Northwest+Diseases+and+Genocide

__**Northwest**__

"It was reported that there were about one million Indians living north of the Rio Grande in the early sixteenth century. Smallpox reached the Atlantic Coast where the first outbreak was recorded in 1616-1619. By the end of the 1600s, smallpox had spread up and down the eastern seaboard and by 1907 there were less than 400,000 Indians left. It has been said that this decline was due to not only smallpox, but other diseases, welfare, and conflicts with the United States.

The Massachusetts and other Algonquin tribes were reduced from about thirty thousand to three hundred. When the Pilgrims landed in 1620 and were greeted by a small amount of Indians, they were convinced that was due to the outbreak of smallpox."

The number of Indians that were affected by the smallpox disease is astounding. It is very unfortunate that they had no way of controlling it and could not stop it from spreading.


 * __Genocide__**

"The American Heritage Dictionary defines genocide as "the systematic, and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." Based on that definition, the genocide was not carried out by the United States government against the Indian nations. It can be argued that the government policy was directed toward wiping out an ethnic culture, but not genocide of an ethnic group. President Jefferson, believed the American Indians were fully capable of being integrated into the American way of life, but not in the savage state."

http://www.thefurtrapper.com/indian_smallpox.htm