On Pre-Columbian Native American populations

Some things are not ever going to be backed up with hard, solid facts, Josh.
I believe that the population levels of Pre-Columbian America are going to be an unknown.
You’re going to have to accept what the estimates are giving you.

Also from the Cook book you cited: “Disease began to kill immense numbers of indigenous Americans soon after Europeans and Africans began to arrive in the New World, bringing with them the infectious diseases of the Old World. One reason this death toll was overlooked (or downplayed) is that disease, according to the widely held theory, raced ahead of European immigration in many areas, thus often killing off a sizable portion of the population before European observations (and thus written records) were made. Many European immigrants who arrived after the epidemics had already killed massive numbers of American natives assumed that the natives had always been few in number. The scope of the epidemics over the years was enormous, killing millions of people—in excess of 90% of the population in the hardest hit areas—and creating “the greatest human catastrophe in history, far exceeding even the disaster of the Black Death of medieval Europe.”

I think I’m with Fig about how the estimates will never be anywhere near correct, numerically. We’re still tweaking death toll stats for the Black Death and the Influenza pandemic. Hell, we’re not even sure how many people died in WWII, under Stalin or in the ‘Killing Fields’.

That said, I have heard that high percentage pop-up before. And those who didn’t die were killed off anyways. It was a slaughter there I fear.

In recent years, activists have issued proclamations that the Native American population of North America, alone, may have been between 50 to 100 million prior to the European discovery of the Americas, but they provide no data to support these claims; it’s just conjecture. Recent archaeological evidence and cultural studies refute these claims; in fact, the trend is to lower previous population estimates as research grows more sophisticated and disproves earlier assumptions. The mainstream estimate for pre-Columbian population is still about 1.5 to 2 million.

Smallpox was the major culprit in the Columbian Exchange of diseases. Smallpox killed millions in Eruope, Asia and Africas before arriving in the Americas. It’s impact on Native American populations was, indeed, comparable to the impact of bubonic plague (the Black Death) in Europe and Asia. The plague also killed up to 90 percent in some isolated areas of Europe, but in other areas it killed 40 to 25 percent of the population. The same was true of smallpox in North America, but there were not as many Native Americans as there were Europeans to kill.

The land looked mostly empty to European explorers because it was mostly empty. In fact, it’s still mostly empty today; it doesn’t seem empty because Americans travel only superhighways that link population centers. We could fit the entire population of the United States inside Texas and the population density would be one person per acre.

Native Americans experienced many eras of population increase and population decreases many times prior to the arrival of the Europeans. There is also evidence of pre-Colombian epidemics. The Native American population declined drastically, especially in Mexico, upon the arrival of the Europeans, and then grew as the introduction of horses created the Native American “horse culture” on the Great Plains. Casualties produced by combat between European and Native Americans were insignificant, and was probably less than the casualties inflicted by tribes on each other. For example, as the Lakota (Sioux) migrated east from the Great Lakes to the Black Hills in the late 1700s, they pushed aside or exterminated the tribes that blocked their path. At one village, they slaughtered 400 men, women and children. By way of comparison, 180 Native Americans died during the Sand Creek Massacre, the most infamous atrocity committed by Europeans against Native Americans.

Native American society was in a constant state of flux prior to and after the arrival of Europeans in American. Tribes migrated constantly due to changing climatic conditions, pressure from hostile tribes or when population growth exceeded the “carrying capacity” of the land they occupied. They sometime practiced infantcide to hold down population growth. The most advanced Native American societies north of the Rio Grande, including the “corn chiefdoms” built by the mound builders and ancient cliff dwelling societies, collapsed prior to European contact.

As they migrated, Native American tribes conducted incessant, genocidal warfare among themselves prior to and after the arrival of the Europeans. The purpose of tribal warfare was to decimate or exterminate rival tribes, capture slaves or push rival tribes off their lands. As a percentage of population, casualties in inter-tribal warfare exceeded casualties during the European wars of the 20th century. The casualties were so high that tribes practiced polygamy and raised captive children to rear as their own to offset their combat loses.

