User:Lewis.tristen/1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic

Symptoms
Called "rotting face" by tribes all across the Great Plains, Smallpox could be identified by the often widespread skin rash covering a person's body and face. The blisters often begin as faint flat spots, before progressing into raised bumps and fluid-filled scabs. Other symptoms of the disease included headache, backache, extreme abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.

The Natives were able to deduce that the disease could be contracted through close contact with an infected individual. Because of this limited understanding, their prevention methods involved the isolation of infected individuals, and their treatments of such patients commonly included cultural practices of the 18th century through the early 19th century.

History (continued)
The Native Americans who lived upriver from the Arikara tribe requested access to the vaccines provided by the Indian Vaccination Act of 1832, however, they reported being denied access to such supplies by the current U.S. Secretary of War. It seems that Lewis Cass, the current U.S. Secretary of War, was more interested in establishing fur trading routes on the Missouri River without Native interference than he was in helping Native Americans overcome Smallpox on the plains.

This decision may have also been impact by the commissioner of Indian affairs, Elbert Herring, who in 1832, in his annual report to the U.S. Congress and the Secretary of War, accused the Chippewa tribe of the Great Plains (a neighboring tribe of the Arikara) of spreading the first Smallpox epidemics through interaction with French and British traders.