Disease, American Indians, Depopulation, Repopulation

[roo_ster]

The usual claim is that 75%-90% of the American Indians were wiped out by euro-diseases and thus made the conquest of the Americas easier.

I think I buy that for some coastal areas or places where the conquerors had the ability to immediately put those who resisted to steel. 

I am less willing to buy that theory for vast tracks of the interior or other places where Europeans projected no power for generations, in some cases hundreds of years after the euro-diseases ran through the population.

Most any other population (bacterial, mammal, etc.) that takes such a hit recovers in a few short generations as the survivors are the disease-resistant and pass on that resistance to their offspring.

Is there an immunologist / anthropologist / whateverist in the house that can answer the question of why the American Indians were the exception?  (If they were the exception and the contention is not bunk.)

[280plus]

I'm none of the above but I do know a concerted effort was made to decimate the buffalo herds and therefore the plains Indians etc were deprived of their main source of sustenance. Then there's alcohol. I believe that may have played in there as well.

[Marnoot]

The book 1491 had quite a detailed section on the effects of disease on the natives. I wish I remembered some details, but can't at the moment. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend it.

[roo_ster]

Oh, and my contention/supposition/thesis is not that disease did not run through the Americas, but that those AI groups not confronted with actual European power were able to recover as would any other population.

This implies that the AI population levels seen by later settlers of the interior of the Americas are closer to pre-Columbian levels than to a 75-90% reduction. 

I would not have a problem having that thesis proved wrong, but I'd like to see somethign other than mere claims that the 75-90% reduction was persistent.

[AJ Dual]

The huge Native American cultures, entire cities made from logs, dirt pyramids etc. in the interior of North America that just vanished around the 15th century tends to support that theory.

Sites such as the Cahokia Mounds in IL, which some archeological estimates were a city of 20,000 people... just vanished...

If they repopulated fully after an initial pandemic or pandemics of European/African/Asian diseases, I would have expected some groups to have rebuilt to 10-20k sized settlements by the time of European settler contact/war.

I further think the disease created a cultural selection pressure on the Native Americans, favoring the groups who led nomadic and semi-nomadic existences, or who simply lived in smaller groups.

[Tallpine]

Well, the story is that some infected blankets were brought up the Missouri by steamboat, and smallpox[IIRC] nearly wiped out the Blackfeet.

This was in the mid 1800s and there was no time to recover before the whites pretty much took over.

[roo_ster]

Well, the story is that some infected blankets were brought up the Missouri by steamboat, and smallpox[IIRC] nearly wiped out the Blackfeet.

This was in the mid 1800s and there was no time to recover before the whites pretty much took over.

I call buffalo shinola on that one.  By the mid 1800s, every group of humans in N America would have been exposed to smallpox. 

The huge Native American cultures, entire cities made from logs, dirt pyramids etc. in the interior of North America that just vanished around the 15th century tends to support that theory.

Sites such as the Cahokia Mounds in IL, which some archeological estimates were a city of 20,000 people... just vanished...

There are some Indian mounds here & there (several of which I have visited, but I know of no "AI cities" to speak of that I have read about. 

<searches net for data on Cahokia Mounds>

That is interesting. 

Estimates of roughly 6 square miles and 8K-40K in population. 

Unfortunately for the "European diseases killed of AI cities," thesis, most of what I found stated that the Cahokia Mounds went into decline in the 1300s AD and were gone before the Europeans came to the Americas.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

the deliberate bringing of infected  blankets to indian territory is documented.  was a preacher that did it if i remember right

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

It took centuries, millennia, for the AI to build up the relatively small populations they had prior to the arrival of Europeans.  Their growth rates were pretty slim to begin with.  Throw in a serious imbalance in their ability to provide the basic necessities of life by killing off half of the tribe, and you probably wind up with a situation where they can't support even the survivors afterward, much less regrow and recover fully.

