R. Boyd, disease, effect on NW language history? (Fwd from K. Carlson)

[David D. Robertson]

Hello Dave,

I've been enjoying the discussions on this list.  the last question you
raised deals with a topic I have some background on, and so i thought
I'd join in.

First, i should say that I am a great admirer of Boyd's work, and am
especially grateful to him for raising awareness of the need to study
disease on the North West Coast.  However, I disagree with certain of
his conclusions, particularly those concerning a 1801-2 epidemic in the
lower fraser region.  The evidence simply is not there, and there are
better ways to read the evidence that does exist.  I've discussed this
in a couple of publications, but you can also find a similar critique
in some of the writings of R. Cole Harris where he engages Boyd in a
bit of a debate.

Relatedly, on the social impact of smallpox, the co-authored article
that Boyd contributed to is also problematic, and I'd point to the very
effective critique Sasha Harman constructed in Chapter 3 (4?) of her
book Indians in the Making.

Anyway, I raise this issue because it points to the evidence for a
series of epidemics that did not necessarily cover the entire coast
each time, and which necessarily had differing social impacts as well
as demographic effects.  This, I think is crucial to understanding the
role of disease and its impacts.

population densities were much greater in the Chinook and Salish
regions of the coast prior to the 1782 epidemic.  Thereafter, the more
northern Nuu chal nulth and kwakwakawakw regions were still relatively
densely populated and the Columbia-Puget/Georgia basin much less so.

The depopulation of this area vis a vis the north occurred
simultaneously with the decline in the maritime fur trade, and the
shift of the remaining trade from Nootka Sound to nawittee and the
Queen Charlotes.  The European traders brought Chinook jargon with them
up the coast as they followed the shrinking sea otter population, and
left behind a region of human depopulation and environmental
degradation.  At the same time, the Chinook-Salish people were inclined
to seek more strictly indigenous avenues of communication to sustain
the inter-tribal linkages they had expanded during the maritime fur
trade, and to accommodate themselves to the human and social vacuum
left in smallpox wake.

In short, disease and declining fur resources together probably
contributed to the spread of Chinook jargon in two separate regions in
two separate ways.  Then, the land based fur trade (Vancouver Wa,
Langley etc) that emerged in teh early 19th century greatly supplements
this process, especially as the two main coastal forts became sites for
furs from the interior plateau to be collected before shipping
overseas.  Employees, native and non-native, were suddenly being
shifted between HBC posts on a regular basis and Chinook jargon became
the lingua franca of an interior-to-coast communication system, rather
than just on the outer coast.

THis, at least, is how it appears to me.

Hope this is useful.

Keith