Smallpox was particularly devastating to native people following the European entry into the New World.

The disease had been prevalent in Europe for generations and may have existed for thousands of years in the ancient world. Like Covid 19, smallpox thrived on human interaction, taking advantage of trade between civilizations and the clash of nations during the years and sometimes centuries of warfare.

Approximately onethird of those who contracted the disease died. Those who survived eventually helped the population achieve the often referenced “herd immunity.” However, after many untroubled generations, the deadly disease would return with a vengeance.

Variolation, a procedure intended to provide immunity was developed in Asia and became popular across Europe by the late 1700s. The patient was exposed to smallpox by scratching the skin, or inhaling material from the sores of infected individuals. There were risks and deaths occurred, even though most people developed immunity.

The first true vaccination was developed by Dr. Edward Jenner, introduced to the public in 1801. In America early settlers moved to frontiers that had once been populated by native tribes, but due to trade the frontiers were left empty as smallpox decimated populations ahead of European settlement.

The western plains were not excluded. Smallpox had spread to the plains tribes as early as the late 1700s. In 1816 the Comanches reported that 4,000 members of the tribe had died from smallpox.

In September of 1827 the greater part of the Kansa tribe fell ill while receiving their annual annuities at the mouth of the Kansas River (present-day Kansas City, Mo.).

John Dougherty, the new Upper Missouri Indian agent, hired a Liberty, Mo., doctor to tend to the ailing Kansa. Seventy people died before the disease was brought under control. But control was fleeting as one year later the death toll had risen to 180, including Chief White Plume’s principal wife and two of his sons.

By 1830 Secretary of War I. G. Randolph authorized Indian agents to hire doctors to vaccinate the Indians living at the agencies. The campaign was not as widespread as it needed to be and largely failed to limit the outbreaks. All persons on the frontier needed to be immunized.

A new outbreak occurred among the Shawnees in the early summer of 1831. After 20 Shawnees were infected and one had died, Dr. Johnston Lykins provided limited vaccination on July 18.

Another outbreak occurred at the Shawnee Methodist Mission (near present-day Turner, Kan.) in October.

When smallpox spread to the Delaware people, their agent advised them to scatter to avoid the epidemic.

At the Shawnee Mission, the Rev. Thomas Johnson described a state of confusion, “the smallpox was raging among different tribes, and the Indians flying in different directions.” The disease subsided in late December. The final death toll was reported to be nine Shawnees and 15 Delawares.

Congress passed the Indian Vaccination Act in 1832, appropriating $12,000 for vaccine and compensation for doctors administering vaccine. More than 17,000 Indians on the western frontier were vaccinated by Feb. 1, 1833, although vaccinations were limited only to tribes deemed friendly to the U. S.

The tribes of the Upper Missouri (Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana) were considered hostile to the U. S. at the time of the Indian Vaccination Act. Therefore, they remained unvaccinated even though a substantial amount of trade depended upon their participation.

Disregarding the Upper Missouri led to the devastating smallpox epidemic of 1837-38. Some tribes such as the Mandan were completely wiped out. Frontiersmen estimated the death toll in the north at 15,000. The disease spread to the Pawnee people on Nebraska’s Platte River and into Kansas, killing mostly children that had not been vaccinated since the 1832-33 vaccination program. The tribes often attributed the outbreaks to bad spirits. To satisfy the spirits of death the Pawnees sacrificed a captive girl in February of 1838.

Large outbreaks were prevented for almost two decades when in 1851 smallpox infected and killed 20 percent of the “Missouri” Sacs & Foxes in northeast Kansas. Authorities believed that the disease had been limited but one Sac carried smallpox to the “Mississippi” Sacs and Foxes on their reservation in southeast Kansas. Hundreds died before it was brought under control. By 1852 smallpox “carried off ” 50 Pottawatomies. Smallpox raged across the reserves, spreading to the Kickapoos, Delawares, and others. In a letter dated Feb. 16, 1853, the Rev. S. M. Irvin wrote that over 50 percent of the Ioway tribe had been carried away by the disease.

In its wake, until vaccinations eradicated the disease out of existence in 1980, smallpox changed cultures forever. Among the native people of the plains the deadly spirit of smallpox would long be remembered for bringing death and annihilation to their villages on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.