Talk:Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas/Archive 1

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Initial text

Grotesquely distorted presentation. Stannard is not the only authority on the subject. Moreover, he represents one particular, militant, Native Hawaiian viewpoint.

The fact is that populations in the Americas and the Pacific islands had never been exposed to the common diseases of the Eurasian-African landmass. They had NO inborn immunity to what were childhood diseases for others. Measles, for example, killed a huge percentage of the Native Hawaiian population.

European incursions in areas like China, the Phillipines, Africa, etc. did NOT result in mass die-offs, simply because the inhabitants were immune to European diseases. Zora 08:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So this is an article about one particular theory of history? A theory advocated by a professor or two? If so, then this article is entirely the wrong approach, IMO. It should read more like a book report/review, evaluating the book, the author, and the field. This feels more like a Cliff Notes version of the book, conveying an uncritical digest of the material. I haven't read the book, but that is how the article seems. -Willmcw 11:07, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
PS or maybe a clearer explanation in the first sentence or two that this is a description of a particular theory. --Willmcw 11:13, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The article started with Stannard, but is & should move away from him if he is some way to the extreme end of the bell curve. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Aargh. I don't have the references to hand, but dammit, this is the considered opinion of historians and anthropologists. In general. Not just one book. I did my dissertation research in Tonga, one of the island groups affected by the depopulation. One reference there is Norma McArthur, Island Populations of the Pacific. As the American continents, I researched this for a Usenet argument a few years back, and then dropped the subject. But as an anthropologist with two degrees, and a resident of Hawai'i where Stannard lives, I tell you he's waaaay out there. He's married to Haunani Kay Trask, who is well-known as a Native Hawaiian militant.

I know it's POV at the moment, but repeating Stannard as if he were the standard reference in the field is even more POV, and pernicious to boot. Zora 12:37, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wait a minute

After I'd written the previous, I realized that the whole subject was probably new to you, and that you didn't realize that it had been thoroughly debated, by numerous people, over the course of many years. You seemed to be saying that if Stannard was the only person in the field, I should write a book report on him. No, no, I was trying to give the consensus theory and point out that Stannard was an outlier.

I'm aware that it's still POV, but I haven't had TIME to grub up references. Zora 12:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Quote with leads to sources

Here's a quote from a 1995 journal article by William Denevan, giving some of the background of the controversy. I can't put it in the article, because it's copyright, but I'm pasting it here as a guide to research on the EARLY history of the problem.

BACKGROUND

In 1560 the Spanish priest Bartolome de las Casas estimated that 40 million Indians had died in Latin America between 1492 and 1560, a figure long considered a gross exaggeration (Denevan 1976b, 35-36). However, in the 1920s three scholars with deep experience in the field, literature, and archaeology of Native Americans argued, largely intuitively, for New World populations at the time of Columbus of between 37 and 50 million. These were the geographer Karl Sapper (1924) and the anthropologists Paul Rivet (and others 1924) and Herbert Spinden (1928). The ensuing controversy stimulated region-by-region or culture-by-culture examinations of available evidence, initially by the ethnologist James Mooney (1928) and by the philologist Angel Rosenblat (1935). These led to similar conservative hemispheric estimates that remained the dominant view for the next three decades: 8.4 million by the Berkeley anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (1934, 1939); 13.4 million by Rosenblat (1935); and 15.6 million by the anthropologist Julian Steward (1949). All three relied on the earliest actual counts available, assumed no significant prior decline from introduced disease, and considered estimates by initial observers unreliable.

At the same time (1927-1935), however, Carl Sauer and his students Donald Brand, Fred Kniffen, and, particularly, Peveril Meigs were publishing field and archive studies on mission and Indian pueblo populations in Northwest Mexico that were to cast great doubts on the Mooney-Kroeber-Rosenblat figures, methods, and assumptions.

