The Smallpox Chiefs: Bioterrorism and Power in the Pacific Northwest

Friends of the BC Archives Speaker Series

This presentation examines one probable origin of the commonly told story in the past and today that smallpox was deliberately spread by Whites in the process of colonizing the Pacific Northwest. While there is one documented attempt in the Pacific Northwest to trade smallpox- infected blankets into an Indigenous population, there are at least 10 documented examples of European leaders threatening to spread smallpox as a punishment for past or potential actions by Indigenous people. Sometimes a smallpox epidemic followed these threats. This presentation will look at the circumstances and the effects of these threats.

Meet the Speaker: John Lutz

John Lutz is a professor of History at the University of Victoria. His research focuses on Indigenous-settler relations and the history of racism in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations, a co-editor of the collection Towards a New Ethnohistory: Community Engaged Scholarship Among the People of the River and a co-editor of To Share Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. He currently works with the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations on their litigation efforts to enforce their treaty rights.