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UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 © Copyright by Paul Kelton 1998 All Rights Reserved NOT ALL DISAPPEARED: DISEASE AND SOUTHEASTERN INDIAN SURVIVAL, 1500-1800 A Dissertation APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY > - Acknowledgements Many people have given me generous support as I have indulged my passion for historical study. I must start with my wife Helen, who has waited selflessly and patiently while I have completed my degree. Without her love and support, I would not have had the courage to finish the long and arduous task of obtaining the Ph.D. At the University of Oklahoma, my fellow graduate students have been both friends and intelligent colleagues. I particularly owe a debt of gratitude to Megan Benson, Jay Dew, Lorien Foote, Ron Green, Lance Janda, and Brad Raley, who have read portions of the manuscript and prevented me from making some embarrassing blunders. The Members of my dissertation committee, Gary Anderson, Paul Gilje, Don Pisani, Terry Rugeley, Cameron Wesson, and Charles Hays, have always shown interest in my project and have offered encouragement and much needed critical insight along the way. I especially want to thank Dr. Charles Hays for reserving time for me in his busy schedule at the Indian Health Services. Our long conversations on the nature of diseases have certainly enriched this project. IV I obtained much of the source material for this project through the prompt and courteous services of the interlibrary loan staff at the University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Library. John Lovett and his staff were always gracious in facilitating my research in the University of Oklahoma's Western History Collections. What sources I could not obtain in Norman, I found in the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division. Travel to Washington, D.C. was made possible by generous grants from the University of Oklahoma Humanities Center Board and the American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund for Native American Research. Finally, I want to thank my family in Chelsea, Oklahoma. Eleven years of higher education taught me a great deal, but my father and mother. Bill and Sue Kelton, provided the most important lessons in life, and for that I am eternally grateful. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................... i v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................. vii ABSTRACT ........... ix INTRODUCTION ................................... 1 1. THE LAND OF CHIEFDOMS ........................... 23 2. FALSE DAWN TO EPIDEMIOLOGICAL HOLOCAUST..........80 3. THE GREAT SOUTHEASTERN SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC ...... 155 4. THE INEQUALITY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EPIDEMICS ............................... 213 5. THE IMPERIAL FOUR NATIONS .......... 277 6. SURVIVAL OF THE FOUR NATIONS ...................335 EPILOGUE ......................................... ...395 VI Abbreviations BPROSC Records in the British Public Records Office Relating to South Carolina, ed. W. Noel Sainsbury, 36 vols, microfilm. Columbia, B.C., 1955. CRG Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, ed. Allen D. Candler. 26 vols. Atlanta, 1904. CRNC The Colonial Records of North Carolina, ed. William L. Saunders. 10 vols. New York, 1886-1890. CO Colonial Office. Public Record Office. London. Photostats, transcripts, and microfilm in the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division. Washington, D.C. PRIA Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, May 21, 1750 - August 7, 1754, and Documents Relating to Indian Affairs,1754-1765. ed. William L. McDowell, Jr. Columbia, S.C., 1958, 1970. DSC The De Soto Chronicles : The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to the United States, 1539-1543. ed. Langdon Clayton and Vernon Knight. 2 vols. Tuscaloosa, 1993. HCL Historical Collections of Louisiana ed. B.F. French. 5 vols. New York, 1846-75. HCSC Historical Collections of South Carolina, ed. Bartholomew R. Carroll. 2 vols. New York, 1836. JCHASC The Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina. ed. Alexander S. Salley, 21 vols. Columbia, S.C., 1907-1949. JHPP The John Howard Payne Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago, microfilm. JPE The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolines and Tennessee, 1566-1568. ed. Charles Hudson with documents relating to the Pardo Expedition transcribed, translated, and annotated by Paul E. Hoffman. Washington, 1990. LP The Luna Papers, ed. and trans., Herbert Priestly, 2 vols. Deland, Fla., 1928. vu MPAFD Mississippi Provincial Archives, French Dominion, ed. Dunbar Rowland, A.G. Sanders, and Patricia Galloway. 5 vols. Jackson, Ms., 1927-1932 and 1984. MPAED Mississippi Provincial Archives, English Dominion, ed. Dunbar Rowland. Nashville, 1911. NAW New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612. ed. David B. Quinn. 5 vols. New York, 1979. WE Westward Expansion. Colonial Office. Class Five Files, 1700-1783. British Public Record Office. University Publications of America, microfilm. University of Oklahoma, Western History Collections. viu Abstract Following the introduction of European and African diseases. Native Americans suffered dramatic population loss. The four powerful confederacies of the interior Southeast, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, however, withstood the epidemiological onslaught. How these groups survived repeated epidemics is the central question of this dissertation. Southeastern Indian survival depended on four factors. First, smallpox came relatively late to the Southeast, failing to become epidemic until the 1690s. Second, when epidemics struck with full force after the 1690s, Indians were not affected equally. Geography and the nature of diseases gave interior confederacies advantages over coastal, piedmont, and Mississippi Valley groups. Third, the Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws were able to compensate for population loss by absorbing, capturing, or conquering smaller groups. Fourth, the Southeastern Indians took social and cultural actions that protected themselves from the full impact of epidemics. They enacted quarantines within a culturally-prescribed religious context and avoided certain areas that were experiencing epidemics. IX Introduction For Native Americans, the European invasion of the Americas created a tragedy of monumental proportions. Europeans and Africans carried a multitude of diseases, including measles, yellow fever, influenza, and smallpox, that American Indians had never before experienced. Indians, lacking acquired immunity, consequently suffered dramatic population loss from "virgin soil epidemics," or outbreaks occurring among a people who had no previous experience with a particular disease. Such demographic catastrophe has led some scholars to label this historical phenomenon a "holocaust.In the last two decades, historians, anthropologists, and demographers have debated the extent of post-contact ‘ Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). population collapse among Indians.^ Although their estimates vary, they nonetheless agree that virgin soil epidemics were highly significant in the development of Colonial America, exacting many Native American deaths and facilitating European conquest.^ Not all American Indians disappeared, however. Focusing almost exclusively on the factors that contributed to both Indian mortality and subsequent success of European settlement, historians have failed to show how some Native Americans survived in the new disease environment. This dissertation seeks to redress this failure. Specifically, it explains how the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, or the Four Nations as they were collectively known in the late