From Smallpox Blankets to Reparative Practice

Abstract The past three years of COVID-19 have resurrected deep pain for the Native peoples of Turtle Island, including the Kichiwikwendong Anishinaabeg, my people. We were the recipients of smallpox blankets used as biological warfare in 1763 issued by Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the commanding general of British forces, as retribution for Odawa leader Pontiac’s battles to protect our homelands from the British. According to our elders, intentional biological warfare was actually wielded against the Odawas on at least two occasions, which reduced our nation from thousands to hundreds, with few left to bury our dead. Rather, the bodies had to be burned in a place that is still held sacred by Odawas today. Until COVID-19, I had never heard these stories. The Odawas faced almost complete annihilation as a result of the insatiable greed of empire, but we have persevered only to now see our Mother Earth in critical planetary crisis. As a result of the destruction of ecosystems and habitat, humans are now experiencing similar sicknesses in the form of pandemics. This article is a discussion of the impact of settler colonialism on Native homelands in the Great Lakes, the role education has played, and the reparative justice work being done to restore the health of the land and Indigenous peoples in Mnisota Makoċe, my home today.