| H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq., U. S. Indian Agent, Sault Ste. Marie. | } |
| CHIPPEWA INDIANS. | Males. | Females. | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bands. | Under 10 | 10 to 20 | 20 to 40 | 40 to 60 | 60 to 80 | Over 80 | Under 10 | 10 to 20 | 20 to 40 | 40 to 60 | 60 to 80 | Over 80 | Males. | Females. | Total. | |
| Lake Superior. | Sault Ste. Marie, | 93 | 22 | 19 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 75 | 28 | 21 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 145 | 138 | 283 |
| Grand Island, | 17 | 9 | 7 | 2 |
|
| 12 | 5 | 7 |
|
|
| 35 | 24 | 59 | |
| Keweena Bay, | 23 | 11 | 10 | 6 | 1 |
| 20 | 12 | 17 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 51 | 57 | 108 | |
| Ontonagon River, | 7 | 8 | 10 | 3 |
|
| 13 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 1 |
| 28 | 37 | 65 | |
| La Pointe, | 37 | 32 | 40 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 38 | 25 | 28 | 12 | 2 |
| 118 | 106 | 224 | |
| Fond du Lac, | 50 | 21 | 45 | 10 | 2 |
| 41 | 18 | 35 | 13 | 6 | 2 | 128 | 115 | 243 | |
| Folle Avoine Country. | Lac du Flambeau, | 6 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 16 | 13 | 29 |
| Ottowa Lake, | 11 | 4 | 8 | 1 |
|
| 10 | 7 | 3 | 2 |
|
| 24 | 22 | 46 | |
| Yellow River, | 11 | 2 | 6 | 1 |
|
| 11 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| 20 | 23 | 43 | |
| Nama Kowagun of St. Croix River, | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
|
| 4 |
| 3 | 2 |
|
| 8 | 9 | 17 | |
| Snake River, | 14 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 3 | 12 | 1 | 1 |
| 30 | 42 | 72 | |
| Sources of the Mississippi River. | Sandy Lake, | 75 | 21 | 47 | 10 | 2 |
| 86 | 19 | 48 | 23 | 6 | 2 | 155 | 184 | 339 |
| Lake Winnipeg, | 4 | 4 | 10 | 3 |
|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
|
| 21 | 5 | 26 | |
| Cass or Upper Red Cedar Lake, | 18 | 5 | 11 | 6 |
| 1 | 18 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 41 | 36 | 77 | |
| Leech Lake, | 76 | 43 | 73 | 16 | 4 | 1 | 96 | 41 | 61 | 25 | 2 | 1 | 213 | 226 | 439 | |
| Lake Superior, | 227 | 103 | 131 | 35 | 7 | 2 | 199 | 93 | 120 | 46 | 14 | 5 | 505 | 477 | 982 | |
| Folle Avoine County, | 46 | 12 | 29 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 52 | 12 | 32 | 9 | 4 |
| 98 | 109 | 207 | |
| Sources of the Mississippi, | 173 | 73 | 141 | 35 | 6 | 2 | 201 | 64 | 118 | 55 | 9 | 4 | 430 | 451 | 881 | |
| Total, | 446 | 188 | 301 | 78 | 15 | 5 | 452 | 169 | 270 | 110 | 27 | 9 | 1033 | 1037 | 2070 | |
But little difficulty has occurred in convincing the Indians of the efficacy of vaccination; and the universal dread in which they hold the appearance of the small pox among them, rendered it an easy task to overcome their prejudices, whatever they chanced to be. The efficacy of the vaccine disease is well appreciated, even by the most interior of the Chippewa Indians, and so universal is this information, that only one instance occurred where the Indian had never heard of the disease.
In nearly every instance the opportunity which was presented for vaccination was embraced with cheerfulness and apparent gratitude; at the same time manifesting great anxiety that, for the safety of the whole, each one of the band should undergo the operation. When objections were made to vaccination, they were not usually made because the Indian doubted the protective power of the disease, but because he supposed (never having seen its progress) that the remedy must nearly equal the disease which it was intended to counteract.
Our situation, while travelling, did not allow me sufficient time to test the result of the vaccination in most instances; but an occasional return to bands where the operation had been performed, enabled me, in those bands, either to note the progress of the disease, or to judge from the cicatrices marking the original situation of the pustules, the cases in which the disease had proved successful.
About one-fourth of the whole number were vaccinated directly from the pustules of patients labouring under the disease; while the remaining three-fourths were vaccinated from crusts, or from virus which had been several days on hand. I did not pass by a single opportunity for securing the crusts and virus from the arms of healthy patients; and to avoid as far as possible the chance of giving rise to a disease of a spurious kind, I invariably made use of those crusts and that virus, for the purposes of vaccination, which had been most recently obtained. To secure, as far as possible, against the chances of escaping the vaccine disease, I invariably vaccinated in each arm.
