1738–1739 North Carolina smallpox epidemic facts for kids

A very serious sickness called smallpox spread among the Cherokee people and other groups in North Carolina and South Carolina between 1738 and 1739. This sickness was especially bad in eastern North Carolina. It caused a lot of harm to the Cherokee and Catawba tribes, leading to the deaths of about half their populations. Many other Native American tribes also suffered greatly. Some European settlers and Africans also died during this time.

Because so many people died, the Cherokee had to leave many of their villages, especially in Georgia along the Chattooga, Tugaloo, and Chattahoochee rivers. The Cherokee people's population did not start to grow back until the late 1700s. It is thought that between 7,700 and 11,700 people died during this terrible sickness.

How the Sickness Spread

The smallpox sickness of 1738–1739 was important because it was one of the first times doctors widely used a method called inoculation to try and stop smallpox. Inoculation was an early way to protect people from the disease.

The sickness first arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, by ship. From there, it spread across North and South Carolina. A person named James Kilpatrick was very important in Charleston. He gave inoculations to between 800 and 1,000 people. Only eight of those people died, which showed that inoculation could be helpful.

An Irish historian named James Adair believed that the smallpox came from ships carrying enslaved people from West Africa. The sickness likely spread to the Cherokee from white traders in the summer of 1739. It might also have come from Spanish Florida. About 900 Cherokee warriors had joined the British to fight the Spanish in Florida in 1739. They might have brought the sickness back with them. Some Cherokee leaders believed their people were made sick by contaminated goods brought by white traders.

Impact on Native Communities

Thousands of Cherokee people died from the smallpox sickness. Cherokee healers tried to use their traditional medicines to fight the disease. They would make their patients sweat and then put them into a cold river. However, many Cherokee people died from the shock of this treatment. This made some Cherokee healers feel very sad and lose faith in their spiritual beliefs.

As the Cherokee people started to doubt their traditional spiritual beliefs because they didn't stop smallpox, it created an opportunity for Christian missionaries. These missionaries were working to share their faith with the Cherokee people.

The sickness was so damaging to the Waxhaw people that they left their homes in 1740. These lands are now in Union County, North Carolina. The remaining Waxhaw people joined with the Catawba tribe. After the Waxhaw left, their lands were settled by new people from England, Germany, Scotland, and Wales.