Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas: Difference between revisions

The Indigenous population of the Americas in 1492 was not necessarily at a high point and may actually have already been in decline in some areas. Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a low point by the early 20th century.<ref>Thornton, pp. xvii, 36.</ref>

 

 

While it is difficult to determine exactly how many Natives lived in North America before Columbus,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Snow |first=D. R. |title=Microchronology and Demographic Evidence Relating to the Size of Pre-Columbian North American Indian Populations |journal=Science |date=16 June 1995 |volume=268 |issue=5217 |pages=1601–1604 |doi=10.1126/science.268.5217.1601 |pmid=17754613 |bibcode=1995Sci...268.1601S |s2cid=8512954}}</ref> estimates range from 3.8&nbsp;million, as mentioned above, to 7 million<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9iQYSQ9y60MC |title=American Indian holocaust and survival: a population history since 1492 |last=Thornton |first=Russell |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-8061-2220-5 |pages=26–32}}</ref> people to a high of 18 million.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Dynamics in Eastern North America |last=Dobyns |first=Henry |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |year=1983 |location=Knoxville}}</ref> Scholars vary on the estimated size of the [[Indigenous peoples in Canada|Indigenous population]] in [[Territorial evolution of Canada|what is now Canada]] prior to colonization and on the effects of [[European colonization of the Americas|European contact]].<ref name="HainesSteckelau">{{cite book|author1=Michael R. Haines|author2=Richard H. Steckel|title=A Population History of North America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BPdgiysIVcgC&pg=PA12|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-49666-7|page=12}}</ref> During the late 15th century is estimated to have been between 200,000<ref name="NorthcottWilson2008"/> and two million,<ref name="HainesSteckel2000">{{cite book|author1=Michael R. Haines|author2=Richard H. Steckel|title=A Population History of North America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BPdgiysIVcgC&pg=PA13|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-49666-7|page=13}}</ref> with a figure of 500,000 currently accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health.<ref name="BaileySturtevant2008">{{cite book|author1=Garrick Alan Bailey|author2=William C ... Sturtevant|author3=Smithsonian Institution (U S )|title=Handbook of North American Indians: Indians in Contemporary Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1IwUbZqjTUC&pg=PA285|year=2008|publisher=Government Printing Office|isbn=978-0-16-080388-8|page=285}}</ref> Although not without conflict, [[Euro-Canadian|European Canadians]]' early interactions with [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] and [[Inuit]] populations were relatively peaceful.<ref name="Preston2009a">{{cite book|author=David L. Preston|title=The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667–1783|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L-9N6-6UCnoC&pg=PA43|year=2009|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-2549-7|pages=43–44}}</ref> However repeated outbreaks of European [[infectious disease]]s such as [[influenza]], [[measles]] and [[smallpox]] (to which they had no natural immunity),<ref name="DeanMatthews1998sw">{{cite book|author1=William G. Dean|author2=Geoffrey J. Matthews|title=Concise Historical Atlas of Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dw39BoD0-6cC&pg=PA2|year=1998|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-4203-3|page=2}}</ref> combined with other effects of European contact, resulted in a twenty-five percent to eighty percent Indigenous population decrease post-contact.<ref name="NorthcottWilson2008">{{cite book|author1=Herbert C. Northcott|author2=Donna Marie Wilson|title=Dying And Death in Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p_pMVs53mzQC&pg=PA25|year=2008|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-55111-873-4|pages=25–27}}</ref> Roland G Robertson suggests that during the late 1630s, smallpox killed over half of the [[Wyandot people|Wyandot (Huron)]], who controlled most of the early [[North American fur trade]] in the area of [[New France]].<ref name="Robertson2001">{{cite book|author=R. G. Robertson|title=Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-EoEm_OO8RgC|year=2001|publisher=University of Nebraska|isbn=978-0-87004-497-7}}</ref> In 1871 there was an enumeration of the Indigenous population within the limits of Canada at the time, showing a total of only 102,358 individuals.<ref name=aboriginal>{{cite web|url=http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/98-187-x/4151278-eng.htm |title=Censuses of Canada 1665 to 1871: Aboriginal peoples |publisher=Statistics Canada |year=2008 |access-date=2 February 2014}}</ref> From 2006 to 2016, the Indigenous population has grown by 42.5 percent, four times the national rate.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025a-eng.htm |title=The Daily — Aboriginal peoples in Canada: Key results from the 2016 Census |first=Statistics Canada |last=Government of Canada |date=October 25, 2017 |website=www150.statcan.gc.ca}}</ref> According to the [[2011 Canadian census]], Indigenous peoples ([[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] – 851,560, [[Inuit]] – 59,445 and [[Métis]] – 451,795) numbered at 1,400,685, or 4.3% of the country's total population.<ref name=firstnations>{{cite web|title=Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit|url=http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-011-x/99-011-x2011001-eng.cfm|publisher=Statistics Canada|year=2012}}</ref>

