The Smallpox Chiefs: Bioterrorism and the Exercise of Power in the Pacific Northwest

Abstract

Although there has been much writing and speculation on the deliberate use of smallpox as a tool of genocide, this article documents the use of the bluff threat of spreading smallpox as a tool of power and manipulation in the early days of European trade and settlement in the Pacific Northwest. By documenting ten cases when a bluff threat was used, the article argues that it was a common strategy of Europeans when they felt threatened or thwarted. Because it was compatible with existing Indigenous beliefs about the spread of disease, it was highly credible and was occasionally used by Indigenous people to manipulate others. While Europeans in this era did not actually have the power to control smallpox, the fact that outbreaks of the disease often occurred following a threat to spread it gave credence to the threat and to today’s widespread belief that some or all of the epidemics were deliberate genocide. Recognizing bluff threat bioterrorism as a tool in the newcomer’s arsenal is essential to understanding how the heavily outnumbered and out-gunned newcomers were so often able to manipulate Indigenous people and then establish the settlements that eventually evolved into full scale colonial occupations of Indigenous territory.