Blue Death on the Trail of Tears:
An American Indian Saga
Kurt Brandon
Professor Thomas Kuehn
HIST 2990-001
20 November 2018
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In the year 1832, Cholera struck the United States landing first in New York by way of
Canada.1 After taking its toll, it rapidly cut a wide swath of terror across the nation elevating the
death count to staggering numbers. When the pestilence attacked, the United States government
was in the middle of its second-year of execution in the removal of the American Indians from
their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States to their newly appointed lands West of the
Mississippi, on what has become known as The Trail of Tears. During this removal process,
hundreds of Native Americans died from a result of cholera, also known as the Blue Death.
knowing that cholera was ravishing throughout the country, did the government intentionally
push the Indians through cholera-infected areas maliciously, or did they avoid warnings to halt
the forced migration of indigenous people? Was prudence overlooked purely for monetary
reasons? From the coerced and sometimes illegal treaties, the theft of ancestral lands, and the
subsequent forced marches, many atrocities upon the Native Americans can and should be
attributed to the United States government. However, in this current age, it is easy to fall into a
trap of presentism by lumping all atrocities throughout the entire historical period of relations
between the indigenous people and all governments together. Such atrocities, as the alleged
intentional spread of smallpox through infected blankets before 1832, and military massacres
like Wounded Knee after 1832, can create unintentional biases if used to determine methods
from separate times and incidents. However, the culpability of the United States for the cholerarelated deaths of Indians along the Trail of Tears cannot be fully blamed only on the government.
1
G.F. Pyle, "The Diffusion of Cholera in the United States in the Nineteenth Century,"
(The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2010), 63.
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Since the medical science of the early nineteenth century was still in its infancy, archaic
treatment principles were still being practiced, and the true cause of cholera would not be
discovered for many years later, blaming the government for cholera cannot be justified. Instead,
the natural spread of the cholera bacteria through the water ways is, alone, truly responsible for
contributing to the deaths of an estimated 4000 Choctaw along the Trail of Tears
Today’s modern American families take water for granted. When they have a thirst, they
simply go to the faucet and pour a glass or pick up a bottle of reverse osmosis filtered water
without any fear of becoming sick from the smell, color, or some unknown disease that cannot be
detected with the naked eye. Today’s federally guided sanitation systems keep the drinking water
potable. This was not the case, however, in the nineteenth century. Drinking water, on many
occasions, came from the same locations that refuse and excrement (human waste) could and
would somehow co-mingle, thereby contaminating the water. It may seem hard to imagine today
what that would be like, but there are parts of the world and cities in America that still do not
have clean potable drinking water, and the most recent horrendous cholera outbreak in Yemen
has claimed many lives.
Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Vibrio cholerae was first discovered
by Filippo Pacini in 1854, but his findings remained virtually unknown or ignored until well after
his death in 1883. Interestingly, in 1884 Robert Koch came up with the same conclusion as
Pacini.2 Before those discoveries, however, and those of Dr. John Snow of England, sickness
2
Ralph R. Frerichs, "Who First Discovered Vibrio Cholera?" Who First Discovered
Cholera? http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html.
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was believed to be caused by miasma, or bad air, as first taught by Hippocrates.3 The disease has
also been referred to as Asiatic cholera, spasmodic cholera, or to a lesser degree, cholera morbus,
and as quoted in Dr. Robert D. Morris’ book The Blue Death: The Intriguing Past and Present
Danger of the Water You Drink, “The Vibrio cholerae bacterium is a creature that lives in the
warmth and moisture of a human. Once out in the world, it struggles to survive long enough to
find another victim.”4 The hardiness of the Vibrio cholerae bacillus lends to the difficulty of
eradication and leans more to the problem of prevention.
Historians are fairly certain that the lethal form of cholera originated in the areas around
the Ganges River of ancient India, and the disease seemed to remain mostly endemic to those
local regions of India until 1817. cholera then went pandemic spreading from India into all of
Asia ending up in Eastern Russia in the year 1824.5
Cholera reached Moscow in 1829, and from Western Russia, cholera crossed the Ural Mountains
to wreak havoc upon the rest of Europe. It will later be discussed how, much like Asia and
Europe, soldiers could have been the carrier of cholera into the Midwestern United States in the
1832 cholera epidemic. The large urbanized industrial cities of Europe were hit the hardest, and
just like Europe, American industrialization brought massive population growth into the already
3
Robert D. Morris The Blue Death: The Intriguing past and Present Danger of the Water
You Drink, (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), 687.
4
5
Ibid., 603.
Stephanie True Peters, Cholera: Curse of the Nineteenth Century, (New York:
Benchmark Books, 2005), 4-5.; Nottidge Charles Macnamara, A History of Asiatic Cholera.
