Indian Vaccination Act of 1832

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

The Indian Vaccination Act is a US federal law was passed by the US Congress in 1832.[1] The purpose of the act was to vaccinate the American Indians against smallpox to prevent the spread of the disease.

History[edit]

The act was first passed on May 5, 1832. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, designed the act.[2] Members of Congress appropriated US$12,000 dollars (approximately $400,000 in current money) to vaccinate them.[3] By February 1, 1833, more than 17,000 Indians had been vaccinated.[4]

Congress allocated $12,000 for the entire program, to be administered by Indian agents and sub-agents. Some US army surgeons refused to participate due to the lack of funds, leaving agents themselves and others with no medical training to produce and administer vaccines.[5] However, not everyone was included. As a result, a few years later, smallpox killed 90% of the Mandan Indians, who had been excluded from the act.[6] It also excluded Hidatsas and Arikaras.[4]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "U.S. vaccinates Native peoples on the frontier against smallpox - Timeline - Native Voices". National Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
  2. ^ Pearson, J. Diane (2003-08-28). "Lewis Cass and the Politics of Disease: The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832". Wíčazo Ša Review. 18 (2): 9–35. doi:10.1353/wic.2003.0017. ISSN 1533-7901. S2CID 154875430.
  3. ^ Bloch Rubin, Ruth. "Public Health, Indian Removal, and the Growth of State Capacity, 1800-1850" (PDF). American Politics Workshop. University of Wisconsin–Madison. Retrieved 29 March 2020.
  4. ^ a b "Section 2: Smallpox Among Indian Tribes | North Dakota Studies". North Dakota Studies. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
  5. ^ SHRAKE, PETER (2012). "The Silver Man: JOHN H. KINZIE AND THE FORT WINNEBAGO INDIAN AGENCY". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 96 (2): 9–10. ISSN 0043-6534. JSTOR 24399556. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  6. ^ Pearson, J. Diane (1997). The politics of disease: The Indian Vaccination Act, 1832. American Indian studies at the University of Arizona (Thesis). Retrieved 2020-03-30.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indian_Vaccination_Act_of_1832&oldid=1192660099"