Also at Berkeley during the early 1930s were Steward, who later presented his case for low numbers of Indians in the Handbook of South American Indians (1949), and Sherburne Cook, who in 1937 published the first systematic study of Indian population decline due to European epidemic diseases. All of these faculty members and graduate students interacted, but out of that time and place developed two fully opposed interpretations of Indian numbers at contact in the New World: the conservative estimates of Kroeber and Steward; and the liberal estimates of Sauer, Meigs, Cook, and later Lesley Simpson, Woodrow Borah, Homer Aschmann, and others. The assumptions of the two groups were different and irreconcilable regarding early declines and eyewitness reliability. The early story can only be hinted at here by means of the published record and from correspondence with the few surviving participants.

From Zora's Questia account. Zora 13:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Title

I think that this should be at "Mortality arising out of the European colonization of the Americas", not "Mortality rates". Rmhermen 19:12, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Still needs a new title...

This page has gone through numerous title changes, most of them bad. The current title, "Destruction of American indigenous peoples" is POV, implicitly endorsing the provocative, probably minority assertion that the massive depopulation of the indigenous American people was deliberate. Many were "destroyed" through warfare and murder, to be sure, but as Thorton writes in American Indian Holocaust and Survival, "warfare and genocide were not very significant overall in American Indian population decline..." (p. 47). Disease was the big killer, and as far as I know there's only one documented case of deliberate attempted infection (Amherst & smallpox blankets, Fort Pitt, 1763), and in that case we can't be sure anyone actually died as a result. (See G. Dowd, War Under Heaven, p. 190).

So, the title of the article ought to be more encyclopedic and less polemic. Something like "Population decline of American indigenous peoples." Or "Demographic history of the Western Hemisphere." "Demography and the American indigenous peoples"? Others? --Kevin Myers 08:42, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

No need to pick just one, let's try 'em all out. (Just kidding). -Willmcw 01:54, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I disagree with this new title, it does not describe the content of the article. - SimonP 04:01, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
The most appropriate title that I see from reading the material is: A discussion of Stannard's American Holocaust. Can't we get some other references in to add to Stannard? What about A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present by Ward Churchill? -Willmcw 04:57, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree -- there have been improvements, but the article is still suffering from its origin as essentially a book report on a deliberately provocative book. I haven't read Churchill's book, but I'll add a couple of references, which I'll get around to providing citations from. An article like this, where scholarship has produced massively differing interpretations over the years, needs to be rigorously documented. --Kevin Myers 05:21, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
I should also add that I don't mean the above as a criticism of whoever started this article: this is an important and appropriate subject for an article, and I tip my hat (at least if I had one) to whoever got the ball rolling. --Kevin Myers 01:05, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

New Amsterdam demographics

The patrooship system was largely a failure and was abandoned early on in favour of concentrating on the fur trade. The population only rose due to the influx of English agriculturists late in its history that brought its population up, a factor that also contributed to its annexation. Before then the colony had, like New France, consisted of a handful of densely populated settlements with an all but empty interior. - SimonP 03:18, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

The population of New Netherlands when conquered was 10,000 spread over a smaller area than the 15,000 of contemporary Virginia giving them virtually identical population densities, not the settlement pattern of New France. Rmhermen 19:56, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
The large population was only a very late development and was caused by the influx of British (and other foreign) settlers that led to the eventual British annexation of the colony. At the time of the conquest only a minority of the population of the colony was Dutch. The pattern of Dutch settlement, small, largely urban, and focused on commerce rather than farming, was very similar to that of the French. - SimonP 21:17, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian population estimates

I removed this text from the article: "The most commonly used estimate today is a population of 40 to 50 million." This may be true -- I don't know -- but such a statement requires a cited source --Kevin Myers 06:20, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Stannard and genoicide

I think I was the one who wrote the misleading section re Stannard thinking that Europeans were at fault for the disease deaths. I haven't read the book in question; I have read his earlier book on the Hawaiian population crash. That was a number of years ago, but in the Hawaiian book he did seem to be arguing that everything was the Westerners' fault, and that they could have prevented the die-off if they'd been sufficiently concerned. (Case in point being the vilification of Captain Cook for not having better control over his poxy sailors.) The use of the term genoicide in the later book seemed to me to be a continuation of the earlier argument, that it was manslaughter if not premeditated murder. If Stannard isn't arguing that it was conscious malevolence or neglicence, then the use of the term genoicide is pure demagoguery.

