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Population history of American indigenous peoples

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: North American History

   Millions of indigenous people lived in the Americas when the 1492
   voyage of Christopher Columbus began an historical period of
   large-scale European contact with the Americas. European contact with
   what they called the " New World" led to the 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 controversy and debate. The 500th
   anniversary of Columbus's famous voyage, in 1992, drew renewed
   attention to claims that indigenous peoples of the Americas had been
   the victims of genocide.

Population overview

   Estimates of how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus
   arrived have varied tremendously; 20th century scholarly estimates
   ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of 112.5 million persons.
   Given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, precise pre-Columbian
   population figures are impossible to obtain, and estimates are often
   produced by extrapolation from comparatively small bits of data. In
   1976, geographer William Denevan used these various estimates to derive
   a "consensus count" of about 54 million people, although some recent
   estimates are lower than that.^ Anthropologists and population
   geneticists agree that the bulk of indigenous American ancestry can be
   traced to ice age migrations from Asia over the Bering land bridge,
   though some believe previous seafaring peoples contributed small
   population stocks.

   Historian David Henige, representing a self-described "minority
   opinion", has argued that many population figures are the result of
   arbitrary formulas selectively applied to numbers from unreliable
   historical sources, a deficiency he sees as being unrecognized by
   several contributors to the field. He believes there is not enough
   solid evidence to produce population numbers that have any real
   meaning, and characterizes the modern trend of high estimates as "
   pseudo-scientific number-crunching." 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^ . Although Henige's criticisms are directed against
   some specific instances, other studies do generally acknowledge the
   inherent difficulties in producing reliable statistics given the almost
   complete lack of any hard data for the period in question.

   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." 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. Robert Royal writes that "estimates of
   pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with
   scholars who are particularly critical of Europe often favoring wildly
   higher figures."^

   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. Indigenous
   populations in most areas of the Americas reached a low point by the
   early twentieth century, and in a number of cases started to climb
   again.^

Depopulation from disease

   The earliest European immigrants offered two principal explanations for
   the population decline of the American natives. The first was the
   brutal practices of the Spanish conquistadores, as recorded by the
   Spanish themselves, most notably by the Dominican friar Bartolomé de
   Las Casas, whose writings vividly depict atrocities committed on the
   natives by the Spanish. The second explanation was religious: God had
   removed the natives as part of His divine plan in order to make way for
   a new Christian civilization. Many natives of the Americas also
   understood their troubles in terms of religious or supernatural causes.
   Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors,
   epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline
   of the American natives.^

   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."^

   The most devastating disease was smallpox, but other deadly diseases
   included typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, mumps, yellow
   fever, and whooping cough. The Americas also had endemic diseases,
   perhaps including a type of syphilis, which soon became rampant in the
   Old World. (This transfer of disease between the Old and New Worlds was
   part of the phenomenon known as the " Columbian Exchange.") The
   diseases brought to the New World proved to be exceptionally deadly.

   The epidemics had very different effects in different parts of the
   Americas. The most vulnerable groups were those with a relatively small
   population. Many island based groups were utterly annihilated. The
   Caribs and Arawaks of the Caribbean nearly 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.

Why were the diseases so deadly?

   A disease (viral or bacterial) that kills its victims before they can
   spread it to others tends to flare up and then die out, like a fire
   running out of fuel. A more resilient disease would establish an
   equilibrium, its victims living well beyond infection to further spread
   the disease. This function of the evolutionary process selects against
   quick lethality, with the most immediately fatal diseases being the
   most short-lived. A similar evolutionary pressure acts upon the victim
   populations, as those lacking genetic resistance to common diseases die
   and do not leave descendants, whereas those who are resistant procreate
   and pass resistant genes to their offspring.

   Thus both diseases and populations tend to evolve towards an
   equilibrium in which the common diseases are non-symptomatic, mild, or
   manageably chronic. When a population that has been relatively isolated
   is exposed to new diseases, it has no inborn resistance to the new
   diseases (the population is "biologically naïve"); this body of people
   succumbs at a much higher rate, resulting in what is known as a "virgin
   soil" epidemic. Before the European arrival, the Americas had been
   isolated from the Eurasian-African landmass. The people of the Old
   World had had thousands of years to accommodate to their common
   diseases; the natives of the Americas faced them all at once.

   Other contributing factors:
     * Native American medical treatments such as sweat baths and cold
       water immersion (practiced in some areas) weakened patients and
       probably increased mortality rates.^
     * Europeans brought so many deadly diseases with them because they
       had many more domesticated animals than the Native Americans.
       Domestication usually means close and frequent contact between
       animals and people, which is an opportunity for diseases of
       domestic animals to mutate and migrate into the human population.

