Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing
by Cynthia C. Wesley-Esquimaux, Ph.D. and Magdalena Smolewski, Ph.D.
by Cynthia C. Wesley-Esquimaux, Ph.D. and Magdalena Smolewski, Ph.D.
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Chapter 2<br />
Analyzing the <strong>Trauma</strong><br />
In the Americas <strong>and</strong> Oceania, by contrast contact-induced disease was as much a prelude<br />
to European domination as its aftermath. Here domination was facilitated, <strong>and</strong> even<br />
made possible, by the devastating p<strong>and</strong>emics that decimated <strong>and</strong> demoralized whole<br />
populations (Kunitz, 1994:3).<br />
Early Period: Cultural Transition - Physical Area of Impact<br />
The timing of initial contact with the colonizers, who slowly <strong>and</strong> methodically overwhelmed <strong>and</strong><br />
destroyed Indigenous societies, varied among the North American <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people. For the societies<br />
in the east, first contact may be dated around 1500. The <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people of Alaska met the settlers<br />
for the first time in 1740. According to Ubelaker (1988), the estimated population size of North<br />
American <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people in 1500 was 1,894,280, with a possible range from 1,213,475 to 2,638,900.<br />
Every hundred years that followed saw a rapid decline in the <strong>Aboriginal</strong> population: 1,801,080 in<br />
1600; 1,404,745 in 1700; 1,051,688 in 1800; 770,981 in 1850; <strong>and</strong> the lowest population size in 1900<br />
was 536,562. These figures represent a decline by over 1,364,00 persons or 72 per cent (Ubelaker,<br />
1988). The magnitude of this demographic collapse has been debated <strong>and</strong> some researchers even<br />
believe that the population decline across the Americas was over 90 per cent. Severe decline in the<br />
population size has been attributed to outbreaks of introduced infectious diseases, such as smallpox,<br />
measles <strong>and</strong> influenza, to which the <strong>Aboriginal</strong> population did not have immunity. In general, foodforaging<br />
populations throughout history had relatively low rates of infectious diseases due to their small<br />
population size <strong>and</strong> mobility (Dunn, 1968). Diseases that require larger contagious populations in<br />
order to be transmitted were probably non-existent until the introduction of agriculture <strong>and</strong> pre-industrial<br />
cities. These infectious diseases that first evolved in animal hosts domesticated in Europe, were not<br />
present in the western hemisphere <strong>and</strong> were brought to the Americas by the colonizers.<br />
Since the entire Indigenous population was exposed to these diseases <strong>and</strong> the majority of the exposed<br />
contracted the diseases, no one was left to care for the sick <strong>and</strong> no one to provide food or water. Often,<br />
several different infections were introduced at once or in quick succession. Traditional treatments did<br />
not work <strong>and</strong> there was no notion of quarantine. <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people did not know what caused the<br />
epidemics <strong>and</strong> could not find an effective cure. One researcher compared European contact with<br />
<strong>Aboriginal</strong> societies to a “biological war:”<br />
Smallpox was the captain of the men of death in that war, typhus fever the first lieutenant,<br />
<strong>and</strong> measles the second lieutenant. More terrible than the conquistadors on horseback,<br />
more deadly than sword <strong>and</strong> gunpowder, they made the conquest by the whites a walkover<br />
as compared with what it would have been without their aid. They were the forerunners<br />
of civilization, the companions of Christianity, the friends of the invader (Ashburn,<br />
1947:98 as cited in Joralemon, 1982:112).<br />
The <strong>Aboriginal</strong> societies who had the earliest <strong>and</strong> most frequent contact with Europeans were affected<br />
earlier <strong>and</strong> more severely than those populations who had later or little interaction with disease-carrying<br />
Europeans. According to Dobyns (1983), an outbreak was recorded as early as 1619, among coastal<br />
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