It looks like it's time for a library trawl again. Sigh. Zora 06:58, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you drew an inaccurate inference from Stannard's writings, it was probably his fault and not yours. From what I've read, he relies (in my amateur opinion) on distortions and half-truths to goad his readers into moral outrage. To wit: In calling a section of American Holocaust "Pestilence and genocide", he seems to be intentionally blurring the disease and genocide issue.
His work is offensive and bigoted, in my opinion. To illustrate, if someone wrote a book describing in gruesome detail every murder of a white person by a black person in American history, we'd rightfully deride it as race baiting crap. Stannard has written that kind of book. Wikipedians should resist writing articles using his approach.
Of course, there were certainly acts of mass murder and genocide committed by whites against Native Americas (on a local or tribal, rather than continental, scale); these have been written about by responsible historians, and make appropriate topics for Wikipedia. --Kevin Myers 09:08, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

== Major revision ==I find it a little hard to read so many comments from people who haven't read Stannard's book. I know this conversation happened a long time ago but I hope a few of you will return to help me with my question. Stannard is not the only one to propose that what has happened over the last 500 years in the Americas is genocide. There are many scholars who use genocide to describe what has happened, and a few are even mentioned in the article; here are two more: Zinn, Howard; Comsky, Noam. I am trying to find out where to place quotes, figures, and derscriptions of events that make it very clear that many European leaders, including Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson (to name a few) had very clear intentions, when giving orders or caring out massacres and killings, to wipe out every native man, woman, and child who stood in the way of policies (or desires) for clearing land and/or collecting natural resources. I would like to know of any ideas about where in Wikipedia such quotes, figures, and events would fit the best. Gunuin 06:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


Why can't you all be like the guy above me. Just because Stannard wrote a book that YOU don't agree with, that doesn't mean he is wrong or "POV". Stop judging people and think about who's shoes you're in. I'm guessing most of you are white, and if I'm right, than please don't conclude what happened to people who you know little about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.115.119 (talk) 20:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


I thought that the start of the article was shaping up rather nicely, but it was lumpy at the end. Extremely unbalanced. I wielded a large scythe and reorganized the body of the article, in the process deleting some of my precious prose and alas, some of everyone else's. The material on North America was important and useful, but perhaps too detailed for what is supposed to be an overview article. Therefore I set up a framework of stubs into which some of the detailed material can be inserted. Perhaps I should have done this myself, but I've been working on this for several hours and I'm a bit tired. The material can be recovered from the history of this article. I hope I haven't upset anyone. Zora 08:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I like it! Still a lot of work to do, but it's getting there. I didn't like having a special section for North America in the article either -- it seemed more defensive than informative. I think regional differences can be discussed within the various sections -- how many died in wars in North America as compared to South America, for example. --Kevin Myers 09:15, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Amazon Basin Population

Some recent works have discussed a drastic reduction in NA population in the Amazon due to disease brought simply by the early European exploration trips on the river. Some of their population estimates are amazing too! I'll try to track them down for inclusion. WBardwin 12:18, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Note also the kefluffle in the anthropological community, re accusations that Napoleon Chagnon spread measles among the Yamamomo, in Amazon. He was trying to do good, by vaccinating, and some say that it backfired. I think that's it. Also, accusations that he fanned the flames of warfare (which he was studying) by giving machetes and guns to his subjects. I may be wrong on the details. It was a huge fuss at the time, several years back. Zora 05:36, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Major revision

