Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Coronavirus

Epidemic, Onondaga, 1918.

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How did the “Spanish Flu” epidemic that hit the United States in 1918 affect the Onondaga Nation? I cannot tell for sure, but going through the census records kept by the Interior Department and the State of New York has given me some ideas.

We know that the epidemic did great damage in Native American communities. One scholar estimated that more than 6200 Native peoples died from influenza in 1918, 2% of the total Native American population. The Seneca Jesse Cornplanter returned home from his service overseas during the first World War to learn that his parents, sister, brother-in-law, and two children had died. Joaqlin Estus’s piece in Indian Country Today from last February highlights some of the massive desolation, with a particular focus on Alaska Native communities. Estus mentions Harold Napoleon’s Yuuyaraq, one of the most powerful and important indigenous assessments of what the epidemic meant. I have assigned it to my students, and I encourage you to consider it as well.

In 1918 418 Onondagas lived on the Nation Territory located a bit to the south of Syracuse, New York. Another 128 Oneidas lived on the reservation. Between July 1, 1918 and June 30, 1919, nine Onondagas and seven Oneidas died. Some, like Mary Jones, were elderly, and some were very young, like Eliza Homer’s baby boy. Two had attended Carlisle. Jerry Homer I have written about on this blog in the past when I knew less about him. Eva Waterman was a popular rebel at the Boarding School, expelled for her behavior. She was a talented student, but O. H. Lipps, the school’s superintendent, wrote to Eva’s mother in 1913 to tell her that “because of continued misconduct your daughter Eva Waterman, will be returned to you tomorrow. Her influence for the bad,” Lipps continued, “is so great that I deem it advisable to separate her from the rest of our girls.” He said he was sorry that he had to do this. She was, according to one report of her outing, “impudent at times.” She had a smart mouth, and she made the other students laugh. She had influence. In a letter from “Behind the Bars” to “Dearest,” undated, Eva wrote from one of her outings to a friend back at Carlisle. She missed her friend, and she missed the school. She said that it was good to receive a loving letter from her because “the only kind I hear is these coarse, hoggish, indigestible commands.” A Carlisle investigator, looking into Eva’s complaints about one of her outing situations, found that she spent her time lying around in the hammock, playing croquet, and reading. She was impudent. She had little interest in farm work and she ran away. To me, she sounds like a teenager, a kid, who refused to take the adults around her seriously. But she needed to be broken. One of the matrons at Carlisle suggested that for Eva “all privileges might be taken away and work all day in the laundry might be required for a certain length of time and if possible she should be prevented from communicating with the girls and making herself a heroine instead of a failure.” It did not work and she was sent home. She spent some time living in Syracuse, and at other times she lived on the Nation Territory. She was still a young woman when she died.

The census records do not tell us the causes of death for these individuals. It is worthy of note that during this twelve-month period which contained the peaks of the influenza epidemic fewer people died than during the previous year. From July of 1917 until June 30 1918, twelve Onondagas and 9 Oneidas died. From July of 1916 to the end of June in 1917 thirteen Onondagas and three Oneidas died.

The evidence suggests that a fourth wave of the Spanish Flu hit New York City and other locations around the country early in 1920. And between July 1 1919 and June 30 1920, nineteen Onondagas and four Oneidas died. Some of the relatively large number of Onondagas who died had lived long lives. Joshua Pierce was in his mid-90s. Mary BigBear and Abner Printup both had been born in 1836. Others were struck down in middle age. Nine of the Onondagas who died were under thirty years old. Lavina Hill and Lena Jacobs both were around five years old. David George and the “Baby Isaacs” were just one. Bernice Jacobs, George Archie Logan, and Florence Tallchief all were teenagers.

Other diseases, or accidents, could have killed people. Life could be fragile in the early twentieth century. Death could strike suddenly. Tuberculosis was a steady enemy of Indigenous peoples’ health. There is much we cannot know, but the leap in the number of Onondaga deaths between 1918-19 and 1919-20 is striking. Nearly twenty people dying in a community of a bit more than 400 would have been felt acutely, especially with the deaths of so many young people who should have had so many more years to live. These deaths, however, did not draw the attention of local journalist or the legions of judgmental observers who criticized the Onondagas for their backwardness and continued embrace of “paganism.” And they would have gone unnoticed by me had I not devoted the past month to reading through these figures. This is the sort of work we must do, even if it is only a start. Each death, in a community where there were no strangers, would have been a blow, with waves of grief that must have swept throughout the small community from the very young to the very old.

