CHAPTER 1: Population
My people are few. They resemble the
scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. . . There was a time
when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled
sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed
away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful
memory.
- CHIEF SEATTLE, Suqwamish and Duwamish
One of the fiercest scholarly battles to rage over the colonization of the Americas is over population estimates. For centuries, historians have underestimated the number of Native Americans that lived in the Americas in 1492. Intentionally underestimating the population was a convenient way to justify the conquest of the Americas because, supposedly, not enough Indians existed to matter. Prejudice against Indians also led scholars to arrive at low population figures because, supposedly, Indians were too inferior in mind to create or sustain large populations. Large populations are typically associated with civilization and small populations with savagery. A well-known scholar of American Indian history, Francis Jennings, notes:
An early formulation of the notion reached print when a French Jesuit missionary remarked in 1612 that the nomadic Indians of his acquaintance "roam rather than occupy" vast stretches of territory. By simply assuming that all Indians were nomads, theorists of what is called international law were able to argue that no Indians really occupied the land, and logic then dictated that there could not have been many Indians. . . And historians carried the myth into the twentieth century as Frederick Jackson Turner excluded Indians from the "settled area" and defined their territories as "free land," after which his disciple Walter Prescott Webb expanded the definition to "land which can be had for the taking." (83)
Webb erroneously estimated that the Indian population in what is presently the United States did not exceed 500,000 (Jennings 83). Additionally, in the 1940s and 1950s, the population of the entire hemisphere in 1492 was said to be little more than eight million, with only one million people in the region north of Mexico (Stannard 11). Ronald Wright addresses these figures in his book Stolen Continents:
It is impossible to say exactly how many people were living in what is now the United States and Canada in 1492. But it's clear that the old guess of around 1 million is absurdly low-a guess cherished for so long because it reinforced the myth of the empty land and hid the enormity of Native America's depopulation. Good modern estimates range between 7 and 18 million. (123)
David Stannard addresses current population estimate for both North and South America in his book American Holocaust:
Today, few serious students of the subject would put the hemispheric figure at less than 75,000,000 to 100,000,000 (with approximately 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 north of Mexico), while one of the most well-regarded specialists in the field recently has suggested that a more accurate estimate would be around 145,000,000 for the hemisphere as a whole and about 18,000,000 for the area north of Mexico. (11)
Francis Jennings concludes his discussion on the topic by noting that "one must consider also a bias inherent in all archaeological work: i.e., it can go nowhere but up. Today's figures are minimum; tomorrow's new digs add new figures" (89).
Textbooks rarely address the question of population, unless they are referring to the "wilderness" the Europeans faced, implying that Indian numbers were very low. This is not surprising since the agents of depopulation-disease, slavery, and violence-are rarely discussed. None of the older textbooks I examined discussed the Indian population in 1492.
The currently used textbooks vary in their coverage of population estimates. The United States: Its History and Neighbors gives no population figures and does not discuss depopulation. America: Yesterday and Today gives an inordinately high estimate: "By 1492, when Columbus landed on a small island in the Caribbean Sea, between 20,000,000 and 40,000,000 Indians probably lived in North America. Historians do not agree on the exact number" (56). The highest figure currently being proposed by some historians is 18 million, so this figure does not make sense. Perhaps this number refers to the entire hemisphere, in which case the estimate would be typically low. Three textbooks discuss depopulation when discussing disease: A More Perfect Union, The American Nation, and America Will Be. In the previous section on "Pestilence," the excerpt from A More Perfect Union discussed depopulation. The American Nation says, "Scholars estimate that between 50 percent and 90 percent of Native Americans died of diseases introduced from Europe" (69). America Will Be says, "By 1650, smallpox had killed three-fourths of the Indians who once lived in North and South America" (122).
It is important for textbooks to discuss depopulation of the native peoples since 1492 because it would help students understand the immense impact the European invasion had on the American continent, how close Native Americans came to extinction, and therefore, the importance of their current revival. It is not enough to say that "many Indian cultures did not survive the coming of the European" as The United States: Its History and Neighbors does. Students must understand the true extent of the devastation. For example, to put the population of 1492 into perspective, we can compare America to Europe. The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was home to a quarter of a million people, which was four times more than London, and the total population under the Aztec empire's control was 20 million (Wright 11). In comparison, the British Isles had only five million people and Spain about eight million (Wright 11). We can also put in perspective the proportion of people that died:
The great death raged for more than a century. By 1600, after some 20 waves of pestilence had swept through the Americas, less than a tenth of the original population remained. Perhaps 90 million died, the equivalent, in today's terms, to the loss of a billion. It was the greatest mortality in history. (Wright 14)
Historical demographers have been uncovering depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent in region upon region "with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 percent has become a working rule of thumb" (Stannard x).
By 1890, only 248,000 Native Americans of the present-day United States had survived the invasion (Hirschfelder and de Montano 37). However, the native population has grown steadily throughout the twentieth century. By 1990, the US Census revealed a Native American population of almost two million. There are many factors that influence this increase and make it hard to determine just how dramatic the population increase actually is. One factor is an improvement in the data gathering process, as, for a time, the census only listed "Whites" and "Colored" categories, neither of which Native Americans fall into. Another factor is the revitalization of Native American culture in the last few decades which means Native Americans are no longer ashamed to admit their Indian heritage, as was the case during the days of assimilation when discrimination was rampant. A third factor involves improved medical care, so more Native Americans are surviving than ever before. A final factor is the racial intermixing that has occurred more often in the last century than in previous centuries, which brings up the question of how much Indian blood a person can have to claim Native American ethnic status. All of these factors skew the population numbers, but there is no doubt that the Native American population is booming. If population rates continue on their current course, the Native American population in the year 2000 is projected to be four million (Jennings 398). This makes it more imperative than ever to include an accurate representation of Native American history in textbooks. Native Americans did not disappear with the frontier. They are a vital segment of America and should be respected as such.