I thought that the start of the article was shaping up rather nicely, but it was lumpy at the end. Extremely unbalanced. I wielded a large scythe and reorganized the body of the article, in the process deleting some of my precious prose and alas, some of everyone else's. The material on North America was important and useful, but perhaps too detailed for what is supposed to be an overview article. Therefore I set up a framework of stubs into which some of the detailed material can be inserted. Perhaps I should have done this myself, but I've been working on this for several hours and I'm a bit tired. The material can be recovered from the history of this article. I hope I haven't upset anyone. Zora 08:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I like it! Still a lot of work to do, but it's getting there. I didn't like having a special section for North America in the article either -- it seemed more defensive than informative. I think regional differences can be discussed within the various sections -- how many died in wars in North America as compared to South America, for example. --Kevin Myers 09:15, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Blankets and smallpox

I understand there is a general scholarly consensus that the US Army in the nineteenth century did NOT deliberately distribute smallpox-infected blankets to Native American populations in a strategy of contamination. (Although there is evidence that BRITISH forces indeed employed such a tactic at least once during the French and Indian War.) Can anyone then verify the accuracy or falsehood of the following source often cited to justify the argument that the US did indeed deliberately spread the disease?

Ann F. Ramenofsky. Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987):

"Among Class I agents, Variola major holds a unique position. Although the virus is most frequently transmitted through droplet infection, it can survive for a number of years outside human hosts in a dried state (Downie 1967; Upham 1986). As a consequence, Variola major can be transmitted through contaminated articles such as clothing or blankets (Dixon 1962). In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem (Stearn and Stearn 1945)." [p. 148, emphasis added]

I´m also wondering if anyone who has read the study Ramenofsky cites by Stearn and Stearn can verify that it indeed argues for a deliberate policy of contamination:

E. Wagner Stearn & Allen E. Stearn. The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian (Boston: B. Humphries, 1945).

Here's a recent essay that mentions the Stearn & Stearn study, which states that S&S do not contend that there was deliberate infection. This link addresses claims made by Ward Churchill, and argues that Churchill has basically fabricated evidence in order to make his claims of deliberate smallpox infection. [1] The paper does not mention Ramenofsky, so one wonders why she apparently cites Stearn & Stearn to make the same claim as Churchill. Hmmm. --Kevin Myers 01:21, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Churchill´s and Ramenofsky's use of Stearn and Stearn's The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian (1945):

I'm frustrated not to have access to the Stearn and Stearn source here in Spain, so I wonder if anyone who can look it up can attest to whether or not Ramenofsky's appeal to it for the "deliberate contamination" argument has any merit. Thomas Brown's essay referenced above states that Churchill misrepresented passages in Stearn and Stearn on pp. 83 and 87-8 of their study on smallpox, but I wonder if there are other passages in that study which could support Ramenofsky's claims--or did she too misrepresent Stearn and Stearn?

Unfortunately, Ramenofsky does not give any page numbers for her reference to Stearn and Stearn. This question is of particular interest to me, as Ramenofsky's claim of deliberate contamination in Vectors of Death pre-dates Churchill's own by some years.

Also--if Stearn and Stearn NEVER made the argument of deliberate contamination, are there sources earlier than Ramenofsky who make the same accusation against the US Army? I´m just trying to locate the first published accusation of this kind.

The accusations of deliberate spreading of disease are starting to sound a bit "urban-legendish". People copying and pasting citations without actually reading them, relying on what "everyone knows" to be true. Zora 00:04, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
To the Spanish Wikipedian: I've requested Stearn and Stearn's The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian from my local library, if they can find it. I'll relay all relevant details if & when the book arrives. --Kevin Myers 04:06, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Kevin -- you might want to look at the Plague and Peoples reference I just added to the list. WBardwin 12:18, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This same issue is under discussion in the Smallpox article, with no resolution.

Amherst infamously considered spreading smallpox to the surrounding forces. In a series of letters to his subordinate Henry Bouquet during the summer of 1764, Amherst discussed the idea of spreading smallpox to attacking forces via gifts of blankets that had been exposed to smallpox. This idea had already been tried a year previous: on 24 June 1763, infected blankets were given to the Delawares by the commander of Fort Pitt, perhaps on his own initiative. --from the Amherst article.