What’s it like to live in a community in which every single person in it feels the same grief at the same time? I have thought about this question a lot as I looked through these records. I have thought about it as well when I read the Jesuits’ 17th century descriptions of the epidemics that swept through Iroquoia, cutting jagged holes in the fabric of everyday life. Whether Spanish Flu, consumption, suicide or accident, or in our own time killer cops, the coronavirus, or colon cancer, these historical moments may lead some of us towards greater empathy. It is a difficult journey, and one we need to make.

Coronavirus

COVID-19 in Native American Communities–Daily Digest for 27 April 2020

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We are in our seventh week of shut-down, I think. It feels like we have been indoors for a long time. On a walk in a state park Saturday on a beautiful spring day, I saw too many hikers choosing not to keep their distance from others, choosing not to wear masks. It may be a burden, but please, help flatten the curve and stop the spread of Coronavirus. There are so many stories of grief and mourning. Let’s not add to them.

To get a sense of the human cost of this epidemic on the Navajo Nation, I encourage you to follow Arlyssa Becenti, a journalist working this story. She is posting on her Twitter feed GoFundMe calls for funeral expenses for Indigenous peoples felled by the pandemic. Yesterday Becenti reported in the Navajo Times that “the total number of positive COVID-19 cases for the Navajo Nation has reached 1716,” and the “total deaths remain at 59.” She is a fantastic reporter who you need to follow if you want to understand this story. An essay by Heather Covich in the New England Journal of Medicine is also useful for giving some perspective on this devastating crisis. Meanwhile, Face shields manufactured in Massachusetts are being carried by private plane to the Navajo Nation, to help address the desperate need for personal protective equipment. Calls for donations and assistance are being answered from many sectors, but more help is needed still.

Much of the media attention has focused on Navajo Nation, but other Native American communities are suffering from the pandemic, and in these states, many have complaints about how their governors are choosing to address the crisis. I wrote about affairs in Nebraska last week. In South Dakota, Julian Bear Runner, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, called upon the state’s governor Kristi Noem to take more decisive action. “It makes no sense to put people at risk because you feel most people have common sense. That is an oversimplification of this disease.” Bear Runner pointed out that “things could not be more urgent for South Dakota’s tribal nations.” Case Iron Eye, from the Lakota People’s Law Project, has written in an email campaign that Governor Noem’s “refusal to act is governmental negligence,” and that “for our communities, the elderly, and the immunocompromised,” the Governor is costing lives. “We need as many people as possible, right now,” Iron Eye wrote, “to help us wake her up.”

In Canada, the Gull Bay First Nation will open a COVID19 facility to help the community contend with the outbreak. In Australia the national government is planning to roll out remote testing for COVID-19 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote areas. The 83 testing sites should be operating by the middle of next month.

There is a great deal of news on when and how to reopen and restore the American economy. On the ongoing saga of the $8 billion in funding designated for Native American communities recently by Congress, a federal judge is expected to issue a decision in the case today. In other news related to the economic fallout from the coronavirus-induced shutdown, the Small Business Administration “on Friday confirmed that small Indian gaming operations qualify for loans through the Paycheck Protection Program.” The announcement resulted from bipartisan pressure on the Trump Administration to clarify program guidelines. As for reopening, the Governor of Acoma Pueblo, Brian Vallo, urged the governor of New Mexico to take any measures necessary to prevent small businesses in Grants, New Mexico, from reopening. The town’s mayor. “Modey” Hicks, “has encouraged small businesses to reopen next week and has implored fellow mayors to do the same.” He is doing so in the face of opposition from the governor and the Pueblos.

Of course this is a global pandemic, affecting indigenous peoples around the globe. According to a story carried by Reuters, “Indigenous tribes in Peru’s Amazon say the government has left them to fend for themselves against the coronavirus, risking ‘ethnocide by inaction,’ according to a letter from natives to the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.” The Saturday Paper carried a story by Amy McQuire showing how, “despite being chronically underfunded, the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector has reacted swiftly and effectively to the Covid-19 outbreak, underscoring the importance of their services.”