(Migration due to climate change and falling natural resources is still going on. The “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s was created when the climate changed from adnormally wet to normally air, driving thousands of farmers off their land. Today, the Centeral and Northern Plains are going empty as the underground natural water resovoirs run dry. Our technolgy covers up the effects. Native Amricans practice infantice when food supplies ran short; today we practice abortion.)

I should have written that we all could live in Texas on one-half acre of land rahter than on one acre.

Smallpox
Smallpox was a global contagion that originated in Africa and spread around the world. It devastated Old World as well as New World population. In North American, there were several smallpox epidemics that decimated the European as well as Native American population; however, it hit the Native Americans, who knew nothing about innoculation or quarantines, the hardest.

The smallpox pandemic that did the most damage begin in the Valley of Mexico and spread north across the Rio Grande to the Pueblo villages in New Mexico. Plains Indians who travled to the markets in Santa Fe, Taso and Pecos took the virus home with them. From the plains, the virus spread west over the Rockies and east across the Mississippi. The impact was comparable to the Black Death in Europe during Medieval times. It changed the balance of power on the plains by decimating the Pawnee, Blackfeet and Osage.

The Sioux, Chyenne and Commanche rushed in to dominate the plains. As the United States expanded west across the Mississippi, tribes that had been the most decimated by smallpox tended to ally with U.S. forces against tribes that had siezed the lands.

Smallpox certainly made the U.S. conquest of the west easier, but battles fought west of the Mississippi were inconsequental; the Indian Wars that really counted were waged east of the Mississippi. These wars usually pitted French troops and their Indian allies against British troops and their Indian allies. The American colonists frequently allied with tribes against other tribes. The Indian Wars fought west of the Mississippi were more or less “mopping up” operations.

I’m not entirely sure anyone will ever read this again, but if anyone does, I want to make sure there isn’t anyone get false information from here.

This notion that the Native American pre-Columbian population was 1.5 to 2 million before Columbus is absolutely ridiculous, I’m hoping I misread that or that it was presented incorrectly. James Loewen reported that the census of native adults on Haiti in 1496 was 1.1 million alone. When pre-Columbian populations of Native Americans is discussed, I think people forget the warmer climates of the Americas were far more heavily populated than the northern. The Inca and Aztec empires were enormous and account for about 30-40 million of pre-Columbian population estimates.

I understand this is a difficult topic. It is unfortunate, but due to the fragmented nature of Native American population information it is difficult to estimate accurately, in addition, most radical estimates low and high have motives.

Wikipedia has a decent breakdown of Native American peoples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_American_indigenous_peoples

From what I am reading, Blair was referencing the estimated population figure for North America, not the entriety of the Western Hemisphere. The population of Central America and the Caribbean was much, much higher, to say nothing of the population of South America. Not trying to speak for Blair, but I think he was merely stating the views of James Mooney who estimated 1.5-2.0 million inhabitants for North America, and this is still the standard estimate (though naturally it is very much debatable).

One more thing… Mooney’s estimate was as of 1491. That’s important, because the Native American population almost certainly rose and fell through time. At the height of the Mississippian cultures, it’s likely that the population was higher than that, due to the fact there were more centralized agricultural centers in North America. Or maybe not, we just don’t know. This has been a great discussion though, and I’ve enjoyed reading it.

It’s also important to remember that Mooney’s work was only published posthumously and that the numbers in his notes were higher than the numbers that got published. Also, most Native American historians and anthropologists today agree that their were a significant number of methodological problems with his (very, very important and well-respected) research that caused his estimates to be biased on the low side.

Tha fact is population estimates for pre-Columbian America (which, by definition means the continents, not the US) range from a LOW of about 10 million all the way up to about 120 million. EVEYRONE’s estimates (low and high) and HIGHLY subject to questioning as they are ALL (low and high) based on a great deal of conjecture, extrapolation, and very little verifiable data.

Today, most reasonable historians (those who don’t beat their chests for a particular number and do review a wide variety of methodolgical issues in population estimates) agree BOTH that the low end and high end are unreasonable estimates.

If you want more information on where the wide varieties come from and how their proponents back them, you should check out The Native Populations of the Americas in 1492 by William Denevan. It is VERY academic and a slow read, but very well researched and one of the more balanced collections out there.