The American Society for Ethnohistory

Brief Perspective on a Scholarly Transformation: Widowing the "Virgin" Land Author(s): Henry F. Dobyns Source: Ethnohistory, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring, 1976), pp. 95-104 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/481510 . Accessed: 25/08/2011 14:14
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BRIEF PERSPECTIVE ON A SCHOLARLY TRANSFORMATION: WIDOWING THE "VIRGIN" LAND by HenryF. Dobyns
ABSTRACT The analyses of historical population dynamics collected here testify to the rapid development of sound scholarship in this field since 1966. Recent studies have overturned the stereotype that Europeans colonized a "virgin" North American continent. Instead, they settled a "widowed" land. Recent and some significant earlier contributions to this research frontier are evaluated.

This collection of essayshas been writtenby a groupof myth-destroyers. That makes the severalcontributionsboth interesting reading,and for some minds comfortably sliding along accustomed grooves, disturbingreading.The statements that follow are both scientific and humanistic. A physicist may find the quality of quantificationin what follows frustrating- but that is a matter of refractory evidence, not the abilities of the investigators. The literary scholar may regardthe compassion contained in these chapters of population history stiff - but this is the compassion that faces humanreality. For many years, anthropologistsand historians in North America, and elsewhere, typically oversimplifiedthe stark reality of Indoamericanpopulation trends. All too often, authors wrote, whether they viewed themselvesas scientists or humanists, as though tribalpopulations had remainedever stable in aboriginal times. All too many writers ignored or guessed at historic population trends ratherthan searchedfor evidence about them. In recent years, fortunately for both science and humanism, both anthropologists and historiansin increasingnumbers have started coming to grips with the real complexitiesof historic population trends.They have done so primarilybecause of perceptibleprodding from the pioneeringanalysesof documented data and the startlingconclusions reachedby SherburneF. Cook and WoodrowW. Borah(Dobyns 1976:14ff). The American Society for Ethnohistory meeting at Albuquerque in mid-Octoberof 1976 witnesseddramatictestimony as to the recent scholarly
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transformation. That was the tenth anniversaryof the appearanceof the author's (Dobyns 1966) methodological assessment of earlier estimates of New World populations. After decades of stagnation of thought about Indoamericanpopulation, that essay had apparently stirred the researchof some anthropologistsand historians.A day-long symposiumon researchinto population trends reflected the marked increase in researchand reporting. One half-day session focused upon books published during 1976 that dealt with historic population trends in the Americas.The other half-day session offered a room full of avid listeners the resultsof additionalnew researchon the topic. The present collection of papers makes available to those unable to attend the fascinatingresearchsession in Albuquerquethe findingsof most of the investigatorswho spoke there. Unfortunately,not all of the reportsmade at Albuquerque could be included in this collection. That lack has been remediedin a way by addingone report(by Stoffle and Evans)first presented at the 1977 annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropologyat San Diego. Like other collections of reports on research by several investigators, this one may appear lacking a certain unity beyond the examination of historic population trends. Geographically,these reports rangefrom England to the Southwestern United States. Temporally,they scatter from A.D. 1086 to the present day. That very diversityactually constitutes the real strength of this collection of researchfindings. The variationin area, time, and ethnic groups examined reflects the new found analytical capacity and vigor of investigationof historic populationdynamicsnow underway. This collection of even firmerfindingsin harbinger assuredlyconstitutes a most encouraging the future. These papers testify to the rapidity with which able investigatorsare reformulating scholarly thought about the magnitude of aboriginal Indoamerican population. They discuss processes that drasticallyaltered Indoamericanpopulation duringthe ColumbianExchange.They explore relationships between factors as different as land tenure customs and local insect to humanpopulation. aggregates Researchprogressin historic demographyis so rapid that any attempt at bibliographicsummationis obsolescent by the time it appears in print. Such was the fate of my recent bibliographic essay (Dobyns 1976). Consequently, this introductory comment closes with some concise evaluacontrol over tions of new studies. This is one meansof bringingbibliographic this research frontier more nearly up-to-date. Some earlier studies are also mentioned (1) to make partial amends for not including them in the 1976 essay, and (2) because added temporal perspective has persuaded me that of this burgeoningresearchfield. they belong in the manifestbibliography