Stay safe, everyone. And please feel free to share this information with your friends and colleagues.

Current Events

COVID-19 in Native American Communities–Report for April 24th, 202

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While some states are beginning to contemplate reopening their economies in the wake of an apparent flattening of the curve, and while the President continues to demonstrate his incompetence to anyone with the eyes to see and the ears to listen, a simple cold truth remains: this pandemic is a long ways from being over, and the disease is hitting Native American communities and other peoples of color particularly hard. Some of the media, once it takes its eyes off the nation’s Rotten Toddler-in-Chief, are beginning to take notice.

Rebecca Nagle, who is always worth reading, has a piece in The Guardian in which she reports that although 80% of state health departments have released some racial demographic data, half of them “did not explicitly include Native Americans in their breakdowns and instead categorized them under the label ‘other.” In an attempt to counter the Coronavirus pandemic, the University of California at San Francisco sent seven doctors and fourteen nurses to treat patients on the hard-hit Navajo Nation, according to a story appearing in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Utah Governor Gary Herbert, aware of racial disparities in the contraction of COVID-19, announced the creation of a new multicultural task force to attempt to halt the spread of coronavirus. The state’s eight Native American tribes “are a specific focus for the task force.” Many researchers are worried about the impact of the pandemic on rural communities across the country.

While we can be certain that President Trump’s suggestion that ingesting disinfectants will not cure coronavirus, various social-distancing measures have worked. The non-profit organizations IllumiNative and Harness drafted celebrities to encourage the Native American community to come together by staying apart. IllumiNative is also hosting a virtual town hall on the 30th of April that will live stream on their Facebook page. “Now is the time to fight for the visibility of Native peoples, care for our communities, and ensure that Native peoples are seen, heard, and included in solutions and conversations about this public health emergency,” said IllumiNative on its website. You can watch the three-minute long public service announcement right here.

The Reno Gazette Journal ran a story yesterday showing how members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe has confronted grocery store shortages that have accompanied the pandemic. Autumn Harry has turned to fishing, not just for herself, but for “elders and others in the community because she recognizes the importance of maintaining health food sources during the emergency, especially for people who can’t leave their houses.”

Meanwhile distribution of the $8 billion dollars in government funding for Native American communities remains a colossal mess. You can continue to follow the news in this story from the Associated Press.

Take care of yourselves, people, and don’t drink bleach.

Current Events

COVID-19 in Native American Communities: Report for April 22, 2020.

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Happy Earth Day. It is snowing today in western New York. Here is your latest update.

The shutdown of colleges and universities has brought significant change and challenges to families around the country.  In Indian Country, where internet access can be limited, attendance and enrollment have declined as courses have moved online.  You can read a Montana Public Radio story focusing on Aaniiih Nakoda College on the Fort Belknap Reservation here.

There is a growing number of stories focusing on racial disparities in coronavirus cases.  BBC posted a story that makes mention of Native American communities. One particularly hard-hit community is the Navajo Nation.  Mary Louis Kelly of NPR interviewed Dr. Loretta Christensen, the Navajo Area chief medical officer at the Indian Health Service about conditions there. NBC, too, posted a story on how the coronavirus pandemic has devastated Indian Country, “exposing infrastructure disparities.” Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez expressed his frustration at the slow pace of distributing federal aid, adding his to the many voices calling out the Trump Administration for its inept response to this global crisis.  “Tribal Nations are the first citizens of this country,” he said, “but sometimes we feel that we are pushed aside and that we are bidding against each other.” You can listen to Representative Deb Haaland talk about her plans to obtain help from Congress for Native American communities at Indian Country Today. On MSNBC, Haaland pointed out that the Native American population of New Mexico is 11%; the infection rate is closer to 40%.  Cronkite News has a series of stories looking at the pandemic in Arizona. For those interested in donating to the Navajo Nation, you can go to this link.

