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 though the vaccine disease.
The answers to my repeated inquiries respecting the introduction, progress, and fatality of the smallpox, 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 smallpox 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 who had visited Montreal in 1750, and who had narrowly escaped with his life, recognized 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 neighboring 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 smallpox 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 smallpox 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 smallpox 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 Northwest 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 smallpox again made its appearance among the Indians at the Sault Ste. Marie. It was communicated by a voyager to the 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.