(London: Macmillan, 1876), 79.
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overcrowded cities. Sanitation problems quickly arose, creating a perfect breeding environment
for cholera to flourish and spread. The sanitation problem would not even begin to be under
control for at least another thirty years.6
At that same time, in Mississippi, the U.S. Army was preparing for the second round of
Indian removals. The first round, a year earlier, was deemed a disaster due to ill preparations and
severe inclement weather causing the deaths of many Choctaw Indians. The Choctaw were the
first tribe to be relocated to the newly appointed Indians lands west of the Mississippi River into
what is now called Oklahoma. The Choctaw were specifically chosen by Vice President John C.
Calhoun due to the tribe’s western location and fewer interactions with White Americans.7
As cholera attacked New York, it rapidly moved along other ports of entry along the
Northern waterways connecting the United States and Canada.8 These northern waterways are
how cholera is thought to have been carried throughout the Midwestern cities and towns by
soldiers fighting in the Blackhawk War in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin. Rosenberg states in
his book, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866, “It followed the Army
of General Scott against Blackhawk, killing White and Indian alike and spreading to Wisconsin
and Illinois.” Apparently, the effect of the disease was so terrifying that citizens from Chicago
6
Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 36.
7
Arthur H. DeRosier, The Removal of the Choctaw Indians, (Knoxville, TN: Univ. of
Tennessee Press, 1970), 129.
8
G.F. Pyle, "The Diffusion of Cholera in the United States in the Nineteenth Century,"
(The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, 1969), 63.
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fled to take their chances among the Indians than face the possibility of contracting cholera.9
Barbara Alice Mann’s book, The Tainted Gift; The disease Method of Frontier Expansion, states
“370 soldiers encamped at Fort Gratiot (Detroit) fell profoundly ill, with all but 68 of them
dying.”10 Overall, General Scott, the Commanding General, lost almost half of his command
either to war or disease. General Scott would later be placed in command of the Cherokee’s final
push along the Trail of Tears in 1838.11 Ultimately, the Black Hawk band of Sauk-Fox, Hochunk, and Potawatomie warriors would become so ravaged with cholera that it reduced their
population to an unsustainable amount. These were the first Indian victims of cholera.
Although the second year of Choctaw removal was better planned, it would prove to be
even deadlier. Cholera was reported at the mouth of the White River, where it meets with the
Mississippi River, in late October, as noted by an Arkansas newspaper the Arkansas Advocate on
November 7, 1832. The paper goes on to report there were two deaths related to cholera. One of
the deaths was from a man from Little Rock with no contact with any others sick from cholera.
9
Charles E.Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and
1866, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1962), 36.
10
Barbara Alice Mann, The Tainted Gift: The Disease Method of Frontier Expansion,
(Santa Monica, CA: Praeger, 2009), 30.
11
"Cherokee Removal Chronicle, 1830-1839." Family Stories from the Trail of Tears
(taken from the Indian-Pioneer History Collection, Grant Foreman, Editor), (Memphis Enquirer
May 12, 1838).
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The other was a passenger on the steamboat Volant who had come up from New Orleans.12 Late
October was the same time as the U.S. military was attempting to relocate approximately 5300
Choctaw to the new lands. Although, just like the 1831 removals, the weather was not
cooperating. Floods washed away the roads and turned watery areas into miles of swamps. The
original plan was to move a group up to Memphis by foot and wagon then down to Little Rock
by riverboat. Another group was to be rallied up at Vicksburg and transported upriver to Fort
Smith. However, cholera had already caught up with some of the Choctaw groups before
reaching Memphis. Fear and panic developed among the Indians as it appeared that sickness and
death followed them along the way. When the group in route to Memphis finally arrived at their
embarkation point the expected ships were not there. Other arrangements were made and U.S.
snag boats were re-outfitted to carry the Choctaw to Rock Roe, AR, on the White River, as the
new rendezvous point. Because of the sickness and panic among the tribe, many Indians were
refusing to get onto the boats and had to be forced. According to DeRosier, the other group
meeting in Vicksburg heard about the cholera troubles ahead and decided to take a longer route
to avoid the sickness. Unfortunately, this route change cost more time and colder weather set in
before provisions could be made. This new route, like the others, was flooded and traveling
overland meant wading through sometimes waist-deep swamps for miles on end. This
“circuitous” route was intended to avoid cholera, however, the extra time and cold weather killed
12
"Choctaw Removal Chronicle, 1830-1849." Family Stories from the Trail of Tears,
https://ualrexhibits.org/trailoftears/indian-removal/choctaw-removal-chronicle-18301849/#1832.