And I suspect it's not safe to assume that pathogens spread cross continent so quickly.  There was minimal cross-country travel during those times, and we can safely assume that whatever travel did take place was performed by the healthy and strong.  Anyone weakened by disease would be effectively immobilized.  

[MicroBalrog]

the deliberate bringing of infected  blankets to indian territory is documented.  was a preacher that did it if i remember right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt

"As it turned out, however, officers at the besieged Fort Pitt had already attempted to do what Amherst and Bouquet were still discussing. During a parley at Fort Pitt on June 24, 1763, Captain Simeon Ecuyer gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief 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, some historians have noted that 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 reached the Indians through other vectors. Indeed, even before the blankets had been handed over, the disease may have been spread to the Indians by native warriors returning from attacks on infected white settlements. So while it is certain that these British soldiers attempted to intentionally infect Indians with smallpox, it is uncertain whether or not their attempt was successful"

[De Selby]

There is solid evidence as to extensive trade networks and agricultural development prior to the 1700's.  The corresponding travel routes were extensive.

What needs to be remembered is that most of the accounts we get exposed to in school date from about 200 to 300 years after first contact with western diseases and the first colonial settlements.

A lot of the killing happened from displacement.  Squeezing the native populations into inhospitable terrain was a policy from early on that supplemented the natural effects of disease and warfare.

[Balog]

When you're a primitive hunter-gatherer "civilization" it doesn't take much to push you over the edge.

[De Selby]

When you're a primitive hunter-gatherer "civilization" it doesn't take much to push you over the edge.

Yeah but they weren't.  The roaming tribes were mainly a post-settlement thing.  There were cities and agriculture before that, not too different from what was going on in Mexico and South America.

[BobR]

Well, the story is that some infected blankets were brought up the Missouri by steamboat, and smallpox[IIRC] nearly wiped out the Blackfeet.

I worked on the Blackfeet rez for a little over 3 years and I heard that story more than once. It also gave us a name for our blankets we gave to pt's that needed them in the ER. We had a few of the grey blankets with multi colored threads through it, commonly known as disaster blankets. We, white and native alike, referred to them as our smallpox blankets.

The Blackfeet tribe was nearly wiped out from disease. From what I could find out it led to close relatives becoming married and having children and also the importation of people from other plains tribes to help repopulate the tribe.

I always wondered if the inbreeding is the root cause for the higher incidence of rheumatoid arthritis and increased heart disease and dermatalogical problems within the tribe.

bob

[280plus]

There is solid evidence as to extensive trade networks and agricultural development prior to the 1700's.  The corresponding travel routes were extensive.

The archeological group I work with on occasion has found Clovis points here in CT. That's how extensive and widereaching trade was. Few people realize how advanced the tribes really were here in North America.

[Tallpine]

The archeological group I work with on occasion has found Clovis points here in CT. That's how extensive and widereaching trade was. Few people realize how advanced the tribes really were here in North America.

Yeah, they had quite an arrowhead manufacturing facility down there in New Mexico.  Too bad the economy isn't that good today. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

"Advanced" is a relative concept.

[280plus]

Yeah, they had quite an arrowhead manufacturing facility down there in New Mexico.  Too bad the economy isn't that good today. 

Right, do they make anything in New Mexico anymore? 

[longeyes]

Yeah but they weren't.  The roaming tribes were mainly a post-settlement thing.  There were cities and agriculture before that, not too different from what was going on in Mexico and South America.

True, but still stone-age peoples, nonetheless.

[roo_ster]

I've done some searching on the "Mississippian" culture of mound/town-building NAIs that seemed to dominate all the eastern N America save the coasts.  Interesting as all get-out.  Some of them even got to the point where they could use copper(1).

Every mound / site excavation indicates that it all fell apart a couple hundred years before the Europeans came calling.  IOW, when the Pilgrims hit Plymouth rock, the NAI groups were more like the fallen Mayans than the Aztecs, development wise.

