was 25- 50 percent as a consequence of the outburst of infectious diseases, while the average loss of life from the warfare was more than ten percent. It means that the epidemics served a lot in devastation of the Canadian plains as compared to other factors. These diseases declined the population of some tribe to the extent that they reached near extermination. There is a decline from 1,600 to 131 in the smallpox epidemic of 1837 in the Mandans of the upper Missouri.

Impact of Disease on the Native People of the Canadian Plains during the 1800s

Among all the diseases that were carried by the Europeans, Smallpox devastated the most to the native people. The come back of this epidemic time and again to the same population increased in its aggravation and devastation. Four varied epidemics hit the Canadian plains in only thirty three years from 1837- 70.

At the advent of nineteenth century, as the medical advancements took place in various fields, a vaccination for the epidemic of smallpox was also ...