Indian Vaccination Act of 1832

Short description: Act to vaccinate Indian Americans for smallpox

The Indian Vaccination Act is a US federal law was passed by the US Congress in 1832.[1] The purpose of the act was to vaccinate the American Indians against smallpox to prevent the spread of the disease.

## History

The act was first passed on May 5, 1832. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, designed the act.[2] Members of Congress appropriated US$12,000 dollars (approximately $350,000 in current money) to vaccinate them.[3] By February 1, 1833, more than 17,000 Indians had been vaccinated.[4]

Congress allocated $12,000 for the entire program, to be administered by Indian agents and sub-agents. Some US army surgeons refused to participate due to the lack of funds, leaving agents themselves and others with no medical training to produce and administer vaccines.[5] However, not everyone was included. As a result, a few years later, smallpox killed 90% of the Mandan Indians, who had been excluded from the act.[6] It also excluded Hidatsas and Arikaras.[4]

## References

1. ↑ "U.S. vaccinates Native peoples on the frontier against smallpox - Timeline - Native Voices". National Institutes of Health. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/282.html.
2. ↑ Pearson, J. Diane (2003-08-28). "Lewis Cass and the Politics of Disease: The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832" (in en). Wíčazo Ša Review 18 (2): 9–35. doi:10.1353/wic.2003.0017. ISSN 1533-7901. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/46131.
3. ↑ Bloch Rubin, Ruth. "Public Health, Indian Removal, and the Growth of State Capacity, 1800-1850". University of Wisconsin–Madison. https://apw.polisci.wisc.edu/APW_Papers/Public Health Indian Removal and the Growth of State Capacity Revised Draft.pdf.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Section 2: Smallpox Among Indian Tribes | North Dakota Studies". https://www.ndstudies.gov/gr8/content/unit-ii-time-transformation-1201-1860/lesson-4-alliances-and-conflicts/topic-1-smallpox-epidemics-1781-1837-1851/section-2-smallpox-among-indian-tribes.
5. ↑ SHRAKE, PETER (2012). "The Silver Man: JOHN H. KINZIE AND THE FORT WINNEBAGO INDIAN AGENCY". The Wisconsin Magazine of History 96 (2): 9–10. ISSN 0043-6534. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24399556. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
6. ↑ Pearson, J. Diane (1997). The politics of disease: The Indian Vaccination Act, 1832. American Indian studies at the University of Arizona (Thesis). Retrieved 2020-03-30.

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