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Last year, [...] Biden declared proclamations for both Columbus Day and Indigenous People's Day. [Joe, that is---not Hunter...]
Why the second Monday in October is a source of controversy (wsls.com)
Why the second Monday in October is a source of controversy (wsls.com)
And TIL:
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arguing that Native peoples who died from disease during the early colonization of the Americas was inevitable and therefore not a result of colonial violence is an old, tired narrative that more and more scholars are disproving—but it's a falsehood still replicated on numerous Wikipedia pages.
Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Indigenous history. (slate.com)
Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Indigenous history. (slate.com)
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Until recently, histories of disease and Native Americans have emphasized "virgin-soil epidemics." According to this theory, [...] when Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere, they brought diseases (particularly measles and smallpox) that indigenous people had never experienced. [...]
New research, however, provides a much more complicated picture of disease in American Indian history. [...] virgin-soil epidemics were not as common as previously believed [...] diseases repeatedly attacked Native communities in the decades and centuries after Europeans first arrived. Post-contact diseases were crippling not so much because indigenous people lacked immunity, but because the conditions created by European and U.S. colonialism made Native communities vulnerable. [...] the new scholarship provides a far more disturbing picture. It also helps us understand the problems facing Native communities today [...]
[...] De Soto's expedition did cause disease to erupt in Native communities, but the reason was that the expedition's violent warfare led to outbreaks of pathogens such as dysentery, which was already present in the Americas. When smallpox finally hit the Southeast, it spread rapidly from Virginia to East Texas across networks created by an English trade in Native captives for enslavement in their coastal and West Indies colonies. Raiding, capturing, and transporting human bodies created pathways for the smallpox virus. To make matters worse, those bodies were already weakened by war and its companions—malnutrition, exposure, and lack of palliative care.
[...] as smallpox recurred in the 19th century, its impact correlated not with a lack of prior exposure, but with the presence of adverse social conditions. These same conditions would also make Native communities susceptible to a host of other diseases, including cholera, [...] and alcoholism. Native vulnerability had—and has—nothing to do with racial inferiority or, since those initial incidents, lack of immunity; rather, it has everything to do with concrete policies pursued by the United States government, its states, and its citizens.
Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans - The Atlantic
New research, however, provides a much more complicated picture of disease in American Indian history. [...] virgin-soil epidemics were not as common as previously believed [...] diseases repeatedly attacked Native communities in the decades and centuries after Europeans first arrived. Post-contact diseases were crippling not so much because indigenous people lacked immunity, but because the conditions created by European and U.S. colonialism made Native communities vulnerable. [...] the new scholarship provides a far more disturbing picture. It also helps us understand the problems facing Native communities today [...]
[...] De Soto's expedition did cause disease to erupt in Native communities, but the reason was that the expedition's violent warfare led to outbreaks of pathogens such as dysentery, which was already present in the Americas. When smallpox finally hit the Southeast, it spread rapidly from Virginia to East Texas across networks created by an English trade in Native captives for enslavement in their coastal and West Indies colonies. Raiding, capturing, and transporting human bodies created pathways for the smallpox virus. To make matters worse, those bodies were already weakened by war and its companions—malnutrition, exposure, and lack of palliative care.
[...] as smallpox recurred in the 19th century, its impact correlated not with a lack of prior exposure, but with the presence of adverse social conditions. These same conditions would also make Native communities susceptible to a host of other diseases, including cholera, [...] and alcoholism. Native vulnerability had—and has—nothing to do with racial inferiority or, since those initial incidents, lack of immunity; rather, it has everything to do with concrete policies pursued by the United States government, its states, and its citizens.
Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans - The Atlantic
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 October 2023 - 05:19 PM
