Significance that affected the entire country. And not simply an unfortunate policy carried out by a single president. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website, cspan. Org histor cspan. Org history. The president s just released in paperback. Presents biographies of every president. Visit our website, cspan. Org thepresident s and order your academy today, wherever books are sold. Next, American History tv speaks with history professor paul kelton about the spread of cholera in the 1800s. And how it affected native americans. Paul kelton, professor of history at Stony Brooke University and the author of a number of books, including epidemics and enslavements, lets talk about the cholera epidemic. First of all, what was it and how widespread was it in the 1800s . Well, the cholera epidemic was one of the first global epidemics that started cholera is a disease thats endemic to south asia and it spread out of south asia into europe. And theres a major epidemic of it in 1830, 1831, 1832 spread across europe. So americans saw this coming or heard about it through newspapers. Rises in the americas in 1832 and spreads throughout north america in 1832. Still remains in circulation in 18 1833 and 1834. So it was a global pandemic, affecting many of people. What was it . What were the symptoms . What was the prognosis if you got cholera . Well, you wouldnt want to get it, for sure. Its a bacterial disease that spread through the water, through fecal contaminated water and it quickly incubates in the body and creates massive diarrhea. So within a sixhour period, one would lose massive amounts of fluid. And the body would go into spasms and turn blue. And that was one of the telltale signs, because the body organs start to shut down with massive dehydration, the body turns blue. And then death could ensue within six hours of getting the disease. Now, not everyone died, but it certainly was very devastating, deadly disease. And it was a very the symptoms were very telling, so people knew what it was. Was there any treatment . Where we would treat it today would be through rehydration. And there are, of course, antibiotics, as well. But in the 1830s, no one understood that. They didnt understand, you know, the body losing water and rehydration was needed. So heroic medicine was resorted to doses of mercury, opium, and even bleeding, which did not help at all. So theres really no treatment and the medical establishment didnt understand the disease. It was very perplexing to them. But if they knew what it was, they knew how it was spread, through the water well, they didnt exactly know that. Oh, they didnt . No. My question is, could they have prevented it . There was quite a debate going on with the medical establishment believing it was some kind of atmospheric disease, that it was a combination of perhaps a toxic atmosphere blending with miasma, decaying, vegetative matter. And that particularly hit people that had bad habits worse than others, whereas the intemperant, the filthy, the malnourished, the poor were seen as susceptible to the disease. But it confounded them, because the disease did spread through boat traffic, and this was kique obvious. And even some of the affluent who supposedly had better habits also person ished as well. So they couldnt make much sense of it. And because they couldnt make much sense of it, the medical profession takes a step back. Because of the epidemic, theres a number of states that, i guess, they take back regulations on who could become a doctor, because the doctors proved pretty inept during the epidemic. You said it began to wane in 1833, around that time in the u. S. . Yeah, 1834, i believe, is probably the last case of cholera for about another 15 years. And then in the 1840s, it comes back. What happened in 1832, 33, 34 . How did it dissipate . This is the focus of what im working on now is how it spread. It clearly spread from immigrants coming to the United States packed aboard ocean liners that are in unsanitary conditions. Then it spread along steamboat traffic, through the eerie canal, the great lakes, down the ohio. And what im looking at is how the interstate slave trade spread the disease. How thousands of enslaved africanamericans are being put aboard these filthy steamboats, moved down to the Lower Mississippi valley where they could be sold. At the same time, you have indian removal going on, where thousands of Indigenous Peoples are being forced from their homelands to the west. And those two forms of human traffic intercept in the Mississippi Valley and spread the disease further to the west. It dissipates as it works its way through that traffic, as indian removal slackens and it had impacted most of the United States. So what groups were most susceptible . The groups well, all groups were susceptible. And i think thats where i come in with my particular expertise and talk about how cholera is a disease thats often listed as one of these new diseases that europeans brought to Indigenous Peoples. And Indigenous Peoples are often written in history books as the more susceptible to these new diseases. But everyone was susceptible. Africanamericans, euro americans and Indigenous People. In other words, inherently susceptible. No one had acquired immunity to the disease. No one had any particular kind of genetic makeup that would allow them to escape the disease better than others. Susceptibility would be a factor of the Living Conditions that youre in. Did you have access to healthy, clean water . If you did, you were more than likely to not become infected. So the wealthy would be able to escape places like new york city and move out into the countryside, temporarily, so that they wouldnt be infected, whereas the poor living in the city would be more susceptible. Indigenous peoples who were being forced from their homeland, being forced on to steamboats at the very time this epidemic, theyre susceptible. Why are they susceptible . Because theyre being ethnically cleansed from their homelands, whereas Indigenous People who are remained in their homelands were not as susceptible. Africanamericans living on plantations perhaps werent as susceptible as those being sold down the river at the time. Andrew jackson was in the white house during part of this time. Did he have any response . He got out of washington, d. C. During the epidemic, because washington, d. C. Was kind of in the crosshairs of the epidemic, as well. He knew the disease was coming. It was interesting that that Martin Van Buren was in england in 1931. Its writing letters back to jackson about the cholera epidemic. And he like most americans didnt understand, you know, why the disease spread, how it spread. At one time, he believes its an atmospheric disease thats not going to