Native American groups across the United States have joined forces to counter the Interior Department’s decision to include Alaska Native Corporations in the “Indian Tribes” singled out in the recent coronavirus relief package passed by Congress.  You can read about the lawsuit here. Meanwhile, tribal leaders are furious over word that the federal government “engaged in such shoddy document handling practices that their sensitive data, containing information about their people and their finances, landed in the hands of outsiders on Friday.” This comes in the wake of nearly every Native American nation in the lower 48 expressing their lack of confidence in Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney, a Trump administration appointee. Politico ran an in-depth story investigating Sweeney’s malfeasance.

You can also read there about a “pandemic recovery plan” for Indian Country by Patrice Kunesh. 

Current Events

COVID-19 in Native American Communities–Report for 20 April 2020

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The Reno Gazette Journal ran an interesting story on Saturday morning profiling Velda Lowery, know to her friends and neighbors as “Auntie Jen in the Reno Sparks Indian Colony. It sheds light on how the Coronavirus pandemic has caused suffering in Native American families. The story is well-worth your time.

That Tara Sweeney, President Trump’s appointee to oversee the administration’s Indian affairs, has lost whatever support she once had in the Native American community was abundantly clear this week. “Every major inter-tribal organization, representing all the regions of Indian Country in the lower 48, has joined an unprecedented letter calling on the Trump Administration to ensure an $8 billion coronavirus relief fund benefits tribal governments as intended by Congress.” At the same time, a bipartisan group of congressional representatives has lodged a similar protest. “Any attempt to divert funds provided under the CRF away from the governing bodies of federally recognized tribal nations, which include Alaska Native villages, would clearly be contrary to congressional intent.”

KTVQ in Billings, Montana, aired a report from CBS News on the “Longstanding Issues [that] put Native American Communities at High COVID-19 Risk,” which included information on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming. Menonimees and Oneidas in Wisconsin have had relatively few cases, but they are struggling to obtain test kits and personal protective gear. Both tribes have closed casinos, but the Oneidas have been forced to furlough over 1900 employees. Arizona Democratic congressman Raul Grijalva hosted a virtual roundtable with tribal leaders to gather information about the impacts of the pandemic on their communities.

INDIANZ.COM has brought together information from tribes across America as they confront the challenge of Coronavirus. It is always worth your time to read INDIANZ.COM. The All Pueblo Council of Governors along with the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center has established the Pueblo Relief Fund. If you are so inclined, you can donate at PuebloReliefFund.org. The Omahas of Nebraska have criticized Governor Pete Ricketts for withdrawing an offer to assist the tribe’s efforts to prevent the spread of the pandemic. The pandemic is showing the continuing assertiveness of native nations, and how that advocacy can threaten relations with Republican lawmakers.

CBC Indigenous has a fantastic story profiling historian Brenda Child‘s research into the jingle dress dance. Women and girls across Native America have posted videos of themselves doing jingle dress dances. This healing dance has historic ties to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-9. CBC Indigenous is also airing an important story on the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan, which has declared a state of emergency in response to the spread of the disease. Some really outstanding reporting here: Check out, as well, Darren Bernhardt’s story of how an indigenous family “living in a shutdown world of COVID 19 juggles a lot–with very little.”

In news totally unrelated to the Coronavirus pandemic, Land O’Lakes butter has finally removed the stereotypical Native American woman who has graced its packaging since 1920. Non-Indians seem more upset about her disappearance than they are by the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States and Canada.

Current Events

Living in a Fever Dream

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It might be worth noting that on the same weekend that witnessed the anniversaries of the the ATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco and the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building–both terribly violent events involving anti-government, gun-crazy extremists–the President of the United States encouraged armed protests against state governors who have asked their citizens to stay home in order to “flatten the curve” and halt the spread of the Coronavirus. These governors recognize that various “social distancing” measures have saved many thousands of lives.

The President’s call to “liberate” the states nonetheless brought out hundreds of heavily-armed protestors, social distancing be damned, to state capitol buildings. Some of them believe that the economic costs of the shutdown are greater than that of the many thousands of lives that will be lost through a premature re-opening of businesses and public spaces. Others say that they are in good health and will be able to survive the infection should they contract it. Others rehearse crazy conspiracy theories about the Coronavirus as some sort of subversive attack on the President. These protestors–frightened, infantile racists who cling to guns and a deviant version of Christianity that makes a fetish of violence, represent much that is wrong with this country. They neither read nor reason, and they believe that the solutions to problems can only be achieved through the threat of violence. That they engaged in this paramilitary cosplay on the eve of the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre and Hitler’s birthday tells you all you need to know about the President and his most hysterical followers.

