Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00230)

I don't use anything from Ward Churchill's work.  

The incident with the smallpox-infected blankets was during the 
forced evacuation of the Cherokee from their homelands in the 
southern U.S., i.e., Georgia and Tennessee.  This was started during 
Andrew Jackson's presidency and completed much later.  I use the 
1838 date as an historical marker because some Cherokee factions 
voluntarily evacuated their homes to trade land in Oklahoma by that 
date.  Other factions opposed the evacuation, and this later group 
took the brunt of the U.S. Army at their doorsteps.   

The observable fact that Indians had no immunity to European 
childhood diseases was undoubtedly the inspiration for infecting the 
blankets.  

Krsanna

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@...> wrote:
>
> 	By the way, if you cite Ward Churchill's work, please note 
that he is 
> an extremely controversial figure who has been already caught in 
> numerous lies, and there has been a consderable amount of 
refutation to 
> his theories.
> 
> 	Doing some additional research on the germ warfare during 
the French 
> and Indian War, it turns out that, by the time the program was 
> initiated, the native Americans targeted were already being 
ravaged by 
> smallpox, so it is questionable whether or not the blankets 
actually did 
> anything, not that it excuses the actual behavior.
> 
> 	Back to the Civil Rights movement in the United States, 
there were 
> certainly many Theosophists involved, as they were involved in 
better 
> treatment of the Australian aborigines, treatment of the native 
people 
> in Indonesia, and particularly in India. However, Blavatsky had 
> specifically called for the Theosophical Society as a whole to 
stay out 
> of politics:
> 
> "Those who know us at all need not be told that there is no 
association 
> in the world which builds its hope of success on Government 
favour, less 
> than the Theosophical Society. Our business is with truth and 
> philosophy, not with politics or administration."
> 
> 
> Bart Lidofsky wrote:
> 
> > krsanna wrote:
> > 
> >>I'll look for an article published around 2003 acknowledging 
that 
> >>the U.S. Army infected blankets with smallpox before giving them 
to 
> >>the Cherokee, who had been rounded up at gunpoint in the middle 
of 
> >>the winter.  It made news in the Native American community at 
the 
> >>time I worked in Native American Studies at a state university.  
The 
> >>acknowledgement was not widely published in the predominantly 
White 
> >>media.  
> > 
> > 
> > 	Smallpox was definitely transmitted by blankets during the 
French and 
> > Indian War. Of course, by then, an estimated 90-95% of the 
Native 
> > American population in what is now the continental United States 
had 
> > already been wiped out by measles, smallpox, and the Bubonic 
Plague.
> > 
> > 	Bart
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >
>