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AboriginalPopulation A posthumous S. F. Cook (1976b) analysis of CaliforniaIndoamerican population dealt with the question of the magnitude of the pre-contact populace. Another Cook (1976c) study took up the question of New England's Indoamerican population during the seventeenth century. That meant that Cook also estimated aboriginal tribal populations. He acknowledged that his figures were far too low if late eighteenth century counts were accurate, and the magnitude of decline were as great as Dobyns suggested. Jennings (1975) countered a preliminary Cook analysis of New England population in his cutting evaluationof Puritan sources. Jenningsalso coined that most felicitous label, "the widowed land" to characterize what Anglo-Americanshave self-servinglylabeled "virgin." For, "Europeans did not find a wilderness here; rather, however involuntarily, they made one." That is only one of Jennings' many eloquent epigrams. Jennings is the greatest myth-debunkerto come down the pike in many a long year;his book is must readingfor anyone involvedin serious study of Indoamericans. GeographerWilliamM. Denevan(1976a) continued to spreadawareness of the expanding research frontier dealing with Indoamerican population trends. He directed a methodological synthesis toward other geographers. Moreover, Denevan (1976b) made a major contribution to this expanding field by bringingout a volume of readingsuseful for instructionalpurposes. Denevan (1976b:291) arrived at a hemispheric estimate of 57,300,000 persons living in the Americas in 1492. He allocated 4,400,000 to North America;21,400,000 to Mexico; 5,560,000 to CentralAmerica;5,850,000 to the Caribbean islands; only 11,500,000 to the Andes; and 8,500,000 to lowland South America. He was, in a word, cautious. Denevan (1976:299-331) ended this volume with an exhaustive, albeit unannotated, bibliography that helps to keep track of recent developments, especially in the Latin Americanarea. Some manuscriptsfor the projected SmithsonianInstitution handbook on American Indians contain new tribal population estimates. Exploiting these re-estimates for 45 tribes, Ubelaker (1976) calculated an estimate of North Americanpre-Columbian population. He estimates 2,171,125 persons where Mooney had 1,152,950. Until the studies on which Ubelaker's calculations are based can be methodologically evaluated, his estimate seems worthy of minimal confidence. Whether Daniel Gookin's New England population figures were reliablebecause he was a "contemporaryobserver," or "greatly exaggerated"as Mooney believed (Ubelaker 1976:665) begs the he knew lived well critical point. In the 1670s, Gookin and the Indoamericans over half a century after recordedmajordisease epidemic episodes and on the eve of the Second Puritan Conquest (Jennings 1975:325). Gookin and his

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informants could, therefore, provide only the indirect evidence of oral tradition concerning tribal population magnitudes prior to the devastating epidemics of 1616-1620 that opened the Massachusettscoast to English colonization. That date came long after the ColumbianExchangebegan on the north Atlantic coast of North America, as Miller's thought-provoking contribution to the presentcollection emphasizes. An anthropologist with much field research experience among contemporaryjungle tribesmenchallengedtheoreticiansto confront the ecological issue posed by Cook's and Borah'sestimatesof pre-1519 centralMexican population. Harner (1977) roused an immediate storm of protest from colleagues when newspaperspublicized his "The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice" prior to its publication. Yet human sacrifice on the Aztec scale must be incorporatedinto ecological theory if it is to encompassthe known rangeof human behavior. An earlier analysis of "The Aboriginal Population of Tidewater Virginia," by Mook (1944) dealt with a key area for assessing historic Indoamericanpopulation trends in the eastern woodlands. Mook's analysis resembled Ubelaker'sin not recognizingthat virusesand germscould and did move from tribe to tribe even prior to Europeancontact with a givengroup. Drawing data from early seventeenth century documents, Mook ignored the impact of 1585-1586 English colonization and 1570-1572 Spanishabortive missionization in the area. Thus, his assumption that Jamestown "was the beginning of the period of disturbancecaused by white settlement" was an times ended much earlieron this vulnerablecoast. error."Aboriginal" An even earlier work by Hinsdale (1932) dealt with only the limited area of Michigan. It correlated types of vegetative cover with human population density measuredin terms of the numbersof known archaeological sites. Such a method suffersan obvious handicap:one can neverbe certain whether known sites accurately represent all sites. The study remains important for another reason. It documented high levels of consumption of wild game - passengerpigeons, fish, venison - as late as 1878. Those who doubt the high pre-plow agriculture game productivity of North America must read this study. An intellectual predecessorof James Mooney and Alfred L. Kroeber whose early formulation of the question of the size of pre-Columbian Indoamericanpopulation needs to be taken into account was GarrickMallery (1877). While his attempt was methodologicallydefective, apparentlyno one challenged it. So Mallery must share the blame for helping to establish long-accepted concepts only recently questioned. Mallery mentioned no disease save smallpox, and discounted that as a depopulatingagent. On this inasmuch score, Malleryprovedto be a poor predictorof diseaseerradication,

