[lbo-talk] [Fwd: Ward Churchill responds to U. of Colorado investigation]

[jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net]

> > (Witness the 40 pages of analysis it devotes to the two
> > paragraphs I wrote on Fort Clark.) If this standard were to be uniformly
> > applied, no scholar could engage in the sort of analysis which brings
> > together apparently disparate information to illustrate fundamental
> > problems with the status quo.
> 
> On the contrary, the problem with the footnotes and sources was crystal
> clear: there were none. Basically, Churchill got two army posts confused
> which were hundreds of miles apart, and then claimed over and over and
> over again that the US Army distributed blankets with smallpox and this
> caused a pandemic among the Indians. Trouble is, there's no evidence for
> this. None. Zero. And yet in article after article, he kept repeating and
> even embellishing the claim. Later version of the story talked about how
> the US Army was responsible for murdering 100,000 indigenous Americans - a
> number Churchill simply pulled out of his hat.
> 
> > * My two paragraph statement that in 1837 the army deliberately spread
> > smallpox among the Mandans at Fort Clark generated 44 pages of analysis on
> > the fourth allegation. While basically confirming my conclusions, the
> > committee expresses displeasure with the nature, thoroughness and, in some
> > cases, the sources of my citations. Although numerous scholars have made
> > the same general point without any citation, I am charged with
> > falsification, fabrication, and deviation from accepted reporting
> > practices.
> 
> What citations? Churchill didn't have *any* sources backing up his charge.
> None. The historical violence done to indigenous Americans is horrible
> enough, without inventing facts and, worse, repeating those inventions
> over and over again.
> 
> -- DRR

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Why write No evidence, Zero, None?

There is evidence that the smallpox epidemic was transmitted via infected blankets and that this was done 
deliberately. The Indian agent involved expressed a desire to "kill them all off" so why assume that giving 
blankets or even conveniently allowing blankets to be stolen, that were use by people who were obviously 
infected with smallpox is somehow just a tragic accident? What part of this story sounds accidental to you?

John Thornton