Qué han hecho con mi país?

Mazel Tov, goyim.

In Chicago, we the kids get a day off for Casimir Pulaski. We have a large Polish population as well as a very large Irish population so I’ve never had a problem with it. Chicago has a Columbus Day parade.

I am sick of the Smallpox meme. Why nobody ever points out that NOBODY knew what it was back then, is strange to me.

Every time any of you hear that from anyone, point out that in exchange, the natives in S.America gave the Europeans syphilis.

@Aqua:

I take it you mean nobody knew about smallpox when Columbus came to America?

I think he means the perpetuation of the myth that the U.S. Army deliberately infected native Americans with smallpox and committed genocide, by such biological warfare. Ward Churchill is one of the “scholars” who has promoted such a myth, offering no citation for his claim:

Perhaps the most serious claim that appears in Churchill’s published research is that the U.S. Army deliberately distributed smallpox-infested blankets to the Mandans and other tribes on the upper Missouri, thus virtually wiping them out in the pandemic of 1837. In various essays, Churchill estimates the number of deaths from 100,000 to 400,000. The committee found no evidence to support those numbers; the largest figure given in the reports referenced by Churchill himself is 17,000Ñstill horrific to be sure.

Importantly, the committee did not make a judgment that Churchill’s claims were necessarily wrong. In a well-documented case, in 1763 the British at Fort Pitt attempted to infect attacking Indians with smallpox using gifts of blankets exposed to the disease.

This might be misleading, since Amherst posed the possibility of doing so in a letter, but there’s nothing to show it remained as anything more than a thought.

This story has become part of the oral traditions of many Indian tribes and some of the tribes on the upper Missouri do have an oral tradition that smallpox was deliberately spread by whites, a term that may have included the U.S. Army. However, Churchill does not reference any oral traditions in his writing and none of his published references support his allegations.

Indeed, the preponderance of the evidence, including some Indian stories, attributes the pandemic to a steamboat from St. Louis visiting the tribes with a crewman aboard down with smallpox. None of the references Churchill himself cites contain any support for the tale he tells of infected blankets being shipped up from St. Louis and distributed by an Army surgeon, who then told sick natives to go out and scatter among the uninfected population. Churchill also claims that smallpox vaccine earmarked for the tribes was kept under storage rather than administered. The committee found that this story was fabricated.

It is not academic misconduct to be wrong and the committee did not condemn Churchill for this reason. But the falsification and fabrication of data surely constitutes misconduct. The report considered a total of seven allegations and found Churchill guilty of research misconduct in all cases but one.

The myth of deliberate small-pox infestation arises from distorting two British letters:

What of those smallpox-infested blankets that have received so much press? Medved examines the evidence and concludes “The endlessly recycled charges of biological warfare rest solely on controversial interpretations of two unconnected and inconclusive incidents 74 years apart.”

The first was in response to Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763), a ferocious small war undertaken by the Great Lakes Indians (who had been allied with the defeated French in the French and Indian War) against British settlements. The Ottawa leader Pontiac told his followers to “exterminate” the whites. They did their best. Hundreds of settlers were tortured, scalped, cannibalized, dismembered, or burned at the stake. As the Indians were besieging Fort Pitt, Field Marshal Lord Jeffery Amherst wrote to a subordinate, “Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians?” But nothing seems to have come from this correspondence.

The other episode is alleged by fired professor Ward Churchill (yes, the one who invented his Creek and Muscogee heritage and fabricated his academic research), and concerns an outbreak of smallpox among the Mandan tribe in 1837. There is no evidence that the whites intentionally infected the Indians in that case, and considerable evidence that the settlers attempted to prevent the outbreak

Ward Churchill is certifiably insane. He is the perfect example of why our schools are under attack by unAmerican freaks. I see why schools kids are not performing in “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic”. They are being brainwashed to believe that people like Churchhill are the only ones to save them from total idiocy. What a crock! Ward Churchill and his ilk needs to be put to sleep.
Madalyn

@ Wordsmith

I don’t think I buy into the Army handing out smallpox infected blankets. Everything I’ve ever read or heard about how the Blackfoot contracted smallpox was through trading horses with Settlers.

And Ward Churchill is a tool. I don’t know how anyone could believe anything he says.

As for Columbus, he was a great explorer. That is how he should be remembered.

@ suek

Um, no, some of the Settlers had smallpox. It wasn’t done intentionally.

They say you shouldn’t criticize farmers with your mouth full. It can also be said that Indians, or indigenous peoples (Aztecs, Incas and Mayans, too), should not criticize the Spanish (who commissioned Columbus) while sitting on their horses. For it was Columbus and the Spanish that brought horses to North, Central and South America.

Point being: It could be said that the conquering Europeans brought much good to the Americas. No reason to trample on the achievements of Columbus; he was a very capable navigator.

@Aqua #12:

I don’t think I buy into the Army handing out smallpox infected blankets.

That was the point I was pushing, wasn’t it?