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Authors: Coll-Peter Thrush
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suggested, might, “regardless of our authorities so-called, take the matter in their own hands and adopt that vigorous course in the premises which is needed.” The heated rhetoric of the Daily Intelligencer reflected the near hysteria that swept Seattle during smallpox visitations. In March 1877, for example, some “evil disposed person” raised the standard of contagion, a yellow flag, in the window of a tenement on Mill Street. The paper described what happened next: “several timid persons . . . plunged off the sidewalk into the mud, and shied away like young fillies in their first hurdle.” Even a false alarm, as this turned out to be, could disrupt town life. 34
Meanwhile, real outbreaks continued. In May 1877, Mayor Gideon Weed, a physician by training, received a report of smallpox at Salmon Bay. He went to investigate and discovered that one Native woman had already died. Her relatives had buried her, burned her clothing and bedding, and then “quit the locality,” but Weed located them the next day along the Duwamish and had them placed under armed guard in a “pest house” on the ridge between Seattle and Lake Washington. Their fate is lost to history, but the incident was a great boost to the reputation of Mayor Weed, who was lauded in the press as having done “much more than could even have been asked or expected of him in that official capacity.” It also inspired a new policy: during smallpox outbreaks, the police would prevent all Indians from entering Seattle “so far as is practicable.” But quarantines and exclusion did not prevent Native communities from carrying more than their share of smallpox's burden. In the twelve months leading up to July 1877, for example, there were eighteen cases of the disease in Seattle, twelve white and six Indian; nine ofthe whites recovered while only one Indian did. More indigenous people living in and around Seattle died in the next twelve months; the encampment at Smith's Cove was hit particularly badly. Settlers discovered a number of Indian bodies there, buried in shallow graves with their broken guns. Not long after, the remains of a man identified as “the son of Old Moses” were found jammed in a trunk north of town, spurring another round of vaccinations among settlers who “may have fooled around the tainted spot.” Although smallpox was heading into decline as a major cause of mortality among both Indians and settlers, it remained on many Bostons' minds in the late 1870s as one of the gravest dangers presented by indigenous people in the urban landscape. 35
Smallpox was one danger; fire was another. In the nineteenth century, fire was perhaps the ultimate urban fear: again and again, cities throughout the industrializing world had experienced devastating fires that often changed the course of their history in profound ways. In Seattle Illahee, fears of fire combined with anxieties about Indians to spawn a second apocalyptic discourse. In short, many settlers—and in particular, those in charge of the newspapers—were convinced that Native people were going to burn the town down. One 1878 editorial, for example, described the Lava Beds as a “tinder box, all primed and charged as it were, and ready to explode without a moment's warning in a wholesale conflagration.” After a “narrow escape” in September, the Daily Intelligencer posited that “in time of peace it is best to prepare for war” and called for the building of water tanks and the hiring of night watchmen to patrol the Lava Beds and Indian camps. But for some, the best way to deal with the fire danger was simply to get rid of the Native encampments on the flats near Main Street. Not only were their inhabitants “an element too indecent to be tolerated within the city limits,” said one editorial, but their bonfires threatened the “whole business portion of town.” “There is also an old ‘siwash’ shanty situated further down the reef, and near the old
Meanwhile, real outbreaks continued. In May 1877, Mayor Gideon Weed, a physician by training, received a report of smallpox at Salmon Bay. He went to investigate and discovered that one Native woman had already died. Her relatives had buried her, burned her clothing and bedding, and then “quit the locality,” but Weed located them the next day along the Duwamish and had them placed under armed guard in a “pest house” on the ridge between Seattle and Lake Washington. Their fate is lost to history, but the incident was a great boost to the reputation of Mayor Weed, who was lauded in the press as having done “much more than could even have been asked or expected of him in that official capacity.” It also inspired a new policy: during smallpox outbreaks, the police would prevent all Indians from entering Seattle “so far as is practicable.” But quarantines and exclusion did not prevent Native communities from carrying more than their share of smallpox's burden. In the twelve months leading up to July 1877, for example, there were eighteen cases of the disease in Seattle, twelve white and six Indian; nine ofthe whites recovered while only one Indian did. More indigenous people living in and around Seattle died in the next twelve months; the encampment at Smith's Cove was hit particularly badly. Settlers discovered a number of Indian bodies there, buried in shallow graves with their broken guns. Not long after, the remains of a man identified as “the son of Old Moses” were found jammed in a trunk north of town, spurring another round of vaccinations among settlers who “may have fooled around the tainted spot.” Although smallpox was heading into decline as a major cause of mortality among both Indians and settlers, it remained on many Bostons' minds in the late 1870s as one of the gravest dangers presented by indigenous people in the urban landscape. 35
Smallpox was one danger; fire was another. In the nineteenth century, fire was perhaps the ultimate urban fear: again and again, cities throughout the industrializing world had experienced devastating fires that often changed the course of their history in profound ways. In Seattle Illahee, fears of fire combined with anxieties about Indians to spawn a second apocalyptic discourse. In short, many settlers—and in particular, those in charge of the newspapers—were convinced that Native people were going to burn the town down. One 1878 editorial, for example, described the Lava Beds as a “tinder box, all primed and charged as it were, and ready to explode without a moment's warning in a wholesale conflagration.” After a “narrow escape” in September, the Daily Intelligencer posited that “in time of peace it is best to prepare for war” and called for the building of water tanks and the hiring of night watchmen to patrol the Lava Beds and Indian camps. But for some, the best way to deal with the fire danger was simply to get rid of the Native encampments on the flats near Main Street. Not only were their inhabitants “an element too indecent to be tolerated within the city limits,” said one editorial, but their bonfires threatened the “whole business portion of town.” “There is also an old ‘siwash’ shanty situated further down the reef, and near the old
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