The plains Indians don't look like they EVER had much beyond what the Europeans saw when they arrived.

Also, I don't doubt disease spread steadily from the first landing on mainland N America.  The Black Death spread even between groups that were not on good terms by means of infected, but ambulatory war-makers interacting with yet-uninfected adversaries.  It spread faster at certain junctures due to the sea trade, but it is a model to compare.

Heck, one can even use the horse and firearms as proxies for disease.  Once a group was shown to have access to either, one is certain that there was enough contact for disease to be transmitted.  IIRC, the Sioux were at the ass-end of both the firearms & horse dissemination and managed to dominate becasue they put both together--in the 1700s, WAY before any Europeans dreamed of traversing the Great American Desert (AKA, Great Plains).

All in all, an interesting topic.

(1)  Though it looks like when the mound/towns fell apart, they also lost the ability to fashion copper implements and were once again at a stone-age technology level.

[280plus]

I have found that the history of the Aussie Aborigine greatly parallels that of the NAI. European incursion was ~150 years later there than NA so it is much more thoroughly documented and studied by scholars so there is a crapload of literature that can be found. Much more is also known about their customs etc but still much info on the tribes was lost forever, just not as much as the NAI. I believe a lot of what is known about the Aussie Abo can be used to infer general traits, familial ties / interactions and characteristics to that of the NAI.

[De Selby]

"Advanced" is a relative concept.

This is true, but most often, I think the examples run contra the prevailing winds.  The Europeans were in many ways less technologically and socially advanced than the natives in America.  But they were far more advanced at warfare, due to having a solid millennium of near constant warfare under their belts by the time they landed in the West Indies.

Being practiced at brutality and killing people often gets taken for technological superiority in the history books.

Back to the issue of things being relative, the Europeans tended to be more war-prone and ruthless, while the natives practiced human sacrifice on a larger scale, and apparently did not have a good handle on civilization ending religious warfare. 

[sumpnz]

This is true, but most often, I think the examples run contra the prevailing winds.  The Europeans were in many ways less technologically and socially advanced than the natives in America. 

Como se wha???

Srsly, WTF?

OK, social advancement is a matter of perspective in most cases, and depends on what you mean by "advanced".  But even then...  come on.

By the start of the 18th Century (and in some cases by the start of the 17th Century) the Europeans in terms of technology had trans-oceanic boats and navigation/cartography, steel, astronomy, physics, calculus, rule of law (mostly), champaign, beer, whiskey/brandy/vodka, etc.  The NAI's had canoes, over-land navigation, stone and copper, astrology, basic mechanics, pre-algebra, rule of the strongest, peyote, tobacco, etc.  In other words, the status of Europe somewhere around 1000 BC. 

[makattak]

This is true, but most often, I think the examples run contra the prevailing winds.  The Europeans were in many ways less technologically and socially advanced than the natives in America. [Citation needed] But they were far more advanced at warfare, due to having a solid millennium of near constant warfare under their belts by the time they landed in the West Indies.

Being practiced at brutality and killing people often gets taken for technological superiority in the history books.

Back to the issue of things being relative, the Europeans tended to be more war-prone and ruthless, while the natives practiced human sacrifice on a larger scale, and apparently did not have a good handle on civilization ending religious warfare. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

This is true, but most often, I think the examples run contra the prevailing winds.  The Europeans were in many ways less technologically and socially advanced than the natives in America.  But they were far more advanced at warfare, due to having a solid millennium of near constant warfare under their belts by the time they landed in the West Indies.

Being practiced at brutality and killing people often gets taken for technological superiority in the history books.

Back to the issue of things being relative, the Europeans tended to be more war-prone and ruthless, while the natives practiced human sacrifice on a larger scale, and apparently did not have a good handle on civilization ending religious warfare.  

Did any of your "education" on the subject go into detail on the kinds of warfare and brutality practiced by the natives?  Or does your worldview only allow for the possibility of white Europeans being brutal killers?