CORONADO

Here’s what this one book says about the Indians. And I thought we had it tough when my dad brought us from Mexico.

Herman J. Viola, Carolyn Margolis, eds., Seeds of change: a quincentennial commemoration, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 219:

"Estimates of population size of the New World in 1492 range from just over eight million to one hundred million. Similarly, estimates for North America range from nine hundred thousand to eighteen million.

"Most scholars agree, however, that numbers for native populations declined rapidly during the first fifty years following initial European contact. Native population in North America reached a nadir in the early 1900s......

p. 193:

"Diseases caused the most fatalities, far more than the battlefields. Although there is continuing controversy about which diseases were brought by the outsiders, it is generally agreed that smallpox, cholera, measles, diphtheria, typhoid fever, some influenza, and the plague came from Europe and Africa. The deadliest killer was smallpox.

"Smallpox was noted in the Caribbean as early as the winter of 1518—19; from there it moved north.… In several Atlantic coast settlements from 1520 to 1584, according to recent studies, the disease reduced the Indian population by 25 to 30 percent. Another period of epidemic from 1584 to 1620 may have reduced the survivors by another 90 percent. While resettling that same area, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for having cleared the lands of Indian people (Josephy 1982).

"Such diseases had a more severe impact on the native peoples because the Europeans [were immune and knew the disease was contagious]......

"… One Indian said they could not understand how one could pass this damaging ailment to another because one could not pass along a battle wound. When [smallpox] hit the Blackfeet [of the Great Plains] in 1781, more than 50 percent of the tribe died. When it returned in 1837, the survivors suffered a 66 percent loss: six thousand perished (Ewers 1958).

"As the tribes were physically ravaged by diseases, …the medicine men suffered loss of prestige. The time-honored way of curing other ailments revolved around the sweat bath and a cold plunge in the creek: with smallpox this combination is fatal.

"The educational method of the tribes suffered [as the elders and young died].

In many regions by the time the first white man actually appeared, his biological accoutrements had devastated the Indian populations by more than 75 percent. Entire tribes became extinct, and the surviving tribal remnants were critically weakened.

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