The population decline of Native Americans 1400–1600
In today’s world there is a high percentage of people that doesn’t have background knowledge on the history of the North American continent during the 1400’s throughout the1800’s.
Knowing the history of this country will give a brighter view on how this country was founded and how significant the Native Americans were to this land. Nearly all scholarly estimates of the New World’s population fall between the counts of two anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber’s 1934 estimate of 8.4 million and Henry Dobyns’s 1966 estimate of 112.5 million. However by the 1960’s scholars have concluded that in just one spot, Central Mexico, once had three times as many Indians as Kroeber had estimated in the whole hemisphere. Despite the estimated counts, noone will ever truly know how many Native Indians were here pre-columbian time.
As the European invasion spread throughtout the “New World” of the North American continent the two cultures clashed. The result of the clash were hundreds of battles and the decline of the Native American nation.
Native Americans are said to have migrated to the North American content about fifteen thousand years ago, from a land bridge that connected North America and Asia. Before the arrival of the first European settlers, more than one hundred thousand Native Americans were living in present-day North Carolina, but by 1800 that number fell to twenty thousand, for example. There were an estimated eighteen million Native Americans living north of Mexico at the beginning of the European invasion also. Why did the Native American population decline at such a fast-hostile pace, after the “New World” was discovered? No matter which side the Natives were on, ultimately the Europeans claimed what they wanted. If the Native Americans joined the Europeans or fought against them, the natives would still be robbed of their deep-rooted culture. There are major reasons why Native Americans were pushed out of their land. As Europeans took control of more and more land, millions of Indigenous People were killed, died of disease, sold into slavery, and tricked of peace treaties.
Before the European invasion, American Indians were remarkably free of serious diseases and did not often die from diseases. Due to their better diets they were healthier than the Europeans. The natives would more so face starvation rather than dyeing from a disease. Native American political leaders did not store their wealth, but instead shared it. No one in an Indian village starved unless they all did. As they encountered European settlers in the fifteenth century, the natives faced people with wildly different religions, customs, and diseases. The encounter for such diseases wiped out large groups of the native’s population within decades. Numerous diseases were brought to the American content such as smallpox, tuberculosis, STD’s, pertussis, influenza, cholera, typhus, and scarlet fever. Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans died from European diseases during the first two centuries. Smallpox killed the greatest number of natives.
The fur trade between the Indians and the Europeans were ultimately negative. The demand for furs from one group to another were re-patterned causing conflict between Indians. While at the same time, the demand of fur from the Europeans grew rapidly which meant the competition among the Indians for new hunting grounds became hostile.
The fight over land became increasingly tense. As the colonist poured in from England more land was needed. Between 1600–1800 many wars broke out between the colonists and the natives. An easy way to slaughter a high number of natives were to attack them while they were asleep. During the French and Indian war all lands that were held by French were then turned to British Territory and much of the land given up by the French was Native American land. During 1763 the British established the Proclamation Line, which was created as a barrier to separate and pacify the Indians from the colonists. The Proclamation of 1763 has become one of the cornerstones of Native American Law in the United States and Canada. The Indians were pleased and able to keep their land, but only for a short period of time. However, the colonists were angry because they wanted to move westward and take the land that they thought belonged to them. The Proclamation was offensive to the colonies as undue interference in their affairs. Treaties that followed drew a line of settlement more acceptable to the colonial settlers and the continued westward movement of pioneers and disregarded the Proclamation’s provisions. This disregard brought decades of continued Indian warfare. The Indians were tired of being cheated out of their own land and war seemed to be the only choice.
Natives had been forced into slavery as early as 1636. Between 1492 and 1880, between two and five million Native Americans were enslaved in America. They had been forced into slavery during King Phillip’s War in large numbers. Knowing they would be shipped off to Caribbean plantations and face cruel treatment they would either fight to their death or surrender. The colonies shipped Native Americans as slaves to Barbados, Jamaica, and Bermuda, since the demand for labor was so high. Enslavement was so high due to the large number of surrenders, housing and feeding the natives was too much for the colonist, shipping the natives off and making a profit off of them was the easiest way to go. The enslavement of Native Americans has been documented in shipping records, court cases, town records, and colonial government orders. During the last half of the 19thcentury, U.S. and Native American Policies get watered down. Textbooks and history classes only highlight certain polices to show how great the strength and will power of the United States was. Textbooks and history classes leave out important history policies like boarding schools, reservation camps, and the general American dislike of Native Americans. The Europeans that established the “New World”, also sought to stop the cultural traits from being passed to younger generations by forcing Native Americans into boarding schools. In these boarding schools they received an American education and given American clothes, made to cut their hair, and perform manual labor that contributed to the upkeep of the school. The natives were not compensated for their work. Several tribes were put on reservations in places out of sight and they were given rations. The government wanted full control.