Of the whole number of Indians vaccinated, I have either watched the progress of the disease, or examined the cicatrices of about seven hundred. An average of one in three of those vaccinated from crusts has failed, while of those vaccinated directly from the arm of a person labouring under the disease, not more than one in twenty has failed to take effect—when the disease did not make its appearance after vaccination, I have invariably, as the cases came under my examination, revaccinated until a favourable result has been obtained.
Of the different bands of Indians vaccinated, a large proportion of the following have, as an actual examination has shown, undergone thoroughly the effects of the disease: viz. Sault Ste. Marie, Keweena Bay, La Pointe, and Cass Lake, being seven hundred and fifty-one in number; while of the remaining thirteen hundred and seventy-eight, of other bands, I think it may safely be calculated that more than three-fourths have passed effectually under the influence of the vaccine disease: and as directions to revaccinate all those in whom the disease failed, together with instructions as to time and manner of vaccination, were given to the chiefs of the different bands, it is more than probable that, where the bands remained together a sufficient length of time, the operation of revaccination has been performed by themselves.
Upon our return to Lake Superior I had reason to suspect, on examining several cicatrices, that two of the crusts furnished by the surgeon-general in consequence of a partial decomposition, gave rise to a spurious disease, and these suspicions were confirmed when revaccinating with genuine vaccine matter, when the true disease was communicated. Nearly all those Indians vaccinated with those two crusts, have been vaccinated, and passed regularly through the vaccine disease.
The answers to my repeated inquiries respecting the introduction, progress, and fatality of the small-pox, would lead me to infer that the disease has made its appearance, at least five times, among the bands of Chippewa Indians noticed in the accompanying table of vaccination.
The small-pox appears to have been wholly unknown to the Chippewas of Lake Superior until about 1750; when a war-party, of more than one hundred young men, from the bands resident near the head of the lake, having visited Montreal for the purpose of assisting the French in their then existing troubles with the English, became infected with the disease, and but few of the party survived to reach their homes—It does not appear, although they made a precipitate retreat to their own country, that the disease was at this time communicated to any others of the tribe.
About the year 1770, the disease appeared a second time among the Chippewas, but unlike that which preceded it, it was communicated to the more northern bands.
The circumstances connected with its introduction are related nearly as follows.
Some time in the fall of 1767 or 8, a trader, who had ascended the Mississippi and established himself near Leech Lake, was robbed of his goods by the Indians residing at that lake; and, in consequence of his exertions in defending his property, he died soon after.
These facts became known to the directors of the Fur Company, at Mackinac, and each successive year after, requests were sent to the Leech Lake Indians, that they should visit Mackinac, and make reparation for the goods they had taken, by a payment of furs, at the same time threatening punishment in case of a refusal. In the spring of 1770 the Indians saw fit to comply with this request; and a deputation from the band visited Mackinac, with a quantity of furs, which they considered an equivalent for the goods which had been taken. The deputation was received with politeness by the directors of the company, and the difficulties readily adjusted. When this was effected, a cask of liquor and a flag closely rolled were presented to the Indians as a token of friendship. They were at the same time strictly enjoined neither to break the seal of the cask nor to unroll the flag, until they had reached the heart of their own country. This they promised to observe; but while returning, and after having travelled many days, the chief of the deputation made a feast for the Indians of the band at Fond du Lac, Lake Superior, upon which occasion he unsealed the cask and unrolled the flag for the gratification of his guests. The Indians drank of the liquor, and remained in a state of inebriation during several days. The rioting was over, and they were fast recovering from its effects, when several of the party were seized with violent pain. This was attributed to the liquor they had drunk; but the pain increasing, they were induced to drink deeper of the poisonous drug, and in this inebriated state several of the party died, before the real cause was suspected. Other like cases occurred; and it was not long before one of the war-party which had visited Montreal in 1750, and who had narrowly escaped with his life, recognised the disease as the same which had attacked their party at that time. It proved to be so; and of those Indians then at Fond du Lac, about three hundred in number, nearly the whole were swept off by it. Nor did it stop here, for numbers of those at Fond du Lac, at the time the disease made its appearance, took refuge among the neighbouring bands, and although it did not extend easterly on Lake Superior, it is believed that not a single band of Chippewas north or west from Fond du Lac escaped its ravages. Of a large band then resident at Cass Lake, near the source of the Mississippi River, only one person, a child, escaped. The others having been attacked by the disease, died before any opportunity for dispersing was offered. The Indians at this day are firmly of the opinion that the small-pox was, at this time, communicated through the articles presented to their brethren, by the agent of the Fur Company at Mackinac; and that it was done for the purpose of punishing them more severely for their offences.