Current Events

COVID-19 in Indian Country, 17 April 2020

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As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the country, the damages the Coronavirus does in Native American communities is getting more attention. Senator Tom Udall’s denunciation of federal incompetence in dealing with tribes and tribal governments was picked up by Huffington Post. The Democratic senator from New Mexico pointed out that the Treasury Department “is not familiar with tribes,” and that it does not “know how to interact in the appropriate way with tribes and they’re not getting the job done.” Similar complaints have been made by Oregon senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.

The crisis at Navajo Nation continues to grab attention. As the New Mexico Republican reported on Wednesday, “while states on both coasts are forming regional alliances to coordinate the eventual reopening of their economies, New Mexico is working on a different type of pact,” a joint effort with neighboring states and the Indian Health Service “to address the impact of COVID-19 on the Navajo Nation.” New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham said on Wednesday that the state had 1484 cases, and half of its new case “were in the northwestern New Mexico’s McKinley and San Juan counties, which have high Native American populations.” Native Americans make up more than a third of New Mexico’s COVID cases.

Prairie Public Radio out of North Dakota has looked at the spread of the Coronavirus among that state’s Native American population. It will take you less than two minutes to listen to the story. On the problem of the invisibility of native peoples in too many discussions about how to combat and treat Coronavirus, check this story out. it includes information on philanthropic groups committed to fighting COVID 19 in Indian Country.

My students learn relatively little about Alaska Native Corporations. A story in the Anchorage Daily News explains how tribes in the Lower 48 have expressed anger that some of the CARES Act funds will be shared with Alaska natives. President Trump’s head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Tara Sweeney, according to Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association head Harold Frazier, “has lost the confidence of Indian tribes. Charged with a large public trust, she unfairly sought to divert emergency Tribal Government resouces to state-chartered for-profit corporations owned by Alaska Native shareholders, including her and her family.” Sweeney, the letter continues, “seeks to deny the very existence of Indian country.”

If you want to follow this story, you should be sure to follow High Country News, the Indian Country Today media network, and the coverage on CBC Indigenous.

Current Events

COVID-19 in Indian Country, 15 April 2020

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Governor Steve Bullock of Montana has released a report analyzing infection rates by race. 3.7 of the reported cases in Montana are Native American. In Minnesota, only about 1% of the cases thus far have occurred in the state’s Native American population. Still, the Shooting Star Casino on the White Earth Reservation has opened a drive-thru coronavirus test site. Minnesota does not compile detailed figure by race. Los Angeles County is trying to gather more data on infection rates by race and ethnicity, and that information will help determine the scope of racial disparities involving COVID-19. Inland from Los Angeles, Riverside County reported one death among its Native American population.

There is more news on the hard-hit Navajo Nation, which has the highest rate of infection per capita outside of New York and New Jersey. COVID-19 has struck Native Americans in Arizona disproportionately. Now limited mobile coronavirus testing is available on the Navajo population, which has a population of 174,000 people. One quarter of the cases to emerge in neighboring New Mexico struck the state’s Native American population.

Stay safe, everyone.

Current Events

COVID-19 in Indian Country, April 12th, 2020.

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There is plenty of news coverage of the Coronavirus Pandemic, but information on how the outbreak is affecting native peoples is harder to find. I know that many of my students are interested in this most important story, so perhaps yours will, too. I will post the stories I find to the blog as frequently as my other duties permit.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has been bringing attention to her state’s struggle against the outbreak, pointing out that the state faces a unique challenge. On CNN Sunday, she said that 25% of the state’s COVID-19 cases are Native American. “Some of these areas, particularly in Navajo nation, you’re in a situation where you’ve got folks living without access to water and electricity and this creates unique challenges.” Governor Lujan Grisham is one of the few public elected officials to bring up racial disparities in coronavirus cases with reference to native peoples. The Arizona Department of Health Services has pointed out similar figures. 4.6 of Arizonans are American Indian or Alaska Native, according to the Census Bureau, but “Native Americans make up 16% of those who have died from COVID-19, among the cases for which race and ethnicity are known.” Governor Lujan Grisham said on CNN that “We’re looking at a regional strategy to support the leadership at the Navajo Nation between Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.” Efforts so far, she said, include setting up field hospitals and triage centers, and delivering food through the National Guard. More on the figures from Arizona and the Navajo Nation can be found here, here, here, and here.

