Transcript: Tex Hall
Chief Four Bears told his people never to trust the white man after he contracted smallpox on the steamship Yellowstone
- [Hall:]
- Smallpox was…there never actually was a government policy to inoculate the Indian tribes up on the Missouri, because that’s where a lot of the steamships, you know, were coming up to Ft. Buford and then Ft. Clark where the Mandan in Ft. Clark—but Ft. Clark is where the steamship “Yellowstone” actually killed one of our greatest chiefs, Mato-tope, Four Bears. His quote is a very powerful quote of how he said he trusted the white man, but he said, “Look what happened to me,” and he told his people never trust a white man again because of this smallpox disease, because they were not supposed to allow anybody infected with smallpox to go onto a steamship, yet there was somebody that did, and he came onto the Ft. Clark where Mato-tope was, and he contacted the disease, and so it killed him, and so he had a warning cry for the people.