If your people had a history of dying from infectious diseases brought by settlers, you would protect your lands and people too.

Feel like I want to expound on this tweet & history, since there’s so many more of you now, and damn near guaranteed you haven’t learned it because colonizer history lessons.

I’m from one of the people I’m referencing here. I am a descendant of a Native Nation nearly wiped out.

I am a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation in ND. Even the fact that I’m from a Nation of three distinct Tribes is connected to the impact of introduced diseases on my Tribe. The Three Affiliated Tribes, as we are known federally, came to be one Tribe

because our separate Nations were decimated by smallpox. We came to live together to provide protection and support for each other.

1837 was a year unimaginable for our people. So much so that I heard stories even as a child of what happened in those days. The horror of that

disease stuck with generations of my people, and we’re handed down, as a cautionary tale, and as a demonstration of how we must look after one another.

That year smallpox came up the Missouri via riverboats, brought by white traders.

The Hidatsa and the Mandan, with little to no natural immunity, saw absolute apocalyptic type decimation. Once one of the largest trading Tribes along the Missouri, a powerhouse driver of that economy, Hidatsa people lost upwards of 2/3 of their population.

The Mandan faced a near extinction level event over the course of a few months. It is estimated that over 90% of the Mandan people died. So many died so quickly, that after a time there weren’t enough people to dispose of the bodies.

Nine out of ten Mandan people succumbed to the disease. Many of the survivors were cast into such despair at these losses, they killed themselves, something that was virtually unheard of prior to this.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because you need to hear it. You need to know. I’ve stated before that I do not wish to compare COVID to what my Tribal people have survived, however I do want to convey that this history is damn near imprinted on my DNA.

It has been generations since it happened, but it echoes in our history. In fact my Tribe’s leadership points to it as a guidance in these times right now, and I’m glad they are. They are trying to protect our elders, our languages, & lifeways.