What if we do an article focused on the question/incident and place links in Biological Warfare, Smallpox, Amherst, this site and anything else that comes to mind. If Kevin finds the Stearn and Stearn that would be a good start. WBardwin 22:32, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've thought about such an article before; I think it's a good idea. In addition to the Amherst incident, the article should address the alleged Mandan incident as well.
I now have the Stearn & Stearn book at hand. The short version is that I seen no mention of deliberate infection by the US Army in the book. In my judgment Thomas Brown's essay accurately represents the evidence in Stearn & Stearn. I've typed some relevant excerpts here: Talk:Population history of American indigenous peoples/Source. (Pages 87-8 forthcoming).
Does anyone actually have the Ramenofsky book (Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact) at hand? Does it really say "In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem (Stearn and Stearn 1945)" on page 148, as claimed in several places on the Internet? --Kevin Myers 05:28, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

(From Spain): Thanks so much for investigating Stearn & Stearn. I don't have a copy of Ramenofsky's book either, and relied on the same Internet citations. If she's willing to answer e-mails on the topic, I'll try to contact her via the University of New Mexico, where she teaches. If Stearn and Stearn was not the source for such a claim, I wonder where she did get it from.

I now have the Ramenofsky book, and she does indeed write: "In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem (Stearn and Stearn 1945)." Hmmm. --Kevin Myers 01:45, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Kevin -- "all the facts!" WOW. Good work on the sites involved. I have managed to come up with some quotes from the correspondence involved if you think they would be relevant on this page. I think they would be overkill on the smallpox article. WBardwin 04:15, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say go ahead and add the quotes. If they make the section too long, we'll create that article about blankets and smallpox. Soon I'll add the stuff about the Churchill allegations, etc. --Kevin Myers 14:20, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

I don't have sources presently, but I think it has been noted that although "spreading smallpox" was tried at certain times, there is no record and no conclusive evidence that any such attempts were successful. Smallpox blankets are not an efficient method of spreading the disease widely. I think its only fair to not only consider these deliberate evil acts but also the possibility that they never were able to really direct the spread of the disease despite best efforts to do so. Cuvtixo 03:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Kevin's recent edits

Great work! Adding topical material will be helpful for readers looking for background info on Churchill controversy. Thank you so much. Zora 19:51, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New Reference

  • Mann, Charles C. "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus". Knopf Publishing Group, August 2005, ISBN 140004006X.
Brand new book -- with potential relevance on the article. I haven't read it yet, but it may provide more recent research and archaeological material. Will try to read ASAP. But, if several editors read it, we could better evaluate the material. WBardwin 05:29, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Pontiac's Rebellion/archive1

Kevin Myers has carefully crafted Pontiac's Rebellion, on an important incident in British/Native American relations. I've placed the article for peer review and hope to nominate it as a feature article in the near future. We would welcome review and comments by people working on American indigenous topics. Thank you. WBardwin 07:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The Genocide Debate

Hello. I would first of all like to assure everyone that I have scholarly interests (not a personal agenda) in contributing to this page. I am bewildered that my changes are being routinely reverted without review as POV, and would like to invite discussion about them.

My concern about this section is firstly the reference taken from Mr. Royal, whose professional biography, I think, speaks for itself. He has as strong a POV as comes in this debate, and is certainly not a great scholarly source to quote. However, I did leave the footnote to Royal's work in connection to the reference made in the "non-intent" discussion, which is a more central part of the discussion.

To that end, I added to the differentiation between early contact vs. warfare conflict, quoting General Sherman (first hand source pending; although I have cited the quote as coming from a known scholar's article, I am not satisfied with her lack of citation for the quote, nor her specific POV.)

I found the comparison of the subject at hand to WWII haulocaust contentious. Sentiment runs high in connection to that genocide, almost ensuring a POV conclusion. Surely it makes more sense to take an inductive rather than a deductive approach to this debate?