The New York Times has begun to look at factors related to ethnicity, race, and class that intersect with pandemic mortality. Meanwhile, National Geographic reported on the first coronavirus deaths in the Amazon. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, while pointing out that people of color were not biologically or genetically prone to infection, said, according to a piece in Yahoo Finance, that “known health predispositions that have dogged black, Latino and Native American populations historically,” like “asthma, high blood pressure and obesity all exacerbate COVID-19’s effects.”

There is plenty of bad news. But as historians who study Native American history know, native peoples have always reacted creatively in the face of epidemic disease. An AP story over the weekend shows how “Native Americans across the u.S. are organizing online and social-distancing powwows and posting videos of dances as a way to offer hope and spiritual support during the coronavirus pandemic.” You can read about it here.

That’s all for today. Stay safe, everybody, and stay home.

Current Events, Uncategorized

The Coronavirus Pandemic and Native American Communities: A Current Events Reading List

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I have just completed reading the first batch of papers from my course on American Indian Law and Public Policy. I require all the students to complete a current events project. The requirements for the assignment is that they have 20 sources (which I have defined broadly owing to the students’ inability to in-person library research or make use of Interlibrary Loan); that they consult with me on the topic beforehand (most did so before the campus shut down); and that they try to write about ten pages. I cannot cover everything in class and, I tell the students, this is an opportunity for them to learn more about a subject that interests them. The added bonus is that I always learn a thing or two from their projects.

This semester, for obvious reasons, a number of students focused on COVID-19 and the Coronavirus and the impact of the epidemic on Native American communities. Because many of you who teach Native American history will have students interested in this issue, particularly with students’ awareness of the long history of epidemic and chronic disease in Indian Country, I decided to compile a bibliography of articles that you and your students might find helpful. This is not exhaustive, and I am sure that we may have missed some stories, but I hope you find this helpful. It is only a first step. Beginning tomorrow I will tweet out all the stories documenting Indian Country’s confrontation with the COVID-19 pandemic that I manage to stumble across. Be careful out there, and stay safe.

Abourezk, Kevin. “’We Are Staying on Top of It’: Oglala Sioux Tribe Declares Coronavirus Emergency.” Indianz.com, March 11, 2020.
https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/03/11/we-are-staying-on-top-of-it-oglala-sioux.asp

Agoyo, Acee. “’Lives Are at Risk’: Coronavirus Cases Continue to Grow in Indian Country as Tribes Push for Action in Washington.” Indianz, March 19, 2020. https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/03/19/lives-are-at-risk-coronavirus-cases-cont.asp

Acee Agoyo, “Trump administration moves slowly on coronavirus funding for Indian Country,” Indianz.com, March 23, 2020,
https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/03/23/trump-administration-moves-slowly-on-cor.asp

Acee Agoyo, “Coronavirus relief coming to Indian Country with passage of bipartisan legislation,” indianz.com,March 26th, 2020, https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/03/26/coronavirus-relief-coming-to-indian-coun.asp

Acee Agoyo, “Indian Country plunges into uncertainty as coronavirus reaches their communities,” indianz.com, March 18, 2020,
https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/03/18/indian-country-plunges-into-uncertainty.asp

Acee Agoyo, “Indian Health Service works to distribute more coronavirus funding to tribes as cases continue to grow,” Indianz.com, March 24th, 2020,
https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/03/24/indian-health-service-works-to-distribut.asp

Barrera, Jorge. “COVID-19 Could Be ‘Devastating’ for First Nations, Says Matawa First Nations CEO | CBC News.” CBCnews , CBC/Radio Canada, 11 Mar. 2020, www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/covid19-first-nations-housing-overcrowding-1.5494077.

