Tuberculosis

[aurelia]

I think this needs to be a subject for discussion. By going through the census information you can follow a particular family and see how many of them died of this disease. It devastated the Lakota who were already surviving on limited rations and exposure. It is a major part of our history that seldom is mentioned. Yes battles were fought but after we were placed on the reservations the families continued to survive. Then they were faced with this disease. There is so much that we need to know so we can understand why we have the many problems we face today. I was aware of how this disease was a problem in my early lifetime but did not realize how devastating it was further back in our history until I began tracing several members of my great, great grandparent's brothers and sisters and then began to realize how many of them were falling off the ration census lists. I am interested in what others have to say about this.

[emilylevine]

Aurelia, I agree. There is some attention paid to smallpox and cholera in the early-mid 19th century, but after Lakota people were confined to the reservations many white scholars seem to lose interest. The effects of starvation, exposure, and disease need to be acknowledged.
I share the following devastating story from Josephine Waggoner's daughter Daphne. I believe this took place at the Fort Yates Boarding school (although she also attended Haskell) and it would have been around the turn of the last century:

"We had a small hospital that was filled to capacity from fall to spring. Tuberculosis, whooping cough, measles all in the same room. . . . My best friend, Rose Archambault, had the bed next to mine. When she felt a cough coming on, she'd reach over and I'd hold her hand while she whooped with blood coming from her nose. One morning when I woke up Rose was dead. We were seven years old. . . . Mama and Pa came and took me home with them. I was scared."

[ladonna]

In my family, Claudius Brave Bull and Agatha Many Wounds had 14 children, all died, many in the same year, only two lived to adulthood, my grandfather and his sister. It is the same with the rest of the families that i research, TB is the one that I see but in the 1910-1920 a flu went thought and killed many children. There was also measles that killed many children, as well as mumps.

[aurelia]

There is a book I saw recently about a doctor who tried to convence those in charge of the Pine Ridge reservation's health care to use tents and isolate the infected individuals from the rest of their families and feed them a better diet. This plan was considered to radical and they vetoed it. After seeing this book I began to realize this is one of the reasons so many of our families died off in the earyl 1900's of course along with the flu. I know there Agents kept records of reasons for peoples death. Has anyone ever did an statistical analysis of how many Lakota died from 1890 to 1950. I think we would be shocked to actually see the numbers. However as you indicated these were actually close relatives of ours. I know on my grandmother Mable Poor Buffalo Dupris' side of the family there were only her and her two sisters who lived. My grandmother had six children, a boy died when he was 2 years old and her sister Eliza Poor Buffalo Dupris only had two children. Yet if you look at the original ration census they had lots of relatives who are listed. I feel a real since of loss to know that we lost so many because of dependence on the federal government for food.

[ladonna]

As work on the histories of people I am shocked at the loss of children, each family lost at least 3/4 of their children to TB, Flu, and Measle, and it is funny few people talk about it today. Each of the families were touched by death of thier children or in my case the mother's of children too who lost their lives to TB. It is a sad chapter in our lives but I never seen and information on how many died during those years.

[aurelia]

There are data information but it would require going in and searching the old Census Records kept on the families. There is list that reports the deaths of individuals at the end of the year. How accurate these are I'm not sure. I wonder if they ever kept an accurate count on deaths during the first years when our people were on the reservations. From what I understand one of the reasons for the Ghost Dance was the loss of so many children. It was said the people who were alive during this time knew more people who were dead then who were alive. So if you follow that theory to its conclusion one may say that the deaths caused by TB was one of the root causes of the mental condition of the Spotted Elk's (Big Foot) band for trying to make it to Pine Ridge instead of following Hump's band to the Agency on Cheyenne River.

Is there a list of reasons of why the people took to the Ghost Dance so readily? I know people are interested in the massacre but the actual causes. I for one believe we can trace many of our problems directly back to these early days. The idea of "generational pain" should also be looked at from an individual family issue and see how those families who lost so many members to disease, etc. how did they cope. From the theory of the traumatic impacts on the grandchildren of Jewish survivors it makes a great deal of since to look at this from a today stand point then only history… especially now when they are finding out so much about the environment condition on unborn females. If a woman was carrying a female child in times of a sever lack of food then the granddaughter of that female child would not have a long life. There is also information being discovered of the actual genome being changed by environmental factors. So if we are ever to understand the changes in our people this time period will be very important and research needs to be happening and the data collected so we can began to make strategic plans on how we should be dealing with issues of health etc…

[winona]

On tuberculosis: during the early reservation years, and particularly when families were moved into the pine cabins on reservations, it was not known that TB was contagious, and often spread by sneezing, sputam, etc. The dank, cabins helped it along. There was a vaccine, but not readily available, and certainly, not on the reservations. They called it the "white plague."
On the deaths: from about 1885 on, the sub-agents, and boss farmers sent in the births and deaths from their districts. The agent then recorded them in an on-going log of events, along with marriages, divorces, etc. Often, the cause of death is not listed. Example: "Borrowed Hands", Napcalatapi, age 12, died on ----. The girl's mother is Wayaka."
It seems if the death is unusual, such as an accident, or amputation, it is listed. If a group of children die approximately the same week, in the same report, you may get a cause. The National Archives in Kansas City, MO has Standing Rock Agency reports. I have read through many for various years until about 1898,
and I seldom see cause of death. At boarding and industrial schools, the cause of death is more available, usually because the administrator had to write to the Agent, and he then recorded the cause of death.

[tatanka]

TB is still a major disease on the reservations. On Pine Ridge, for example, the average age expectancy is 50 years.

[miller7513]

Reply to #2
My daughter-in-laws 2nd great grandfather Martin Red Bear and his wife Julia Clifford had 10 children. Only 2 survived to adults, Alice Madeline and John Martin. Alice died in 1978 and John in 2000
yrs old when they died; Paul was 7 Jessie at birth Emma 13 Charles at birth Henry 6 Aloysius 2 Mary Elizabeth 16 and Morton Vincent at birth
I have a photo of funerary proceedings taken in 1910 for Emma Red Bear
LaDeane