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as the Pueblos suffered high epidemic smallpox mortality in 1898-1899 (ARCIA 1899), not to mention other late nineteenth century outbreaks. Long before Kroeber, Mallery assumed that Indoamerican population increasedduring historic times, and he uniformly discounted early estimates of largeIndoamericanpopulations.

EpidemicHistory The most important new work on historical epidemiology is synthetic as well as substantive, and generalratherthan regional. Only one chapter of William McNeil's (1976) Plagues and Peoples deals with transoceanic exchanges of diseases. The book's real contribution lies in propounding a general theory of history that recognizes the fundamental importance of disease and epidemic episodes in determining events. McNeil takes other professional historians to task for having omitted the disease factor in their enchantmentwith less importantfactors in human history. A very significant article appearedin a majorhistoricaljournalin 1976. Written by an outstanding ecological historian, it spoke persuasivelyto the audience of professional historians of North America. Alfred W. Crosby (1976) made explicit the fundamental importance of initial exposure to a new disease - especially one caused by a virus - of an entirely susceptible population. The opening of the Alcan Highway during World War II exposed previously relatively isolated rural Indoamerican populations to measles, German measles, dysentery, whooping cough, mumps, tonsillitis, meningitis, and catarrhaljaundice within one year. John F. Marchand(1943) reported that airliftingpatients to modern hospitalssaved all but seven of 130 affected individuals.Before airlifts, earlierEuroamerican rapid incursionsinto isolated Indoamerican populations clearly resulted in much higher mortality. The report is meaningful both as a specific case study, and more as a well-documented basis for extrapolation to earlier times in other communities. Because the clinical symptoms of the very lethal epidemic episode in the Pacific Northwest in 1830-1833 had been misinterpreted,Boyd (1975) reaffirmedthe malariadiagnosis. Dollar (1977) retold the story of "The High PlainsSmallpoxEpidemic of 1837-38." It bears remembering that a soon-after-the-event account of that episode among the Mandanappearedin Catlin (1841). Mooney (1911) noted Delaware oral tradition of three seventeenth century smallpox epidemic episodes.

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EndemicDiseases,Warfare and Famine What happened to the Yuki of Coast Range California after 1854 amounted to genocide, accordingto new documentaryevidence Miller(1975) presents. Where Kroeber estimated 2,000 and Cook 6,880, the first Anglo-Americanparty in 1854 guessed 20,000 and an early local historian estimated 12,000. Settlers kidnappedYuki girls to sell to Mexican-American cowboys. They fenced off large areas for cattle and hog pastures,prohibiting Yuki access to natural resources. With state financing, settlers organized militia units to hunt Yukis whom they killed at an apparentrate of 5,200 per year. Rutman and Rutman (1976) discuss at considerablelength malariaas a inhabitantsof Virginia. debilitating diseaseendemicamong non-Indoamerican were to Plasmodium Yet, bearing mosquitoes unlikely make ethnic distinctions when seeking humanblood. In analyzingwhen malariareachedthe area, the Rutmansignore its Spanishcolonial history. Medical researchersHealy et al. (1976) have identified a malaria-like disease now endemic on Nantucket Island. It may have been there for a long than it has in recent time, and could have strucklargernumbersof individuals times.

