Week 4 - A Native American account

“[A] dreadful misfortune befell them. … One salmon season the fish
were found to be covered with running sores and blotches, which rendered them
unfit for food. But as the people depended very largely upon these salmon for
their winter’s food supply, they were obliged to catch and cure them as best
they could, and store them away for food. They put off eating them till no other
food was available, and then began a terrible time of sickness and distress. A
dreadful skin disease, loathsome to look upon, broke out upon all alike. None
were spared. Men, women, and children sickened, took the disease and died in
agony by hundreds, so that when the spring arrived and fresh food was
procurable, there was scarcely a person left of all their numbers to get it.
Camp after camp, village after village, was left desolate. The remains of which,
said the old man, in answer by my queries on this, are found today in the old
camp sites or midden-heaps over which the forest has been growing for so many
generations. Little by little the remnant left by the disease grew into a nation
once more, and when the first white men sailed up the Squamish in their big
boats, the tribe was strong and numerous again” (Boyd, 55).

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5100

This is an native American account of the 1770s smallpox epidemic from the Squamish tribe in the northwest. It is an example of the effects that settlers had on the native Americans as when the settlers came they brought with them diseases from Europe which the native Americans were not used to and their immune systems couldn't cope with them at first. However they did adapt as 'grew into a nation once more' suggests that they overcame the disease. This can actually be seen in a positive way as having these diseases will make their immune systems stronger for future generations.

This account also tells of the impact on the environment as well as on the tribe. 'the fish were found to be covered with running sores and blotches' This would mean that their food supply was depleted which would mean that their bodies were weaker and therefore less able to fight this 'foreign' illness. It also shows that the settlers had negative impacts on not just the tribes but on their environment, food supply and interrupted their general way of life.

It is suggested from this account that the reason the native Americans got ill was due to eating contaminated fish. This would be an indirect impact from the Spanish settlers.