Dennis Redmond
> (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.
^^^^ CB: The main issue is did _anybody_, deliberately cause an infected blanket to go into the possession of Indians. Whether it was the army or someone else, doesn't make much difference.
When you say no evidence, why is it that you do not accord indigenous oral sources the status of "evidence" that you accord the European written sources ? The U of Col investigative report says that there are several indigenous oral sources that claim that small pox was spread deliberately in this specific epidemic. To me that is some evidence that that is true. I don't see why Indian sourced evidence doesn't get equal weight with European sourced evidence.
^^^^^^^^^
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.
^^^^^^
CB: I guess Indian sources are invisible to you, or count as "not any".
However, even several European written sources say that the epidemic was initiated by a blanket. If is the claim that this blanket was stolen or negligently allowed to get to the Indians is not true,but rather the blanket was given with knowledge that is was contaminated, then...
Overall, everybody knows for sure that the Europeans had the small pox and the Indians did not, initially. The only question is whether in this specific circumstance it was transmitted on purpose or negligent. The specific act by which the germs were contracted by the Indians is a very obscure or remote event for us. It is close to impossible for us to ascertain what the state of mind of the white person or persons who had the germs was in the acts by which those germs were transmitted to Indians. It is just as impossible to determine that the state of mind was unintentional or negligent as it is to determine that it was intentional or on purpose. Absent better evidence, since we are not on an "innocent until proven guilty" standard here the judgment does not default to "not guilty". The burden of proof is not on the Indians who claim that it was on purpose. The white settlers have no presumption of innocence in this general historical period.
The circumstantial evidence includes the general state of mind of most Europeans in this period toward Indians as summarized in the infamous phrase "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" . This is noted by the U of Col investigative report.
In other words, in this standing circumstance in this period, any transmission of deadly epidemic from whites to Indians might have been on purpose. So, neither the U of Col nor you should be able to command that it is ok to say " this particular transmission of the small pox to the Indians was accidently not on purpose " without being accused of lacking enough evidence to prove what they say. Nor should you be able to say if someone says "the transmission of small pox was on purupose" they are "making up" facts or are to be brought up on charges. The evidence _as a whole_ discussed in the U of Col report does not support "accident" more than "on purpose".
There are people , scholars, etc saying that the transmission was accidental, yet no one is bringing them up on charges for making a statement without enough evidence to support it, despite that the evidence is _not_ stronger for their claim than for the opposite claim of "on purpose".