Paul Kelton is Professor of History at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He is the author of Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715.
Historians have long written that American Indian populations were
helpless before the onslaught of European microbes. In this
definitive analysis of early Cherokee history, Paul Kelton lays the
simplistic virgin soil theory to rest and shows that epidemics of
smallpox and other pathogens were not the inevitable result of
European arrival. Instead, they took root amid the devastation
unleashed by European colonization. The Cherokees, too, were not
hapless victims, but exhibited resilience and creativity by
integrating new diseases into their cosmology and medical practices
to reduce exposure and control outbreaks. Kelton's meticulously
researched account rewrites an important part of the history of
early America."" - David S. Jones, author of Rationalizing
Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since
1600
""This book joins distinguished scholarship on early American
Indian history that is centered on the Indian experience and
revises historians' knowledge of a time and place they thought they
knew well."" - H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social
Sciences
""Cherokee Medicine…will lead scholars to reexamine how they
understand and write about epidemic disease."" - Journal of
Southern History
""He puts colonists' often vague and unsubstantiated references to
apocalyptic sickness under a microscope….Kelton demonstrates how
close, rigorous analysis proves that Native responses to smallpox
were varied, innovative (including the use of quarantine and
vaccination), and often effective….Excellent."" - Choice
""Of the many new insights that Kelton contributes, none is more
important than the Cherokee response to smallpox, which undermines
the narrative of Native peoples as passive victims….Kelton's work
is a much-needed antidote to prevailing 'narratives of disease'….""
- Ethnohistory
Ask a Question About this Product More... |