spread to the south. Or when it spread to the south, he realizes that, well, yes, this is spreading. He worries about his own family. That traveling through the hermitage, telling them to be careful. He believes, i think, like a lot of americans, that susceptibility would be, you know, someone that had poor diet. That ate a lot of raw vegetables, considered, you know, a poor diet. Or intemperate. And anxiety, which i found very interesting about jackson is that hes telling his family, you know, to remain calm, because anxiety will drive up more, but at the same time hes pursuing this policy that is scaring the death out of Indigenous Peoples. Theyre having to leave a land that they knew or were very familiar with to a strange land. And being forced into these conditions. If any people of the United States at the time had to be anxious, it was Indigenous Peoples. Its the very reason that he thought that they were being that drove up mortality rates. Theres no national response. Not like we would have today. You know, it was all on a local basis, how people were responding. And the media is still very local. How did americans get their news on this . Yes, media was very local. Newspapers would pick up stories from other newspapers and just rep print them, so we do have a pretty good clear indication of how the disease spread. And local communities would form Health Boards. The Health Boards to clean up the neighborhoods, to disinfect boats, to enact quarantine. And so that was kind of the response from the local level. Were citizens demanding more of a federal response . Did they expect the government would be more proactive . Very interesting. Before the epidemic actually happened, concerned citizens asked president jackson to declare a day of fasting and prayer. And he refused to do it on constitutional grounds. Thats basically the extent to which the federal government would have done anything at the time. I dont think ordinary people were expecting the federal government to do anything about this epidemic. They were expecting their local governments to do that. If you lived in a port city, to quarantine affected ships. Or if you lived in detroit, i think, is another example where the local, you know, local people are demanding that no more ships come in to steam ships come into detroit. That interfered with commerce. And so local businesses, people in commerce, they wouldnt had a vested interest in subscribing to the kind of atmospheric explanation of cholera. That this wasnt a contagious disease. Whereas ordinary people kind of want to hedge their bets and say, oh, this is a contagious disease. Lets do everything we can to avoid it. We are in sacramento. The organization of american historians. You presented this to your peers, your colleagues. What questions did they ask you . Well, i think theyre going to ask me theyre going to ask me, i hope, questions of how extensive this epidemic was among Indigenous Peoples. Im just talking about the choctaws in my paper. And that will allow me then to talk about how actually it was spread into the west, through indian removal and other processes and affected groups like the osage, who lived in missouri, kansas, and oklahoma at the time. And it affected groups in kansas that were being removed into kansas, like the sackenfox and the kickapoo. And it will allow me then to talk about how indian removal is an epidemiological nightmare for Indigenous Peoples. And what we knew, obviously, is that a lot of Indigenous People died of indian removal, but its kind of just in a very general way. But we know specifically the diseases they died from, how the process of indian removals fostered the spread of those diseases, and led to Indigenous Peoples having being very vulnerable to them. Is that in your book cherokee medicine and colonial germs . It is actually not. And thats why am pursuing this further. That i had originally planned on a chapter on indian removal, but cholera becomes the main story. And where my cherokee medicine book was focused on small box. So i didnt put that in the book. The indian removal aspect, because i thought it was a little bit, you know, tangential to the story i was telling there. So this is a larger story on indian removal that i think i will tell. How do you research the cholera epidemic . By the way, what does the name cholera mean. Do you know where the word comes from . You know, i dont. I think i read it, its greek origins, but i cant recall off the top of my head. Thats kind of one of those gotcha questions. But in terms of researching the topic, where do you go . Indian removal is actually a process that created quite a paper trail. The agents that conducted indian removal, they had to make reports back to their superior, which was the george gibson, who was the u. S. Army officer, the general commissary general of subsis ta s s subsistance. Newspapers are reporting on this. And the indigenous voice, im having a little difficulty finding that for the chak tauoc. But the cherokees that are watching this, they have a newspaper, theyre writing about it. Theyre using that, as whats happening with the choctaws as a reason why to protest their own removal. So there is more of a paper trail than i can ever probably look at in my lifetime. What is missing, i think, though, is what other historians perhaps have overlooked is the indigenous voice and how do we get that. And ill try to look hard for that. Why is this your passion . Why is this my passion . Um, i think in a very general sense, americans know what happened to Indigenous Peoples. That they were forced off their land to reservations in the west. I dont think americans fully know the traumatic toll that that took on Indigenous Peoples. And the legacy of that for American History. The legacy of this story is one that america perhaps is not as an exceptional nation as a lot of people like to believe. That in america, we have a process that happened of ethnic cleansing and Human Trafficking that are global processes, that still go on today. And so thats part of the american story, that makes us part of a global history, that we immediate to understand if were going to really try to deal with these issues in the present world. Author and professor, paul kelton, from stony brook university, good luck with the book. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv. During the week while members of congress are in their districts during the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight, programs on the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern with an hourlong program, looking back at the morning of the attack. The investigation, and the arrest of the perpetrators. And how the attack has been remembered. American history tv, now and over the weekend, on