DepopulationTrends A major event in historical demographyin 1976 was the re-publication of SherburneF. Cook's The ConflictBetween the CaliforniaIndian and White Civilization. This time, the University of CaliforniaPress bound as a single volume what originallyappearedas Ibero-Americana numbers21, 22, 23 and 24. Inasmuch as Dobyns (1976:37-38) evaluatedthese monographs,nothing need be added here. A valuable new Cook (1976b) work analyzed the California Indian population trends between 1860 and 1970, taking up age distribution,vital statistics,and geographicdistribution. Heizer(1974) has edited a grimvolume dealingwith Californiarelations and Indoamericansbetween 1847 and 1865. He between Anglo-Americans used letters from army officers and Indian Agents supplemented with a sampling of newspaper accounts and photographs. Perhaps 50,000 Indoamericansdied in California duringthat period. June Helm and colleagues (1975) have made a brave beginning at analyzing epidemiological factors among sub-Arctic Athapaskan-speaking Indoamericans. They succeed in shaking the assumption that European or contact with these peoples occurredtoo late in tine to expose Euroamerican them to significantdenmoraphic changes.

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In a quantitative, cross-cultural study, Divale and Harris(1976) found certain mechanismshold down population, and generatevery high male sex ratios among youths. They identified warfare,female infanticide and malign or benign neglect as the key mechanisms.Their North American sample is heavily weighed with Eskimo groups,but their hypotheses nonetheless bear furtherinvestigation. Worth rememberingas a sketch of one amalgamatinggroup of tribal survivors is Mooney's (1911) "Passingof the Delaware Nation." It traced Delaware population history, including migrations, from the early sevenin the nineteenth century. teenth century to virtualdisappearance those most severelydepopulatedduring tribes were The Illinois among the role of diseases in the examined historic times. Blasingham(1956) ably at identified least smallpox, measles, gonorrheaand malariaas process. She of the Illinois. She found documentary in virtual extinction the having aided for seven majorepidemic episodes of Old Worlddisease among the evidence Illinois. Famines and the fur trade also contributed to the downfall of the Illinois, but Blasingham achieved less in analyzing those depopulation dynamics. The New AmericanRace The very small handful of historians who are willing to deal frankly with the phenomenon of mixture of European, African, and Indoamerican genes to form a New American Race continue to stand out for their rarity and ability. That stellar historian of historic population events, WoodrowW. Borah (1976) summarized the principal trends in the mixing of genetic heritagesin the New Worldin a largemulti-authorsurveyof the impact of the New World on the Old. He considered the numerical size and rate of emigration from Spain, Portugal, France, England and Africa to the New World. He also took into account the reverse movement. Borah concluded that racialprejudiceappearsto have developed in the New World. Cook (1976b) delved into the matter of genetic mixture of so-called "Indians"in California.WilliamE. Unrau(1976) became personallyinvolved as expert witness and advisorin litigationleading to the legal "reincarnation" of the Kaw people. His vivid account deals with severalsignificantfactors in the emergenceof a Kawvariantof the New AmericanRace. CaseStudies A volume of Anthropological Studies of Human Fertility (Kaplan 1976) contains case studies of Navajosand Hopis by Stephen J. Kunitz and

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John C. Slocumb; one contrasting rural and urban Omahas by Margot Liberty, David V. Hugheyand RichardScaglion;and of Eskimos by GeorgeS. Masnick and Solomon H. Katz; and by Phyllis J. McAlpine and Nancy E. Simpson. In the same volume, Andrew E. Abelson discusses the important relationship between altitude and fertility. Other contributions deal with Latin Americanpopulations.

Enumerations Growing concern among policy makersabout increasingsize of urban Indoamerican populations was reflected in Chaudhuri's(1974) secondary analysis of 1970 United States Census data. Chaudhuri supplemented statistics with personal interviews with Indoamericanleaders in Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff. He emphasized under-enumeration,and the poverty and lack of political mobilizationL' nong Arizona'surbanIndoamericans.