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many of the Choctaw due to exposure, and in the end, cholera caught up with them anyway
killing even more.13
Barbara Alice Mann makes the claim that the United States and the military might have
intentionally, or through negligence, pushed the Choctaw Indians into cholera infested areas. Her
title, The Tainted Gift; The Disease Method of Frontier Expansion, illustrates her approach.
Mann’s views on the subject, however, appear to be wrought with presentism and obviously
biased speculations. She quotes Captain F.W. Armstrong, one the chief removal agent, on
October 21, 1832, as writing, “I confess I fear that we are to encounter the cholera with our
Indians.” and further saying, “what course such a people will take under such circumstances.14
This does not sound like someone that is plotting the destruction of the Indians in his charge.
Instead, it would appear that he fears along with them that cholera might prevail over all of them,
and ultimately, white men under his command also died as a result of cholera. In addition,
referring to a previous statement of an alternate route taken by the removal agent to avoid
cholera could have merely been an attempt to save the agent’s own life. That statement, however,
cannot be inferred without also injecting a bias. Furthermore, intentionality cannot be made since
no one in 1832 knew of the true cause of cholera. Also, the miasmic and/or four humors
principles were still the prevailing theories of the cause of sickness.
13
Arthur H. DeRosier, The Removal of the Choctaw Indians. Knoxville, (TN: Univ. of
Tennessee Press, 1989), 155-156.
14
Barbara Alice Mann, The Tainted Gift: The Disease Method of FrontierExpansion,
(Santa Monica, CA: Praeger, 2009). 34.
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The Arkansas Gazette reported on November 14, 1832, that the Little Rock Board of
Health, upon hearing of the cholera outbreak among the Indians at Rock Roe, appointed Dr.
B.W. Lee to investigate. This attack found twenty sick and ten dead upon the arrival of 450
Indians onboard the steamer Reindeer, with another 30 new cases reported. Lee’s report ended
with a final count of an estimated sixty deaths and a statement by a Dr. Reyburn claiming that
twenty-five percent of the cholera victims perished from the disease. On November 21, 1832, the
Arkansas Gazette also commented upon the deaths, stating, “The steam-boats appear to be a
reservoir for the disease.”15 The journal of Captain S.T. Cross, a Choctaw removal agent, also
referred to as L.T. Cross in other texts, but believed to be the same person, gives a more detailed
account within his party from November 12, through December 5, 1832, with seventeen deaths
due to cholera.16 Another journal of Lieutenant J. Van Horne, a distributing agent for the
Choctaw removals, tells of how he himself contracting cholera and was thrown out into the
freezing cold by the owner of the cabin he was attempting to stay in on November 8, 1832,
during the removal process.17
15
"Choctaw Removal Chronicle, 1830-1849. Family Stories from the Trail of Tears
https://ualrexhibits.org/trailoftears/indian-removal/choctaw-removal-chronicle-18301849/#1832.
16
"Journal of S.T. Cross - Choctaw Removal, 1832," Family Stories from the Trail of
Tears, (Edited byLittle Rock University of Arkansas).
17
Daniel F. LittleField, and James W. Parins, Encyclopedia of American Indian
Removal, Vol. 2, 2 vols, Primary Documents, (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011), 181.
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The Choctaw were not the only Indians on the trail to suffer. Even though the Cherokee
would not be forced out of their lands until 1838, many accepted their fate and began migrating
as early as 1834 when cholera would once again spread among the natives causing panic and
death. The Cherokee Phoenix, the first American Indian newspaper in the United States, printed
in both English and Cherokee languages, gives an account of cholera casting a web of death
across an already demoralized people along the Trail of Tears. An article titled “The Cholera was
still prevailing, with little or no abatement among the Cherokee emigrants, encamped,” dated
May 31, 1834, reports that cholera attacked the Cherokee encamped at the mouth of Cadron
Creek along the Arkansas River. According to the article, about sixty-five of the 550 encamped
Cherokee died from cholera in a short two-month period. During this outbreak, two of the
attending physicians were also struck with cholera killing one of them. Other outbreaks along the
river claimed the lives of six soldiers and left around fifty sick out of the 140 U.S. troops of the
7th Infantry after leaving New Orleans aboard the steamboat Galliopolis.18
Another question of causality lies in economics. Logistically, the Indian removal was a
monumental feat that no other government had attempted, and hindsight would say that it should
have been obvious that failure was inevitable. However, it can be shown through records of
newspaper articles in the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Advocate that all materials, staples,
and transportation were meticulously laid out prior to movement.19 Since the products and
18
“The Cholera was still prevailing, with little or no abatement among the Cherokee
emigrants, encamped,” Cherokee Phoenix, Volume 5, Number 52, (Published May 31, 1834).
19
"Choctaw Removal Chronicle, 1830-1849.” Family Stories from the Trail of Tears,
https://ualrexhibits.org/trailoftears/indian-removal/choctaw-removal-chronicle-1830-849/#1832.
