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

[[File:Ancient sick native american.jpg|thumb|right|alt=1857 engraving of a sick Native American being cared for by an Indigenous healer|Contemporary illustration of the 1868 [[Washita massacre]] by the [[7th Cavalry Regiment|7th Cavalry]] against [[Black Kettle]]'s band of [[Cheyenne]]s, during the [[American Indian Wars]]. Violence and conflict with colonists were also important causes of the decline of certain Indigenous American populations since the 16th century.]]

 

 

In an effort to circumvent the hold which the [[Ottoman Empire]] held on the [[Spice trade|overland trade routes to East Asia]] and the hold that the [[Aeterni regis]] granted to Portugal on maritime routes via the African coast and the Indian Ocean, [[Crown of Castile#Catholic Monarchs: Union with the Crown of Aragon|the monarchs]] of the [[Crown of Castile|nascent Spanish Empire]] decided to fund Columbus' voyage in 1492, which eventually led to the [[European colonization of the Americas|establishment of colonies]] and the migration of millions of Europeans to the Americas. The population of [[Ethnic groups of Africa|African]] and [[Ethnic groups in Europe|European]] peoples in the Americas grew steadily, starting in 1492, and at the same time, the Indigenous population began to plummet. Eurasian diseases such as [[influenza]], [[pneumonic plague]]s, and [[smallpox]], in combination with conflict, [[Indian removal|forced removal]], [[Slavery among Native Americans in the United States|enslavement]], [[Spanish missions in California|imprisonment]], and outright [[American Indian Wars|warfare]] with European newcomers reduced populations and disrupted traditional societies.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ostler |first=Jeffrey |date=2020-04-29 |title=Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/disease-has-never-been-just-disease-native-americans/610852/ |access-date=2022-04-12 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> The causes of the decline and the extent of it have been characterized as a [[Genocide of indigenous peoples#The question of colonization and genocide in the Americas|genocide]] by some scholars<ref>{{cite book |author=David E. Stannard |author-link=David Stannard |title=American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World |date=1993 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=146 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RzFsODcGjfcC&pg=PA146 |isbn=978-0-19-508557-0}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ostler |first=Jeffrey |title=Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-300-24526-4 |location= |pages=11–17, 381 |quote=Since 1992, the argument for a total, relentless, and pervasive genocide in the Americas has become accepted in some areas of Indigenous studies and genocide studies. For the most part, however, this argument has had little impact on mainstream scholarship in U.S. history or American Indian history. Scholars are more inclined than they once were to gesture to particular actions, events, impulses, and effects as genocidal, but genocide has not become a key concept in scholarship in these fields.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Dunbar-Ortiz |first=Roxanne |title=An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States |date=2014 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-0041-0}}</ref> while other scholars have disputed this characterization.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Alvarez |first=Alex |date=2015 |title=Gary Clayton Anderson. Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America. |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=120 |issue=2 |pages=605–606 |doi=10.1093/ahr/120.2.605 |issn=1937-5239}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Feinstein |first=Stephen |date=2006 |title=''God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries,'' by Arthur Grenke |journal=Canadian Journal of History |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=197–199 |doi=10.3138/cjh.41.1.197 |issn=0008-4107 |quote=For the most part, however, the diseases that decimated the Natives were caused by natural contact. These Native peoples were greatly weakened, and as a result, they were less able to resist the Europeans. However, diseases themselves were rarely the sources of the genocides nor were they the sources of the deaths which were caused by genocidal means. The genocides were caused by the aggressive actions of one group towards another.}}</ref>