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 Population history of American indigenous peoples - Definition 

There were millions of people living in the Americas when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Columbus's discovery of what Europeans called the "New World" set the stage for the later European colonization of the Americas, with millions of emigrants (willing and unwilling) from the "Old World" eventually resettling in the Americas. While the population of Old World peoples in the Americas steadily grew in the centuries after Columbus, the population of the American indigenous peoples plummeted. The extent and causes of this population decline have long been the subject of scholarly debate.

Contents
1 Population overview

1.1 Pre-Columbian population
1.2 Decline and stabilization

2 Reasons for the decline

2.1 Disease

2.1.1 Note re disease: disease and population equilibrium
2.1.2 Note re disease: smallpox blanket incident

2.2 Warfare
2.3 Exploitation
2.4 Displacement
2.5 Assimilation

3 Genocide?
4 See also
5 Related topics
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

Population overview

Pre-Columbian population

Estimates of how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus arrived have varied tremendously; in the 20th century scholarly estimates ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of 112.5 million persons.1 Given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, precise pre-Columbian population figures are impossible to obtain; estimates are often produced by extrapolation from comparatively small bits of data. Most scholars now favor the middle or higher end of that range; geographer William Denevan used various estimates to derive a "consensus count" of about 54 million people.2 However, historian David Henige, representing a minority opinion, has argued that many population figures are the result of arbitrary formulas selectively applied to numbers from unreliable historical sources; he therefore characterizes the modern trend of high estimates as "pseudo-scientific number-crunching."3

This population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of their own cultural and racial superiority, as historian Francis Jennings has argued: "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not possibly have created or sustained large populations."4 At the other end of the spectrum, some have argued that contemporary estimates of a high pre-Columbian indigenous population are rooted in a bias against aspects of Western civilization and/or Christianity. Writes one author: "Estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe often favoring wildly higher figures." [1] (http://www.youdebate.com/DEBATES/rush_indian_population.HTM) Ideology may therefore play a role in the calculation and acceptance of population estimates.

Decline and stabilization

Since civilizations rose and fell in the Americas before Columbus arrived, the indigenous population in 1492 was not necessarily at a high point, and may have already been in decline.5 Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a nadir by the early twentieth century, and in a number of cases started to climb again.

Reasons for the decline

Despite the early and courageous example of the Spanish priest Bartolome de las Casas, who bluntly blamed Spanish oppression for millions of deaths, 18th and 19th century Western chroniclers were inclined to blame the victims: unhealthy living habits and racial "weakness" would inevitably lead to the extinction of native peoples. 20th century historians have generally distributed blame between imported diseases and the Western colonizers themselves, who not only killed Indians in wartime, but enslaved and worked them to death after conquest.

Disease

Historians agree that disease killed many millions of indigenous Americans. Most historians accept that this is something for which the invading Europeans cannot reasonably be blamed. It was an artifact of the long separation between the populations of the New and Old worlds.

Before the European arrival, the Americas had been isolated from the Eurasian-African landmass. They had their own indigenous, chronic diseases unknown in Eurasia, just as Eurasians had their own panoply of disease. The new contact between the two populations introduced new diseases to both.

Most epidemiologists believe, for instance, that syphilis was a mutation of the New World yaws bacterium, soon rampant in the Old World after Columbus' voyages. But syphilis, as bad as it was, was nothing compared to the plagues that decimated the American population.

The reasons for this are still debated. The Americas lacked many animals that have long been prime disease vectors in the Old World, such as pigs. The Americas were also far less unified than Eurasia. Plagues could easily spread from China to Europe and vice-versa over the network of trade routes, but there was no similar trade network that linked the Americas from north to south.

All the plagues of the Old World swept through the Americas, killing off large numbers of people. No sooner had a group survived one epidemic than another would arrive. Eurasians had had thousands of years to accommodate to their common diseases; Americans faced them all at once.

The most deadly disease was smallpox that devastated the populations of Caribbean islands soon after they contacted Europeans. In the early 16th century this disease hit Mesoamerica and soon outpaced European advances. Populations plummeted. Soon conquistadors were finding societies already devastated by disease, making conquest relatively easy. The plagues also shook faith in local leaders and gods making the populations amenable to the rule of the foreigners.

The epidemics had very different effects in different parts of the Americas. The most vulnerable populations were those with a relatively small population. Most island based groups were utterly annihilated. The Caribs and Arawaks of the Caribbean ceased to exist as did the Beothuks of Newfoundland. While disease ranged swiftly through the densely populated empires of Mesoamerica, the more scattered populations of North America saw a slower spread.

Note re disease: disease and population equilibrium

A disease (virus or bacterial) that kills its victims before they can spread it to others tends to flare up and then die out, like a forest fire running out of fuel. A successful disease establishes an equilibrium. Which means the victims live long enough after infection to further spread the disease. Hence there is a long-term evolution process tending to select against quick lethality, and for relative mildness.

There is also an evolutionary pressure on the victim populations. Those without resistance to common diseases die and do not leave descendants; those who survive have children, and may pass the genes conferring resistance to their children.

Thus both diseases and victim populations tend to evolve towards an equilibrium in which the common diseases are non-symptomatic, mild, or manageably chronic. This equilibrium is fragile and prone to disruption by disease mutations and introductions. When a population that has been relatively isolated is exposed to new diseases, they have no inborn resistance to the new diseases and succumb at much higher rates.

Note re disease: smallpox blanket incident

When disease and the depopulation of the Americas is discussed, it is often asserted that American indigenous peoples were intentionally infected with diseases such as smallpox. This claim apparently originates with a single documented incident, the context of which is less frequently remembered.