          (In the colder areas of the Eurasian landmass, houses were often
          built in two stories. The bottom story was used to stable
          animals, the top to house humans. In winter, the animal heat
          would rise and warm the human section of the house. This
          arrangement is efficient, but it also contributes to disease.)

     * The Eurasian landmass extends many thousands of miles along an
       east-west axis. Climate zones also extend for thousands of miles,
       which facilitated the spread of agriculture, domestication of
       animals, and the diseases associated with domestication. The
       Americas extend mainly north and south, which, according to a
       theory popularized by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel,
       meant that it was much harder for cultivated plant species,
       domesticated animals, and diseases to spread.
     * One contemporary scientist, Rodolfo Acuña-Soto, argues that
       mortality due to imported diseases was compounded, or even dwarfed,
       by mortality due to a hemorrhagic fever native to the Americas,
       which he calls cocoliztli. He claims that this fever was endemic
       during years of drought, such as the early years of the Spanish
       invasion of Central America. Acuña-Soto's theory is controversial
       and not widely accepted.

Deliberate infection?

   One of the most contentious issues relating to disease and depopulation
   in the Americas concerns the degree to which American indigenous
   peoples were intentionally infected with diseases such as smallpox.
   Despite some legends to the contrary, there seems to be no evidence
   that the Spanish ever attempted to deliberately infect the American
   natives.^

   However, there is at least one documented incident in which British
   soldiers in North America attempted to intentionally infect native
   people. During Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763, a number of Native
   Americans launched a widespread war against British soldiers and
   settlers in an attempt to drive the British out of the Great Lakes
   region. In what is now western Pennsylvania, Native Americans
   (primarily Delawares) laid siege to Fort Pitt on June 22, 1763.
   Surrounded and isolated, and with over 200 women and children in the
   fort, the commander of Fort Pitt gave representatives of the besieging
   Delawares two blankets that had been exposed to smallpox in an attempt
   to infect the natives and end the siege.

   British General Jeffrey Amherst is usually associated with this
   incident, and although he suggested this tactic in a letter to a
   subordinate, by that time the commander at Fort Pitt had already made
   the attempt. While it is certain that these officers attempted to
   intentionally infect American Indians with smallpox, it is uncertain
   whether or not the attempt was successful. Because many natives in the
   area died from smallpox in 1763, some writers have concluded that the
   attempt was indeed a success. A number of recent scholars, however,
   have noted that evidence for connecting the blanket incident with the
   smallpox outbreak is doubtful, and that the disease was more likely
   spread by native warriors returning from attacks on infected white
   settlements.^

   A disputed incident is Ward Churchill's claim that in 1837 the United
   States Army deliberately infected Mandan Indians by distributing
   blankets that had been exposed to smallpox. Most other historians who
   have looked at the same event disagree with Churchill's interpretation
   of the historical evidence, and believe no deliberate introduction
   occurred at this time and place.^ ^

Other causes of depopulation

War and violence

   While epidemic disease was by far the leading cause 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 lives were lost 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.^

   There is some disagreement among scholars about how widespread warfare
   was in pre-Columbian America, but there is general agreement that war
   became deadlier after the arrival of the Europeans. The Europeans
   brought with them gunpowder and steel weapons, which made killing
   easier and war more deadly. Over the long run, Europeans proved to be
   consistently successful in achieving domination when engaged in warfare
   with indigenous Americans, for a variety of reasons that have long been
   debated. Massive death from disease certainly played a role in the
   European conquest, but also decisive was the European approach to war,
   which was less ritualistic than in native America and more focused on
   achieving decisive victory. European colonization also contributed to
   an increased number of wars between displaced native groups.^

   In addition, empires like the Inca depended on centralized
   administration for the distribution of resources. The disruption caused
   by the war and the colonization certainly disrupted the traditional
   economy and possibly led to shortages of food and materials.

Exploitation

   Exploitation has also been cited as a cause of native American
   depopulation. The Spanish conquistadores, the first settlers in the New
   World, divided the conquered lands among themselves and ruled as feudal
   lords, treating their subjects as something between slaves and serfs.
   Serfs stayed to work the land; slaves were exported to the mines, where
   large numbers of them died. Some Spaniards objected to this encomienda
   system, notably Bartolomé de Las Casas, who insisted that the Indians
   were humans with souls and rights. Largely due to his efforts, the New
   Laws were adopted in 1542 to protect the natives, but the abuses were
   not entirely or permanently abolished. Serfdom existed as such in parts
   of Latin America well into the 19th century, past independence; it
   sometimes said to have existed in practice through much of the 20th
   century, as large numbers of landless labourers were very nearly tied
   to estates by semi-feudal arrangements.

