The history of native North Americans is full of rich tradition, but also loss. Big Blog reader Bob Hunt wanted to know how Northwest tribes tell that story:
“I’ve read that the diseases the Europeans introduced to the Americas crossed the continent well ahead of the first white men, wiping out 70 to 90 percent of the populations, even completely erasing whole communities. I don’t know what the extent of the die-off was with Northwest tribes, but I was wondering how this significant event is captured in the stories of the groups affected.”
Robin K. Wright, curator of Native American Art at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, responds to Hunt in our ninth installment of Ask the Burke (got a question for next time? Send it here):
A cultural revival
Several waves of smallpox and other introduced diseases did sweep through the Northwest coast starting in the 18th century. Big epidemics struck in the 1830s and again in 1862, when estimates are that 90 percent of the Haida population perished with slightly smaller percentages elsewhere on the coast.
The introduction of new diseases in the 18th and 19th centuries had devastating impacts on the population of people living along the Northwest coast. Despite this, Native communities in this area have experienced an incredible cultural revival in the past century. One great example of this revival is the annual Tribal Canoe Journey, which has sparked an interest in learning and living the canoe paddling traditions of the Northwest Coast that had not been practiced since the nineteenth century.
The best source for information on this subject is a book by Robert Boyd called “The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874.” This book examines the introduction of infectious diseases among the Native people of the Northwest coast (present-day Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and southeast Alaska) in the first century of Euro-American contact.
— Robin K. Wright
Have more questions about Northwest cultures? Check out the Burke’s ethnology page.
More Ask the Burke
If a tsunami comes to Washington, how long do we have?
Have we found dinosaur fossils in Washington State?
What’s the largest bird in Washington state?
If it’s so wet in Seattle, why aren’t there more mosquitoes?
Where was the first archaeological dig in the Puget Sound?
Which state volcano is most likely to erupt next?
What is the most abundant fish in Puget Sound?
Why are the Quileute people werewolves in ‘Twilight?’