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transportations were pre-ordered it would have been not only financially disastrous to halt the
removal (which could have been the only foreseeable alternative), but it would have been even
more disastrous to the Indians. Rations and materials were procured prior to the start date and
many materials were to be waiting along the route. It would have been very difficult to acquire
more, on-the-fly, if plans were suddenly canceled. Late corn and beef purchases would have too
costly since farmers were known to raise the prices if purchased for Indians.20 It would seem that
the surest option for the government was to push through.
Cholera not only traveled through the waterways of the nation, but it would seem that the
fastest carrier would be the people themselves traveling on the water. From the mass exoduses of
places like New York and Chicago, the transport of soldiers across the nation, or the forced
emigration of thousands of American Indians from their ancestral lands to the Westerly plains of
a future Oklahoma, cholera traveled like luggage with whoever came in contact with it spreading
the disease as they went. Knowing that cholera was ravishing throughout the country, the
government did not intentionally avoid warnings to halt the forced move. They did not halt the
move to push the Indians into the disease, but instead, to hurry to get them moved as fast as
possible to try to save lives, and aside from halting not much more could have been done to
possibly mitigate the deaths from cholera. It is clear and obvious that many wrongs and atrocities
were committed toward the American Indians. However, it is also shown that so little was truly
known about the cause of the fatal disease that governmental blame cannot be placed for the
20
Arthur H. DeRosier, The Removal of the Choctaw Indians. Knoxville, (TN: Univ. of
Tennessee Press, 1989), 159.
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cholera-related deaths entirely. It is easy to look back and see the mistakes that were or were not
made, and faults are easy to see. Instead, it was the unfortunate concurrent cholera outbreak,
unsanitary conditions, and the unfortunate use of riverboats to facilitate time in an attempt to not
only save money but also lives that drastically attributed to the catastrophic death rate of the
American Indian on the Trail of Tears.
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Bibliography
"Cherokee Removal Chronicle, 1830-1839." Family Stories from the Trail of Tears (taken from
the Indian-Pioneer History Collection, Grant Foreman, Editor) [a Machine-readable
Transcription]. Accessed November 17, 2018. https://ualrexhibits.org/trailoftears/indianremoval/cherokee-removal-chronicle-1830-1839/#1832.
"Choctaw Removal Chronicle, 1830-1849." Family Stories from the Trail of Tears (taken from
the Indian-Pioneer History Collection, Grant Foreman, Editor) [a Machine-readable
Transcription]. Accessed October 07, 2018. https://ualrexhibits.org/trailoftears/indianremoval/choctaw-removal-chronicle-1830-1849/#1832.
Baird, William David. Peter Pitchlynn, Chief of the Choctaws. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1972.
DeRosier, Arthur H. The Removal of the Choctaw Indians. Knoxville, TN: Univ. of Tennessee
Press, 1989.
Frerichs, Ralph R. "Who First Discovered Vibrio Cholera?" Who First Discovered Cholera?
Accessed October 30, 2018.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html.
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"Journal of S.T. Cross - Choctaw Removal, 1832." Family Stories from the Trail of Tears (taken
from the Indian-Pioneer History Collection, Grant Foreman, Editor) [a Machine-readable
Transcription]. n.d. Edited by Little Rock University of Arkansas. Accessed October 1,
2018. https://ualrexhibits.org/trailoftears/eyewitness-accounts/journal-of-st-crosschoctaw-removal-1832/.
Littlefield, Daniel F., and James W. Parins. Encyclopedia of American Indian Removal. Vol. 2. 2
vols. Primary Documents. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011.
Mann, Barbara Alice. The Tainted Gift: The Disease Method of Frontier Expansion. Santa
Monica, CA: Praeger, 2009.
Macnamara, Nottidge Charles. A History of Asiatic Cholera. London: Macmillan, 1876.
MacPherson J. Annals of Cholera from the Earliest Periods to the Year 1817, ed 2. London: HK
Lewis, 1884.
Morris, Robert D. The Blue Death: The Intriguing Past and Present Danger of the Water You
Drink. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.
Peters, Stephanie True. Cholera: Curse of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Benchmark
Books, 2005.
Pyle, G.F. 2010. "The Diffusion of Cholera in the United States in the Nineteenth Century." The
Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering. September 03. Accessed October 02, 2018.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1969.tb00605.x/abstract.
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“The Cholera was still prevailing, with little or no abatement among the Cherokee emigrants
encamped,” Cherokee Phoenix, Volume 5, Number 52; Published May 31, 1834.
Accessed October 23, 2018.
https://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CherokeePhoenix/Vol5/no52cherokeephoenix-page-2-column-3b.html.