Indian Vaccination Act - May 5, 1832

On this day in 1832, the Indian Vaccination Act went into effect, providing for the vaccination of thousands of Native Americans from smallpox. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi there, Welcome to This Day in History Class,
where we sift through the artifacts of history seven days
a week. Today is May five, nineteen. The day was

(00:24):
May five. Eight thirty two, Congress passed the Indian Vaccination Act,
which appropriated twelve thousand dollars to purchase vaccines and hired
doctors to vaccinate Native Americans against smallpox. There have been
other small scale efforts to inoculate Native Americans against the
disease on the South and North American continents before, but

(00:47):
the eighteen thirty two Act was the first piece of
federal legislation in the US that was designated to deal
specifically with the Native Americans health issue. The intention of
the Act was not just to protect Native Americans from smallpox, though,
It was passed in the interest of Native American removal,
or the process of removing Native American tribes from their

(01:08):
ancestral lands to territory west of the Mississippi River so
white people could develop the vacated lands. On top of
the shady political motivations of the Act, its administration was
also plagued by corruption and incompetence. Smallpox is an infectious
disease caused by the variola virus. The virus is now eradicated,

(01:29):
but back in the eighteen hundreds it was active and
highly contagious. Though most people who got the smallpox recovered,
three out of ten people and infected with the contagious
disease died. Symptoms included fever, body eggs, skin rash, skin stores,
and scabs. European colonization brought smallpox into North America in

(01:50):
the seventeenth century, and by eighteen thirty two, millions of
non native peoples had already been vaccinated against smallpox, but
smallpox was ravaging Native American populations. In eighteen thirty U
s Indian agents as they were called, were authorized to
hire physicians on an ad hoc basis to vaccinate or

(02:11):
treat Native Americans at their agencies, but that was not
enough to deal with the spread of smallpox to native
people's across the Central Plains. In eighteen thirty one and
eighteen thirty two, Indian agents and others who witnessed the
smallpox epidemic on the western frontier asked officials for assistance
with controlling the disease. President Andrew Jackson was a huge

(02:35):
advocate of Native American removal, and in eighteen thirty he
signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which resulted in
the deadly Trek West that became known as the Trail
of Tears. Since Congress was in the process of planning
to remove tens of thousands of Native Americans into areas
that were being seriously affected by smallpox, these outbreaks were

(02:57):
a problem. Commissi of Indian Affairs Albert Herring claimed in
his annual report to the Secretary of War that the
Chippewa who had gone through smallpox epidemics had basically brought
the disease upon themselves. This helped convince the federal government
that it needed to help Native Americans. There was no

(03:18):
precedent for a bill to deal with this kind of problem,
but legislation proposed twelve thousand dollars for preventing the spread
of smallpox along Native American frontiers. When the bill was introduced,
southern congressman opposed it, while Northerners largely supported it. Senators
against the bill argued that twelve thousand dollars was too

(03:40):
much and leaned on the stereotype of Native Americans as savages,
but the bill passed on its third reading. On May five,
thirty two, the Indian Vaccination Act went into effect. Section
two of the Act stated, and be it further enacted,
that the Secretary of War b and he hereby is

(04:01):
empowered to employ as many physicians or surgeons from the
army or resident on the frontier near the point where
their services shall be required, as he may find necessary
for the execution of this Act, and if necessary to
competent persons, to conduct the physicians to the remote Indians
who are infected or maybe in immediate danger of being

(04:23):
infected with the smallpox, whose compensation shall be six dollars
per day, and six men, whose compensation shall be twenty
five dollars per month. Physicians use live vaccine material, typically
thread are cotton contaminated with cowpox to inoculate Native Americans.
Secretary of War Louis Cass administered the program. He decided

(04:46):
that the tribes that would get the vaccination were those
that were friendly to the US, those that had significant
roles in the economy, and those that were being forcibly
relocated to the West. He also ordered Indian Agent John
though Pty to limit vaccinations to tribes in the Lower
Missouri River Valley. Civilian and army physicians vaccinated people, yet

(05:08):
Native Americans had no say in the creation and implementation
of the vaccine program. Beyond aiding in the removal and
relocation of Native Americans, the Act also accelerated westward expansion
and consolidated reservation communities. The money allotted for the vaccination
programs was not always used as planned. For instance, Henry

(05:32):
Schoolcraft spent eight hundred dollars of the vaccination funds for
a cartographic and geological survey of Chippewa County, vaccinating some
Native Americans along the way. Another issue with the program
was Louis Cass's exclusion of the Mandan and other Upper
Missouri River tribes, possibly because they were no longer economically

(05:52):
important to the US or not considered civilized enough. No
Native American groups that had been deemed aggressives were vaccinated,
yet cast favored Native American nations that were involved in
favorable treaties with the US, and while many Native Americans
welcomed the vaccinations, others refused them before deportation, so there

(06:14):
were still large groups of unvaccinated people in the new nations.
In eighteen thirty seven, and eighteen thirty eight, thousands of Mandan, Hadatza, Creed,
and other Upper Missouri River tribes that have been left
out of the Act died from smallpox. Non native populations
affected were not so devastated. In eighteen thirty nine, another

(06:36):
five thousand dollars was allocated to the Indian Vaccination Act
programs to provide for vaccinations. After the smallpox epidemic of
eighteen thirty seven and eighteen thirty eight. At least thirty
eight thousand Native Americans were vaccinated under the Indian Vaccination Act.
I'm Eve Stepcote and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn

(07:00):
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(07:21):
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