Professor Barbara Mann Testifies in Ward Churchill's Lawsuit Trial

"Turkey Lurkey told me," said Gander Pander.
"Goosey Poosey told me," said Turkey Lurkey. "Ducky Daddies told me," said Goosey Poosey. "Cocky Locky told me," said Ducky Daddies. "Henny Penny told me," said Cocky Locky. "Chicken Little told me," said Henny Penny."A piece of it fell on my head," cried Chicken Little, "and we are going to tell the King."--"Chicken Little"

I think the children's story "Chicken Little" shows what happens when scholars like Barbara Mann don't verify their sources when citing dishonest "scholars" like Ward Churchill: A false story--a canard--spreads through our history.

Ward Churchill wrote anti-FBI propaganda in a KGB mouthpiece. He claimed that FBI-backed death squads killed 342 Indians. Ward Churchill has also penned increasingly elaborated canards about the American Army deliberately distributing smallpox-infected blankets to the Mandan Indians. Churchill's canard about smallpox blankets resembles the KGB's long-discredited canard that the U.S. Army invented AIDS to kill black people.

Scholars like Barbara Mann who cite Ward Churchill are uncritically repeating crude, unscientific propaganda that has its origins in the Medieval stories that Jews poisoned the wells of Christians with plague or that they kidnapped and murdered Christian children and used their blood to make matzoh.

According to the CDC:

Smallpox is usually spread from one person to another by infected saliva droplets that expose a susceptible person having face-to-face contact with the ill person...Rarely, smallpox virus has been spread from one person to another through airborne or fomite transmission [objects].

Reliable historical accounts report that the Mandan were infected by a sick passenger who arrived on a steamship. In The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian, E. Wagner Stearn and Allen E. Stearn write that an eyewitness named Francis A. Chardon claimed in his journal that an Indian stole a sick traveller's blanket. Chardon offered the Indian a new blanket if he would return the stolen one. (Stearn and Stearn p. 81). There is nothing in this book about the Army distributing infected blankets to the Mandan. [For Churchill's misuse of books by the Stearns and other scholars, see Thomas Brown, "Did the U.S. Army Distribute Smallpox Blankets to Indians? Fabrication and Falsification in Ward Churchill’s Genocide Rhetoric" in Plagiary.]

The Mandan smallpox epidemic killed whites and Indians. It endangered the whites because the Indians blamed them for the illness.

A story about "mischief makers" telling Indians that whites were plotting to give them smallpox blankets is even reported in Stearns' The Effect of Smallpox on the Amerindian (1945), which Ward Churchill cites in A Little Matter of Genocide in his account of the British General Amherst's plot to infect Indians (Footnote 8, page 76).

In a discussion about the health effects on Indians of the construction of the Pacific Railroad, the Stearns report that some "mischief makers" tried to convince Indians that the whites planned to deliberately infect them with contaminated clothing:

Mischief makers tried to provoke the Indians against the whites by telling them that they were to be exterminated by smallpox, introduced in clothing sent to them. [ The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian (1945) by E. Wagner Stearn, Ph.D. and Allen E. Stearn, Ph.D. (102)]

Ward Churchill is a modern-day mischief maker who circulates fabricated canards about the U.S. Army using biological warfare against the Mandan.

College professor Barbara "Chicken Little" Mann seems to have changed her testimony as a witness for ex-professor Ward Churchill in his lawsuit against the University of Colorado. Ward Churchill is suing CU because he was fired from his position as a tenured professor due to research misconduct. (Hat Tip PirateBallerina, CNews 20March09)

Barbara Alice Mann is testifying as an expert on the so-called Mandan smallpox "genocide." She wrote about the Mandan epidemic in her book George Washington's War on Native America (Scroll to page 11).

In George Washington's War, Professor Mann claims:

In 1836...the [U.S.] government distributed smallpox blankets to the Mandans. (62)

Unfortunately for Professor Mann, footnote 62 refers the reader to Ward Churchill's book A Little Matter of Genocide. Scroll down to page 185 in George Washington's War to see footnote 62 in the citation.

Professor Mann also cites The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian, but it is hard to believe that Professor Mann has read the Stearns' book since her own book presents such an unbalanced history. [See her footnote 60 on page 185 in George Washington's War on Native America.]

The Daily Camera's Churchill Trial Blog (3-20-09) reports:

The morning began with testimony from Barbara Mann, an English professor from the University of Toledo who has researched the smallpox epidemic on the Upper Missouri River in the 1830s.

Churchill attorney David Lane read her words from her Feb. 6 interview. Her taped testimony was not able to be played for technical reasons.

She [testified in the 2-6-09 interview] that Churchill's claims about how the disease was spread -- primarily by the U.S. Army and with deliberate purpose -- have backing in the historical record.

The legal blog Race to the Bottom (3-20-09) reports that in her March 20, 2009 testimony that Professor Mann admitted she does not know if Churchill's claims have backing in the historical record:

CU’s attorney asked numerous times, and Professor Mann replied several times that she had not seen primary and secondary sources supporting Professor Churchill’s proposition that smallpox blankets were dispersed to the American Indians. She then clarified that “It doesn’t mean that [the primary or secondary source] doesn’t exist. It means I haven’t seen it.” The attorney established, by getting a positive response from Professor Mann, that “it is not appropriate” to fabricate facts that are not supported by primary and/or secondary sources supporting some of Professor Churchill’s propositions about the spreading of smallpox to the American Indian population.