Barrera, Jorge. “Doctor Says Pre-Existing Nursing Shortage Leaves Northern Ontario First Nations ‘Vulnerable’ to COVID-19″ CBC News.” CBCnews , CBC/Radio Canada, 18 Mar. 2020, www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/covid-19-northern-ontario-1.5500780.

Becenti, Arlyssa “Workers Battle Coronavirus – and Jiní – at Epicenter.” Navajo Times, March 25, 2020.
https://navajotimes.com/coronavirus-updates/workers-battle-coronavirus-and-jini-at-epicenter/

Bennett-Begaye, Jourdan. “’We Are Not Ready for This’: Native American Tribes Struggle to Deal with Coronavirus.” The Salt Lake Tribune, March 4, 2020. https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2020/03/04/we-are-not-ready-this/

Bourque, Scott. “Navajo County Ranks 13th Worldwide For COVID-19 Infection Rate.” Fronteras, March 28, 2020.
https://fronterasdesk.org/content/1507036/navajo-county-ranks-13th-worldwide-covid-19-infection-rate

Brady, Benjamin R., and Howard M. Bahr. “The Influenza Epidemic of 1918–1920 among the Navajos: Marginality, Mortality, and the Implications of Some Neglected Eyewitness Accounts.” American Indian Quarterly , vol. 38, no. 4, 2014, p. 459., doi:10.5250/amerindiquar.38.4.0459.

Bryan Eneas, More Sask. “Indigenous communities take measures to prevent spread of COVID-19,” CBCnews, March 25th, 2020,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/indigenous-community-measures-preventing-covid-19-1.5510275

Cancryn, Adam. “Where Coronavirus Could Find a Refuge: Native American Reservations.” POLITICO, March 28, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/28/native-americans-coronavirus-152579 .

Carlson, Kirsten. “Tribal Leaders Face Great Need and Don’t Have Enough Resources to Respond to the Coronavirus Pandemic.” Chicago Reporter, March 27, 2020. https://www.chicagoreporter.com/tribal-leaders-face-great-need-and-dont-have-enough-resources-to-respond-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “History of 1918 Flu Pandemic.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 Mar. 2018, www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm

Dubois, Stephanie. “Maskwacis activates ‘medicine chest’ treaty clause, declaring state of emergency,” CBCnews, March 24th, 2020,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/maskwacis-state-of-emergency-medicine-chest-treaty-clause-covid-19-coronavirus-1.5507902

Laurel Morales. “Navajo Access to Water Compounds Response to
Coronavirus.” Arizona Public Media, March 26, 2020.
https://www.azpm.org/p/home-articles-news/2020/3/26/168576-navajo-access-to-water-compounds-response-to-coronavirus/

Deer, Jessica. “5 People including Hospital Personnel Test Positive for COVID-19 in Mohawk Community.” CBC.ca. Last modified March 24, 2020. Accessed March 28, 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/5-people-including-hospital-personnel-test-positivefor-covid-19-in-mohawk-community-1.5508843?cmp=rss.

Ebbs, Stephanie and Cheyenne Haslet, “Indian Country Faces Higher Risks, Lack of Resources in COVID-19 Fight.” ABC NEWS, 3 April 2020.
Fonseca, Felecia. “Tribes Take Measures to Slow Spread of New Coronavirus.” ABC News. ABC News Network, March 21, 2020.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/tribes-measures-slow-spread-coronavirus-6972711712

Giago Davies, James. “It Was Called the ‘Spanish Flu.’ But It Killed Hundreds of Indians Too.” www.indianz.com/News/2018/05/24/it-was-called-the-spanish-flu-but-it-kil.asp.

Givens, Maria. “The Coronavirus Is Exacerbating Vulnerabilities Native Communities Already Face.” Vox. Vox, March 25, 2020.
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/25/21192669/coronavirus-native-americans-indians

Goldman, Kara N. “The White Scarf on the Door: a Life-Saving Lesson from the 1918 Flu.” STAT , 23 Mar. 2020, www.statnews.com/2020/03/23/white-scarf-door-lifesaving-lesson-1918-pandemic/.

Hedgpeth, Dana, Darryl Fears and Gregory Scruggs. “Indian Country, Where Residents Suffer Disproportionately from Disease, is Bracing for Coronavirus,” Washington Post, 4 April 2020.

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