Massacres

   Las Casas and other dissenting Spaniards from the colonial period gave
   vivid descriptions of the atrocities inflicted upon the natives. This
   has helped to create an image of the Spanish conquistadores as cruel in
   the extreme. However, since Las Casas's writings were polemical works,
   intended to provoke moral outrage in order to facilitate reform, some
   scholars speculate that his depictions may have been exaggerated to
   some degree. No mainstream scholar dismisses the idea that atrocities
   were widespread, but some now believe that mass killings were not a
   significant factor in overall native depopulation. It may be argued
   that the Spanish rulers in the Americas had economic reasons to be
   unhappy at the high mortality rate of the indigenous population, since
   at least some of them wanted to exploit the natives as laborers. In the
   mid-19th century, post-independence leader Juan Manuel de Rosas engaged
   in what he himself presented as a war of extermination against the
   natives of the Argentinian interior; this was not the sole instance of
   such a policy. ^

Displacement and disruption

   Even more consequential than warfare or mistreatment on indigenous
   populations was the geographic displacement and the disruption of
   lifeways that resulted from the European colonization of the Americas.
   As more and more people arrived from the Old World, native peoples were
   increasingly compelled to relocate and alter their traditional ways of
   life. These changes often resulted in decreased birth rates, which
   steadily lowered populations over time. In the United States, for
   example, the relocations of Native Americans resulting from the
   policies of Indian Removal and the reservation system created a
   disruption which resulted in fewer births and thus population decline.
   Harmful social side effects of this ethnic cleansing policy, such as
   malnourishment, alcoholism and internicine stuggles, further
   contributed to a progressive decline.^

The genocide debate

   A controversial question relating to the population history of American
   indigenous peoples is whether or not the natives of the Americas were
   the victims of genocide. After the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust during
   World War II, genocide was defined (in part) as a crime "committed with
   intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
   religious group, as such."

   Historian David Stannard is of the opinion that the indigenous peoples
   of America (including Hawaii^ ) were the victims of a "Euro-American
   genocidal war."^ While conceding that the majority of the indigenous
   peoples fell victim to the ravages of European disease, he estimates
   that almost 100 million died in what he calls the American Holocaust.^
   Stannard's perspective has been joined by Kirkpatrick Sale, Ben
   Kiernan, Lenore A. Stiffarm, and Phil Lane, Jr., among others; the
   perspective has been further refined by Ward Churchill, who has said
   that "it was precisely malice, not nature, that did the deed."^ -- the
   Europeans chose to spread diseases.

   Stannard's claim of 100 million deaths has been disputed because he
   does not cite any demographic data to support this number, and because
   he makes no distinction between death from violence and death from
   disease. Noble David Cook considers books such as Stannard's—a number
   of which were released around the year 1992 to coincide with the 500th
   anniversary of the Columbus voyage—to be an unproductive return to
   Black Legend-type explanations for depopulation. In response to
   Stannard's figure, political scientist R. J. Rummel has instead
   estimated that over the centuries of European colonization about 2
   million to 15 million American indigenous people were the victims of
   what he calls democide. "Even if these figures are remotely true,"
   writes Rummel, "then this still make this subjugation of the Americas
   one of the bloodier, centuries long, democides in world history."^

   While no mainstream historian denies that death and suffering were
   unjustly inflicted by a number of Europeans upon a great many American
   natives, many argue that genocide, which is a crime of intent, was not
   the intent of European colonization. Historian Stafford Poole wrote:
   "There are other terms to describe what happened in the Western
   Hemisphere, but genocide is not one of them. It is a good propaganda
   term in an age where slogans and shouting have replaced reflection and
   learning, but to use it in this context is to cheapen both the word
   itself and the appalling experiences of the Jews and Armenians, to
   mention but two of the major victims of this century."^

   Therefore, most mainstream scholars tend not to use the term "genocide"
   to describe the overall depopulation of American natives. However, a
   number of historians, rather than seeing the whole history of European
   colonization as one long act of genocide, do cite specific wars and
   campaigns which were arguably genocidal in intent and effect. Usually
   included among these are the Pequot War and campaigns waged against
   tribes in California starting in the 1850s.^

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