Timeline / Defining Rights and Responsibilities / 1900: Measles, the ‘Great Sickness,’ strikes Alaska Natives
1900: Measles, the ‘Great Sickness,’ strikes Alaska Natives
Measles, called “the Great Sickness,” reached parts of Alaska as much as 50 years earlier, but some Yup’ik, Iñupiat, and Iñupiaq communities had not been exposed. Now they suffer losses of one-quarter to one-half of their populations.
- Theme
- Epidemics
- Region
- Arctic
Native cemetery above Nulato, Alaska, ca. 1896–1913
Courtesy Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks