Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00240)

I'll find the reference for you, which was published around 2003.  I 
learned about it at dinner with some Indian friends who were in a 
celebratory mood because "they finally admitted" that orders had 
been issued in the U.S. Army to infect blankets.  One was doing a 
Ph.D. program in biology and the other getting his Bachelors in 
Native American Studies.  I saw a report of the revelation the next 
week.  I recall that a general was named, but I want to find the 
reference you first requested and need to talk to someone in Native 
American Studies.  

There's a difference between someone in the field taking it upon 
himself to infect blankets and someone in the field receiving orders 
to infect blankets.  The order to which I am referring was by the 
U.S. Army.  

I am 1/4 Indian and have never been able to develop an immunity to 
measles, which doctors dispute until they see it with their own eyes 
after once again immunizing me.  I've had German measles numerous 
times and also have been immunized several times.  My sister had the 
same condition.  The only thing that has protected me from the 
measles since the 1960's is that other people do not carry the 
disease as they once did.  One sister and one brother never had a 
problem with immunities to childhood diseases.  We were born from 
the same parents in post World War II Oklahoma.  

Native Americans possessed superior militaries to the Europeans upon 
contact, particularly in the Eastern U.S.  Childhood diseases are 
what killed the American Indian in-hand with the willingness to 
accept treaties with the federal government that have never, to this 
day, been kept.  

Geronimo's warriors were among the finest light cavalry in the 
world, and he was never defeated.  Geronimo surrended in an effort 
to save the families who were held captive, saying that they missed 
their families.  

After Geronimo surrendered, the Army took open season on Apache 
children, women and men.  The agreements made at surrender were 
never kept.  Starvation of Indians who had surrendered was common 
practice, and starvation was one of the things that Geronimo was 
attempting to deal with by surrendering.  Things only got worse for 
the Apache after Geronimo surrendered.

Your meaning of post-Apocalyptic society is not clear.  Columbus 
first made contact in North America, so your meaning when 
saying, "Europeans got to North America" is not clear.  The Spanish 
used Cuba in North America as a land base to sail to Mexico in 1521.

I'd like to know your thoughts on the Indian boarding school and 
sterilizations for Indians in the early 20th century.

Best regards,
Krsanna Duran



--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@...> wrote:
>
> krsanna wrote:
> > 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.  
> 
> 	True, but the only case I can find where this actually 
happened was 
> when the British (not the French) did it during the French and 
Indian 
> War, and even then it was to a group that was already infected.
> 
> 	It should be noted that the technology in the Americas was 
such that, 
> within half a century or so, they would have made contact with the 
> Europeans. Having gone through a virtual sterilization chamber 
10,000 
> years earlier, the native Americans had not gone through the many 
> plagues that originated in the Far East and Africa that had 
ravaged the 
> three continents; once contact was made, there was not much that 
could 
> be done to stop the deaths of the overwhelming majority of native 
> Americans, even if the Europeans had been completely benign, 
militarily 
> speaking. By the time the Europeans got to North America, they 
were 
> dealing with a post-apocalyptic society.
> 
> 	Bart
>