REFERENCES ARCIA 1899 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Part I. Washington: 56th Congress, 1st Session, House Document 5. Blasingham, Emily J. 1956 "The Depopulation of the Illinois Indians. Part I." Ethnohistory, 3:3 (Summer) 193-224; "Part II," Ethnohistory, 3:4 (Fall) 361-412. Borah, Woodrow W. 1976 "The Mixing of Populations," in Fredi Chiappelli (ed.) Michael J. B. Allen and Robert L. Benson (co-eds.) First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 707-722. Boyd, Robert T. 1975 "Another Look at the 'Fever and Ague' of Western Oregon." Ethnohistorv, 22:2 (Spring) 135-154. Catlin, George 1841 The Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians. London: Chaudhuri, Joyotpaul 1974 Urban Indians of Arizona: Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff. Tucson: University of Arizona, Institute of Government Research, Arizona Government Studies 11. Cook, Sherburne F. 1976a The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1976b T77ePopulation of the California Indians 1769-1970. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1976c The Indian Population of New England in the Seventeenth Century. University of California, Publications in Anthropology Volume 12. Crosby, Alfred W., Jr. 1976 "Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal D)epopulation in America." lWilliam and Marl Quarterly. 3d ser., 33:2 (April) 289-299.

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Denevan, William M. 1976a "Estimating the Aboriginal Population of Latin America in 1492: Methodological Synthesis," in Robert J. Tata (ed.). Latin America: Search for Geographic Explanations. East Lansing: Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, Publication N? 5, pp. 125-132. 1976bThe Native Population of the Americas in 1492. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Divale, William Tulio and Marvin Harris 1976 "Population, Warfare, and the Male Supremacist Complex." American Anthropologist, 78:2 (Sept.) 521-538. Dobyns, Henry F. 1966 "Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate." Current Anthropology, 7:4 (October) 395-416. 1976 Native American Historical Demography: A Critical Bibliography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press for the Newberry Library Center for the History of the American Indian. Dollar, Clyde D. 1977 "The High Plains Smallpox Epidemic of 1837-38." Western Historical Quarterly, 8:1 (January) 15-38. Harner, Michael 1977 "The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice." American Ethnologist, 4:1 (February) I17-135. Healy, George R., Andrew Spielman and Neva Gleason 1976 "Human Babesiosis: Reservoir of Infection on Nantucket Island." Science, 192:4238 (30 April) 479-480. Heizer, Robert F. (ed.) 1974 The Destruction of California Indians. Salt Lake City and Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, Inc. Helm, June, Terry Alliband, Terry Birk, Virginia Lawson, Suzanne Reisner, Craig Sturtevant, and Stanley Witkowski 1975 "The Contact History of the Subarctic Athapaskans: An Overview," in A. McF. Clark (ed.) Proceedings, Northern A thapaskan Conference, 1971. Vol. I. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service, Source Paper 27, pp. 302-349. Hinsdale, W. B. 1932 Distribution of the Aboriginal Population of Michigan. Occasional Contributions from the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan, N? 2 (reprinted 1968). Jennings, Francis 1975 The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture. Kaplan, Bernice (ed.) 1976 Anthropological Studies of Human Fertility. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. (Reprinted from Human Biology, 48:1). Mallery, Garrick 1877 "The Former and Present Number of Our Indians." American Association for the Advancement of Science, Proceedings, 26:340-366. Marchand, John I:. 1943 "Tribal Epidemics in the Yukon." Journal of the American Medical Association, 12 (Dec. 18). McNeil, William H. 1976 Plagues and Peoples. Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday. Miller, Virginia P. 1975 "Whatever tHappened to the Yuki?" The Indian Historian, 8:2 (lall) 6-12.

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Mook, Maurice A. 1944 "The Aboriginal Population of Tidewater Virginia." American Anthropologist, 46:2 (April-June) 193-208. Mooney, James 1911 "Passing of the Delaware Nation," in B. F. Shambaugh (ed.) Proccedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. Cedar Rapids: Torch Press, 3:329-340. Rutman, Darrett B. and Anita H. Rutman 1976 "Of Agues and Fevers: Malaria in the Early Chesapeake." William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 33:1 (January) 31-60.