Population figures for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before European colonization have been difficult to establish. Estimates have varied widely from as low as 8 million to as many as 100 million, though by the end of the 20th century, many scholars tended toward an estimate of around 50 million people.
The monarchs of the nascent Spanish Empire decided to fund Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492, leading to the establishment of colonies and marking the beginning of the migration of millions of Europeans and Africans to the Americas. While the population of European settlers, primarily from Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands, along with African slaves, grew steadily, the Indigenous population plummeted. There are numerous reasons for the population decline, including exposure to Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, and smallpox; direct violence by settlers and their allies through war and forced removal; and the general disruption of societies. Scholarly disputes remain over the degree to which each factor contributed or should be emphasized; some modern scholars have categorized it as a genocide, claiming that deliberate, systematic actions by Europeans were the primary cause. Traditional interpretation of the decline by scholars have disputed this characterization, maintaining that incidental disease exposure was the primary cause. This is supported by evidence where 50-80 percent of the population died from waves of diseases brought by Europeans to places such as Mexico in the 16th century.
Population overview
Pre-Columbian population figures are difficult to estimate because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence. Estimates range from 8–112 million. Scholars have varied widely on the estimated size of the Indigenous populations prior to colonization and on the effects of European contact. Estimates are made by extrapolations from small bits of data. In 1976, geographer William Denevan used the existing estimates to derive a "consensus count" of about 54 million people. Nonetheless, more recent estimates still range widely.20th century estimates in Thornton, p. 22; Denevan's consensus count; recent lower estimates. In 1992, Denevan suggested that the total population was approximately 53.9 million and the populations by region were, approximately, 3.8 million for the United States and Canada, 17.2 million for Mexico, 5.6 million for Central America, 3 million for the Caribbean, 15.7 million for the Andes and 8.6 million for lowland South America. A 2020 genetic study suggests that prior estimates for the pre-Columbian Caribbean population may have been at least tenfold too large. Historian David Stannard estimates that the extermination of Indigenous peoples took the lives of 100 million people: "...the total extermination of many American Indian peoples and the near-extermination of others, in numbers that eventually totaled close to 100,000,000." A 2019 study estimates the pre-Columbian Indigenous population contained more than 60 million people, but dropped to 6 million by 1600, due to waves of epidemics, warfare and famine; causing a drop in atmospheric and contributing to the Little Ice Age. Other studies have disputed this conclusion.
The Indigenous population of the Americas in 1492 was not necessarily at a high point and may actually have already been in decline in some areas. Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a low point by the early 20th century.Thornton, pp. xvii, 36.
Using an estimate of approximately 37 million people in Mexico, Central and South America in 1492 (including 6 million in the Aztec Empire, 5–10 million in the Mayan States, 11 million in what is now Brazil, and 12 million in the Inca Empire), the lowest estimates give a population decrease from all causes of 80% by the end of the 17th century (nine million people in 1650)."La catastrophe démographique" (The Demographic Catastrophe"), L'Histoire n°322, July–August 2007, p. 17. Latin America would match its 15th-century population early in the 19th century; it numbered 17 million in 1800, 30 million in 1850, 61 million in 1900, 105 million in 1930, 218 million in 1960, 361 million in 1980, and 563 million in 2005. In the last three decades of the 16th century, the population of present-day Mexico dropped to about one million people. The Maya population is today estimated at six million, which is about the same as at the end of the 15th century, according to some estimates. In what is now Brazil, the Indigenous population declined from a pre-Cabraline high of an estimated four million to some 300,000. Over 60 million Brazilians possess at least one Native South American ancestor, according to a DNA study.
While it is difficult to determine exactly how many Natives lived in Northern America (modern day US and Canada) before Columbus, most estimates range from 2.5 million to 7 million people, with one study estimating up to 18 million. Scholars vary on the estimated size of the Indigenous population in what is now Canada prior to colonization and on the effects of European contact. During the late 15th century is estimated to have been between 200,000 and two million, with a figure of 500,000 currently accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health. Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful. However repeated outbreaks of European infectious diseases such as influenza, measles, and smallpox (to which they had no natural immunity), combined with other effects of European contact, resulted in a twenty-five percent to eighty percent Indigenous population decrease post-contact. Roland G Robertson suggests that during the late 1630s, smallpox killed over half of the Wyandot (Huron), who controlled most of the early North American fur trade in the area of New France. In 1871 there was an enumeration of the Indigenous population within the limits of Canada at the time, showing a total of only 102,358 individuals. From 2006 to 2016, the Indigenous population has grown by 42.5 percent, four times the national rate. According to the 2011 Canadian census, Indigenous peoples (First Nations – 851,560, Inuit – 59,445 and Métis – 451,795) numbered at 1,400,685, or 4.3% of the country's total population.
The population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Low estimates, such as those from Kroeber in 1939, claiming only 8.4 million inhabitants in the entire western hemisphere, were often reflective of European notions of cultural and racial superiority, especially in the early 20th century when white supremacist ideology still had a strong influence on fields such as anthropology. Historian Francis Jennings argued, "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not possibly have created or sustained large populations." Most scholars held these lower estimates as factual until the 1960s, when anthropologist Henry Dobyns published research applying historical and archaeological data to assert a far higher pre-Columbian population of possibly over 100 million, including up to 9-12 million in what is now the US and Canada, setting off significant academic debate over the question. Despite widespread acceptance that the early estimates were too low, multiple researchers have also called very high estimates such as Dobyns into question as well. In 1998, Africanist Historian David Henige claimed that many population estimates are the result of "arbitrary formulas" applied from unreliable sources.Henige, p. 182. Most newer estimates of the pre-Columbian population in the Americas fall between 45 and 60 million people, including those from Denevan (1992) and Alchon (2003), while a 2018 study estimates a population of just over 60 million, based on carbon records.
Estimations +Estimates of the pre-Columbian (pre-1492) population in the Americas (millions)AuthorDateUS and CanadaMexicoMesoamericaCaribbeanAndesPatagonia andAmazoniaTotal Sapper. 1924 – – – – – – – KroeberAlfred Louis Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, University of California Press.Kroeber inclut seulement le Honduras et le Nicaragua dans l'Amérique centrale; il inclut le Guatemala et le Salvador au Mexique, et le Costa Rica et le Panama aux terres basses sudaméricaines. 1939 StewardJames H. Steward, « The Native population of South America » in Handbook of South American Indians, tome V, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, pp. 655–668. 1949 RosenblatÁngel Rosenblat, Población indígena y el mestizaje en América, Nova 1954 DobynsHenry F. Dobyns, « Estimating aboriginal population: an appraisal of techniques with a new hemispheric estimate », in Current Anthropology, 7, n°4, octobre 1966, pp. 395–449. 1966 – – – – – – –Ubelaker19881.213–2.639 – – – – – –Denevan1992 Snow20013.44 – – – – – – AlchonSuzanne Austin Alchon, A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective, University of New Mexico Press, pp. 147–172. 2003 – – – – – –Thornton20057 – – – – – –Peros20092.5––––––Milner20103.8––––––
Estimations by tribe Population size for Native American tribes is very difficult to state definitively, but at least one writer has made estimates, often based on an assumed proportion of the number of warriors to total population for the tribe. Many of these estimates are based on observations by contemporary European explorers or settlers passing through Native American territories. Typical proportions were 5 people per one warrior and at least 1 up to 5 warriors (therefore at least 5–25 people) per lodge, cabin or house.