|2009

|2.5

|–

|–

|Southwest

|Mexican Cession

|40,000

|1584

|1700

|

|[[George Bird Grinnell]]

|-

|1860

|

|[[Emmanuel Domenech]]<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Domenech |first=Emmanuel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nWkFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA16 |title=Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America |publisher=Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts |year=1860 |volume=2 |location=London |pages=16, 47–48}}</ref>

|-

|1860

|

|[[Emmanuel Domenech]]<ref name=":4" />

|-

|1823

|15+

|[[William H. Keating|W. H. Keating]] and [[Giacomo Beltrami|G. C. Beltrami]]

|-

|15,000

|1600

|

|[[Daniel Gookin]] and J. R. Swanton

|15,000

|1540

|

|Relacion del Suceso<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jenkins |first=Myra Ellen |date=1966 |title=Taos Pueblo and Its Neighbors, 1540–1847 |url=https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1933&context=nmhr |journal=New Mexico Historical Review |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=86}}</ref>

|

|

|-

!68

|1584

|5+

|[[Antonio de Espejo]]

|-

|SE Woodlands

|Florida Purchase

|10,000

|1836

|

|Also known as Laurentians

|-

!88

|Subarctic & Arctic

|[[British Columbia]], Canada

|7,000

|1780

|

|

|-

!107

|6,000

|1584

|500+ houses

|[[Antonio de Espejo]]

|

|

|-

!132

|3,000

|1660

|

|-

!154

|NE Woodlands

|New England

|3,000

|1500

|3,000

|1680

|

|[[Agustín de Vetancurt]]

|NE Woodlands

|Middle Colonies

|2,500

|1500

|

|

|-

!190

|

|

|-

!205

|

|

|-

!206

|1,500

|1600

|

|-

!237

|

|They lived in Delaware and Maryland

|-

!347

|

|

|-

!357

|

|

|-

!372

|Steve Langdon<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sandberg |first=Eric |url=https://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/pop/estimates/pub/pophistory.pdf |title=A history of Alaska population settlement |publisher=Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development |year=2013 |pages=4–6}}</ref>

|}

 

== Pre-Columbian Americas ==

While epidemic disease was a leading factor of the population decline of the American Indigenous peoples after 1492, there were other contributing factors, all of them related to European contact and colonization. One of these factors was warfare. According to demographer Russell Thornton, although many people died in wars over the centuries, and war sometimes contributed to the near extinction of certain tribes, warfare and death by other violent means was a comparatively minor cause of overall native population decline.<ref>War not a major cause : Thornton, pp. 47–49.</ref>

 

 

There is some disagreement among scholars about how widespread warfare was in pre-Columbian America,<ref>{{cite book |author=W. D. Rubinstein |title=Genocide: A History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nMMAk4VwLLwC&pg=PA12 |year=2004 |publisher=Pearson Education |isbn=978-0-582-50601-5 |page=12}}</ref> but there is general agreement that war became deadlier after the arrival of the Europeans and their firearms.{{Citation needed|reason=Actually the scholarly consensus is that Amerindian warfare and violence was highly evolved prior to the arrival of Europeans. See War Before Civilization by Keeley. As well as North American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence. Chacon Edit.|date=October 2019}} The South or Central American infrastructure allowed for thousands of European [[conquistador]]s and tens of thousands of their [[Indian auxiliaries]] to attack the dominant Indigenous civilization. Empires such as the [[Inca]]s depended on a highly centralized administration for the distribution of resources. Disruption caused by the war and the colonization hampered the traditional economy, and possibly led to shortages of food and materials.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Inca_Government/ |title=Inca Government |last=Cartwright |first=Mark |date=Oct 2015 |website=[[World History Encyclopedia]] |publisher=Knights of Vatican |access-date=19 July 2017 |quote=Eventually 40,000 Incas would govern some 10 million subjects speaking over 30 different languages. Consequently, the centralised Inca government, employing a vast network of administrators, governed over a patchwork empire which, in practice, touched local populations to varying degrees.}}</ref> Across the western hemisphere, war with various Native American civilizations constituted alliances based out of both necessity or economic prosperity and, resulted in mass-scale intertribal warfare.<ref>{{cite book |author=W. D. Rubinstein |title=Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica |year=2012 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press; Reprint edition |isbn=978-0-8061-4325-5 |page=1}}</ref> European colonization in the North American continent also contributed to a number of wars between Native Americans, who fought over which of them should have first access to new technology and weaponry—like in the [[Beaver Wars]].<ref>Increased deadliness of warfare, see for example Hanson, ch.&nbsp;6. See also [[flower war]].</ref>