The most western bands of Chippewas relate a singular allegory of the introduction of the small-pox into their country by a war-party, returning from the plains of the Missouri, as nearly as information will enable me to judge, in the year 1784. It does not appear that, at this time, the disease extended to the bands east of Fond du Lac; but it is represented to have been extremely fatal to those bands north and west from there.
In 1802 or 3, the small-pox made its appearance among the Indians residing at the Sault Ste. Marie, but did not extend to the bands west from that place. The disease was introduced by a voyager, in the employ of the North West Fur Company, who had just returned from Montreal; and although all communication with him was prohibited, an Indian imprudently having made him a visit, was infected with and transmitted the disease to others of the band. When once communicated, it raged with great violence, and of a large band scarcely one of those then at the village survived, and the unburied bones still remain marking the situation they occupied. From this band the infection was communicated to a band residing upon St. Joseph’s Island, and many died of it; but the surgeon of the military post then there succeeded, by judicious and early measures, in checking it, before the infection became general.
In 1824 the small-pox again made its appearance among the Indians at the Sault Ste. Marie. It was communicated by a voyager to Indians upon Drummond’s Island, Lake Huron; and through them several families at Sault Ste. Marie became infected. Of those belonging to the latter place, more than twenty in number, only two escaped. The disease is represented to have been extremely fatal to the Indians at Drummond’s Island.
Since 1824, the small-pox is not known to have appeared among the Indians at the Sault Ste. Marie, nor among the Chippewas north or west from that place. But the Indians of these bands still tremble at the bare name of a disease which (next to the compounds of alcohol) has been one of the greatest scourges that has ever overtaken them since their first communication with the whites. The disease, when once communicated to a band of Indians, rages with a violence wholly unknown to the civilized man. The Indian, guided by present feeling, adopts a course of treatment (if indeed it deserves that appellation), which not unfrequently arms the disease with new power. An attack is but a warning to the poor and helpless patient to prepare for death, which will almost assuredly soon follow. His situation under these circumstances is truly deplorable; for while in a state that even, with proper advice, he would of himself recover, he adds fresh fuel to the flame which is already consuming him, under the delusive hope of gaining relief. The intoxicating draught (when it is within his reach) is not among the last remedies to which he resorts, to produce a lethargy from which he is never to recover. Were the friends of the sick man, even under these circumstances, enabled to attend him, his sufferings might be, at least, somewhat mitigated; but they too are, perhaps, in a similar situation, and themselves without even a single person to minister to their wants. Death comes to the poor invalid, and perhaps even as a welcome guest, to rid him of his suffering.
By a comparison of the number of Indians vaccinated upon the borders of Lake Superior, with the actual population, it will be seen that the proportion who have passed through the vaccine disease is so great as to secure them against any general prevalence of the small-pox; and perhaps it is sufficient to prevent the introduction of the disease to the bands beyond, through this channel. But in the Folle Avoine country it is not so. Of the large bands of Indians residing in that section of country, only a small fraction have been vaccinated; while of other bands not a single person has passed through the disease.
Their local situation undoubtedly renders it of the first importance that the benefits of vaccination should be extended to them. Their situation may be said to render them a connecting link between the southern and north-western bands of Chippewas; and while on the south they are liable to receive the virus of the small-pox from the whites and Indians, the passage of the disease through them to their more northern brethren would only be prevented by their remaining, at that time, completely separated. Every motive of humanity towards the suffering Indian, would lead to extend to him this protection against a disease he holds in constant dread, and of which he knows, by sad experience, the fatal effects. The protection he will prize highly, and will give in return the only boon a destitute man is capable of giving; the deep-felt gratitude of an overflowing heart.
I have the honour to be,
Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed,) Douglass Houghton.
ADDENDA—I.
Office of Indian Agency,
Sault Ste. Marie, February, 13, 1832.}
Elbert Herring, Esq.,
Office of Indian Affairs, Washington.} Sir,
Events growing out of the political condition of the Indian tribes on the head waters of the Mississippi, call for the continued interposition of the friendly influence of the government on that remote part of our north-western frontier. It has been long known that desperate and deep-rooted feuds continue to harass the tribes whose local position brings them into frequent contact. These contests operate to divert their attention from hunting, and to abstract their minds from objects essential to their well-being. They embarrass every effort to better their condition. They repel the advance of teachers. They deaden the effect of counsel. And by keeping the Indian mind in a state of perpetual alarm, destroy its capacities of healthful action. Every year is giving new proofs of the inveteracy of their hatred for each other, and the deteriorating effects of cultivating, as they do, the passion for warlike achievement. It is destructive to the industry of the young, and paralyzing to the counsels of the old.
The effect of the expedition ordered by the government last year, into the country of the Chippewas, is believed to have been efficacious in checking this spirit of predatory warfare, and impressing upon their minds the true character of our government, its benevolent intentions towards them, and its watchfulness, power, and resources. It was not practicable, however, to go over the whole area proposed to be visited, the effect of the expedition having been directed exclusively to the bands located south of the latitude of St. Anthony’s Falls. It is believed that a similar mission to the tribes of the Upper Mississippi, living north of that point in our geography, would result in effects equally useful to them and to the government. And I therefore submit to the Department the propriety of authorizing it.
Additional weight is given to the reasons applicable to this subject, by the increased hazards at which the trade of our citizens is conducted in that quarter, and the influence they have to contend with, from the proximity of a foreign and a rival frontier. The agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company are wakeful and active opponents, and there is reason to believe that the measure of control which they exercise over the Indian population, is irrespective of an imaginary territorial line. At any rate, our traders complain loudly of infractions and losses from this source. Merely to visit the Indians and the traders at their posts, will be to encourage and to sustain them.
It is proposed to perform the journey in a single canoe, manned by engages, accompanied with an escort of soldiers, and with such auxiliary aid from the native population as may be necessary. It would give additional utility to the effort, if the Engineer Department should judge proper to subjoin an officer to take observations for latitude, and to collect the materials for a correct map. The moral condition of the native population is such as to render it an interesting field for evangelical observation, and I propose to offer to a clergyman in the service of the A. B. F. Missions, now on the frontier, the opportunity of exploring it.
The route from the head of Lake Superior will extend, through the River St. Louis and its connecting waters, to the Mississippi at Sandy Lake, and by the way of Leech Lake to the sources of the Mississippi. From the point where navigation is checked a portage is proposed to be made into Red Lake (a remote tributary of Hudson’s Bay). And the route by Ottertail Lake, and the river De Corbeau, will be pursued so as to re-enter the Mississippi at the confluence of the latter. Thence by the Falls of St. Anthony to St. Peters, and through the St. Croix, the Chippewa, or the Wisconsin, to the lakes. Circumstances may require changes in this programme.
The extent of the country to be traversed requires an early departure from this place, and the toil of interior transportation makes it desirable that as little baggage, and as few men, should be taken, as may suffice for the certain accomplishment of the object. Under this view of the subject, I have prepared a detailed estimate of expenditures, on an economical scale, which is herewith submitted.
I have the honour, &c.
| Office of Indian Agency, Sault Ste. Marie, February, 13, 1832. | } |
| Elbert Herring, Esq., Office of Indian Affairs, Washington. | } |
II.
Department of War,
Office Indian Affairs, May 3, 1832.} Sir,
Your letter of February 13th has been received, and its general views are approved. The Secretary of War deems it important that you should proceed to the country upon the heads of the Mississippi, and visit as many of the Indians in that, and the intermediate region, as circumstances will permit. Reports have reached the Department from various quarters, that the Indians upon our frontiers are in an unquiet state, and that there is a prospect of extensive hostilities among themselves. It is no less the dictate of humanity than of policy, to repress this feeling, and to establish permanent peace among these tribes. It is also important to inspect the condition of the trade in that remote country, and the conduct of the traders. To ascertain whether the laws and regulations are complied with, and to suggest such alterations as may be required. And generally to inquire into the numbers, situations, dispositions, and prospects of the Indians, and to report all the statistical facts you can procure, and which will be useful to the government in its operations, or to the community in the investigation of these subjects.
In addition to these objects, you will direct your attention to the vaccination of the Indians. An act for that purpose has passed Congress, and you are authorized to take a surgeon with you. The compensation fixed by law is six dollars per day, but this includes all the expenses. As the surgeon with you must necessarily be transported and subsisted at the public expense, the whole sum of six dollars per day will be allowed for this service, but of that sum only three dollars per day will be paid to the surgeon, and the residue will be applied to the expenses of the expedition.
Vaccine matter, prepared and put up by the surgeon-general, is herewith transmitted to you; and you will, upon your whole route, explain to the Indians the advantages of vaccination, and endeavour to persuade them to submit to the process. You will keep and report an account of the number, ages, sex, tribe, and local situation of the Indians who may be vaccinated, and also of the prevalence, from time to time, of the small-pox among them, and of its effects as far as these can be ascertained.
The following sums will be allowed for the expenses of the expedition, &c.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
Elbert Herring.
Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq.,
Indian Agent, Sault Ste. Marie.}