In 1763, a war commonly known as Pontiac's Rebellion erupted in the Ohio Country and Great Lakes region, in which American Indians recently allied with the French in the French and Indian War launched a widespread and effective offensive against British soldiers and settlers. Fort Pitt, with a garrison of 330 men (and over 200 women and children inside), was attacked on June 22, 1763, primarily by Delaware (Lenape) Indians. Too strong to be taken by force, the fort was kept under siege throughout July.

On 24 June 1763, the commander of Fort Pitt gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of spreading the disease to the Indians in order to end the siege. Indians in the area did indeed contract smallpox. However, it is impossible to verify how many people (if any) contracted the disease as a result of the Fort Pitt incident; the disease was already in the area and may have easily reached the Indians through other vectors.6

Although the name of British General Jeffrey Amherst is usually associated with this incident, by the time he suggested trying to spread the disease to the Indians, the commander at Fort Pitt had already made the attempt, apparently on his own initiative.7 It is certain that these British soldiers attempted to intentionally infect Indians with smallpox; what is uncertain is whether they succeeded.

Warfare

The amount and kind of violence visited upon the indigenes varied widely, depending on capacities and characters of the invaders as well as the nature of the resistance. The Spanish conquests in both Middle America and South America were often bloody affairs, pitched battles followed by massacres and mass slavery; the French and Dutch in North America were more inclined to trade than conquest. The English settlers had a sad history of petty wars, broken treaties, and relentless encroachment.

The larger and more stratified the indigenous group, the more likely it was to survive the impact of conquest. Groups further from the first European landings also had an advantage. Having had time to recover somewhat from the onslaught of disease. Also at advantage were groups living in marginal lands not immediately attractive for settlement or exploitation.

Exploitation

The Spanish, the first settlers in the New World, came from a fiercely Christian and warlike society forged in the course of wars against the Muslim states of the Iberian Peninsula. The Muslims destroyed and the Jews expelled, the Spaniards turned their energies against the inhabitants of the newly-discovered Americas. The successful conquistadors divided the conquered lands among themselves and ruled as feudal lords, treating their brown subjects as something between slaves and serfs. Serfs stayed to work the land; slaves were exported to the mines, where they died by the million.

Some Spaniards objected to this encomienda system, notably Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish monk who insisted that the indigenes were humans with souls and rights. The encomiendas were briefly abolished as a result of his impassioned pleading but where then, sadly enough, reinstated.

As previously stated, the French and the Dutch settlers in North America established small settlements and numerous trading posts. Native inhabitants tended to fare better under such a regime.

The English both traded and settled. Trappers and traders learned to co-exist with the inhabitants, but settlers tended to treat the indigenes as pests, to be driven out or exterminated if necessary.

Displacement

The more settlers to arrive from the Old World, the worse the peoples of the New World fared. Also, the importation of African slaves tended to displace native peoples.

Assimilation

Conquistador, trader, and settler men took native wives and concubines; the children were often lost to their maternal tribes. There was also a great deal of intermarriage between indigenes and imported African slaves, leading to further dissolution of native communities. The new, mixed communities developed their own cultures in many cases, cultures estimable in their own right, but still a displacement from the aboriginal point of view.

Genocide?

A few historians blame everything on the Europeans:

In a recent publication, historian David Stannard argues that "The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world." Stannard argues that European settlement resulted in the killing of 100 million people in North America, Central America and South Americafrom the time of Christopher Columbus onwards. He claims that a combination of disease, depredation, enslavement and outright massacre led to mortality rates averaging 95% for populations with which the European settlers came into contact.

Most historians would not blame the Europeans for disease mortality. However, there is still much debate as to what proportion of the vast die-off was due to disease and how much to warfare and subsequent mistreatment. For instance, Newsom, in a 1987 discussion of the Central American population plunge, estimates that "the general impression is that the Indian slave trade and disease were of equal importance, perhaps accounting for one-third each of the total decline. The remaining one-third can be attributed to the ill-treatment and overwork of the Indians and to the disruption of Indian communities brought about by Spanish conquest and colonization."8 But in other times and places, it is believed that disease was the predominant factor.

See also

The European immigrants came from many countries, and arrived over the course of hundreds of years. In fact, from the viewpoint of many small tribes in the remote reaches of the Amazon Basin, the process of "European" expansion is not yet over. Any generalizations are but an imprecise summation of hundreds of individual historical studies. For further investigation, please see:

Related topics

Notes

Note 1: Thornton, p. 22.

Note 2: How many people were here before Columbus? (http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/kolp/HH345/PRE1492.HTM)

Note 3: Henige, p. 182. Henige does not advocate a "low" population estimate; rather, he argues that the scanty and unreliable nature of the evidence renders broad estimates suspect, and that "high counters" (as he calls them) have been particularly flagrant in their misuse of sources.

Note 4: Jennings, p. 83.

Note 5: Thornton, p. 36.

Note 6: Dowd, p. 190.

Note 7: Anderson, pp. 541-2.

Note 8: Newson, pp. 123-124.

References

  • Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Knopf, 2000.
  • Dowd, Gregory Evans. War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, & the British Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2002.
  • Hanson, Victor Davis. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
  • Henige, David. Numbers from Nowhere: The American Indian Contact Population Debate. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
  • Jennings, Francis. The Founders of America: How Indians discovered the land, pioneered in it, and created great classical civilizations, how they were plunged into a Dark Age by invasion and conquest, and how they are reviving. New York: Norton, 1993.
  • Newson, Linda A. Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
  • Royal, Robert. 1492 and All That: Political Manipulations of History. Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1992.
  • Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0195085574
  • Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.

External links
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