Annual Report Of The Commissioner Of Indian Affairs To The Secretary Of The Interior

In a letter to G.W. Manypenny, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Superintendent of the Northern Superintendency, Francis Huebschman, reports that the Michigan Indians are starving and that nearly 1/4 of the tribe has died from smallpox. In a letter to W.A. Gorman, Governor of Minnesota Territory and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the Indian Agent J.E. Fletcher reports that the Assiniboines are short on food and are eating the flesh of their dogs and horses. He has had the Indians under his charge vaccinated. In a letter to General J.E. Fletcher, the physician F. Andrews, M.D. reports that the Winnebagos' physical condition is deteriorating and that the most common and fatal diseases are those of the digestive and respiratory organs, e.g., scrofula. Other afflictions are syphilitic rheumatism and opththalmia. In a letter from ? at the Choctaw Agency to ???, one learns that only a few cases of cholera have occurred among the Choctaw; eight or nine were vaccinated by a Dr. Suckley. A separate entry [unknown author] addresses the Yakimas and the Tlingits and their smallpox and their treatment of it with a root of a species of iris. Another section states that the major ailments of the northwest coast and northern California Indians are smallpox and starvation.