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Clifford Allen, tribal elder, tells of story of a mother and her son, and smallpox. Part 1 (Interviewed by Rodney Frey, November 2001) |
While the horse was welcomed into the Nimíipuu family, another Euro-American derived newcomer had a devastating effect. A series of smallpox epidemics, beginning in the 1780s and continuing through the 1850s, wrought disaster upon the Nimíipuu and all the Indian tribes of the region. There were no natural immunities to ward off these diseases. Besides smallpox, which was the most serious of the diseases, measles, scarlet fever, chickenpox and whooping cough took their toll. Spreading from the east with returning buffalo hunters and from the west up the Columbia River from white sea traders, entire Nimíipuu families, camps and villages were wiped out.
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Clifford Allen continues telling the story of a mother and her son, and smallpox. Part 2 (Interviewed by Rodney Frey, November 2001) |
Not only was there a tremendous loss of life, estimated to be up to half the entire Nimíipuu population, but with the death of elders came a loss in ceremonial and subsistence knowledge necessary to successfully journey the seasonal round, and with the death of infants came a generation that was not to be. One can not imagine the cries of grief coming from the grandmothers! When Lewis and Clark came across the Bitterroots in 1805, were among an estimated 6,000 Nimíipuu. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were less than 1,600 Nimíipuu.
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Clifford Allen continues telling the story of a mother and her son, and smallpox. Part 3 (Interviewed by Rodney Frey, November 2001) |
What occurred for the Nimíipuu occurred throughout the region. As a direct result of the epidemics that swept over the entire of the Columbia River Plateau region, of the over 100,000 inhabitants that populated the area prior to the introduction of the various diseases, by 1890 the Indian population was estimated to be only 17,000!
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Clifford Allen continues telling the story of a mother and her son, and smallpox. Part 4 (Interviewed by Rodney Frey, November 2001) |
© Nez Perce Tribe 2002
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