I regret if I have stepped on anyone's toes or offended sensabilities by changing these aspects, but hope that we can discuss and compromise with each other in order to develop this article further. Please also let me know if the talk page is not the forum for this discussion.

P.S. I lost my logged-in status during a browser crash, but 67.188.34.12 is indeed me. User:Delire

First of all, please quit breaking the footnotes. Look at the other footnotes to see how they are done.
Deleting the Holocaust quote, which you mis-identify above as coming from Robert Royal, because you don't like his POV, while keeping Stannard's similarly provocative one, and then adding a provocative quote from Sherman without any context, is not exactly the road to achieving NPOV. The quote you deleted comes from Stafford Poole, a translator of Bartolomé de Las Casas and I think a scholar in this field. You also deleted a point-of-view offered by Noble David Cook, another scholar, apparently because he is critical of Stannard. More context, more scholarly views, etc. are always welcome; deleting POVs that we don't argree with is not acceptable.
It's easy to find racist quotes like Sherman's, by the way (and not just from white people -- guys like Tecumseh and Pontiac called for destruction of their enemies in much the same language). Your version adds a completely new and complex topic (racism) in the last two sentences of the article(!), and does not even attempt to add any scholarly view of what extent this played in population history. The quote is just there for shock value, I guess. Plus, the Sherman quote is a bit U.S.-centric: this is an article about events in the Americas, not just America. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 00:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Kevin, for your response.

Yikes. Sorry for breaking the footnotes; I tried and failed to follow form.

Regarding Royal, I did not intend to connect the holocaust comparison to him. I raised these two concerns quite separately above. I apologize for any lack of clarity on my part, but maintain that comparison to the WWII holocaust is contentious. Your discussion of this concern is humbly anticipated. Please believe, however, that I know the difference between a quote and a reference; I think this is clear in my comment above, where I say that I am concerned about a reference taken from Royal, not a quote of Royal's. Regardless, Royal is not a POV I do not believe with, he is an a priori argumentist whose presence detracts from this article's balance.

I think you are probably right about Stannard being out of balance in the article as it stands now, however; and poor Cook looks like collateral damage in the situation, as I did not look into him as I did Royal. Let's fix that.

Regarding the suggestion that racism is a "new" subject in "The Genocide Debate". In the contrast drawn between native depopulation history and the WWII holocaust, eugenic racism was raised. I think Sherman's quote serve as milestone for when and where violence became systematic, rather than incidental, as it more arguably was in early contact. As a Canadian, I felt this milestone added to rather than detracted from clarity in the discussion of genocide in the Americas. Perhaps, if this quote is considered inflammatory, a more general statement could stand in its stead? User:Delire

I hate to blanket revert your edits again, Delire -- and I'll hold off doing so this evening, since I'm tired and cranky -- but I don't think a single one of them improved the article. You replaced plain language with convoluted language and removed a quote (a colorful quote that well expresses one side of the debate) because you didn't agree with it.
If you think having a long quote from one position unbalances the presentation, it might be better to include a quote of similar length, equally direct and comprehensible, from someone else. Zora 04:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I wish you would have done the revert, so I didn't have to! I agree with Zora: these edits aren't an improvement.
Delire, comparison to the Holocaust is often a focal point of the genocide debate. Stannard makes the comparison at length in his book, in brief in his title American Holocaust, and implicitly in the quote included in the article (he's saying the "American Holocaust" was worse than all other genocides including the Holocaust). We should allow Stannard to make that claim in a paragraph all his own; likewise we should allow those who disagree to do so. Your deletion of Poole's quote mutes an important opposing view.
And again, if you want to write about racism, that is relevant, but it will require scholarly citation and expanded coverage to achieve context. There's a lot of literature on the subject. And Sherman's quote may or may not represent a milestone -- I don't think it does; some argue that the type of warfare he was engaged in was two centuries in the making, and was ultimately an import from the Thirty Years' War in Europe. It's a complex issue that cannot be handled as an aside. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 17:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I give up; your oligarchy is safe. If any of you wish to gain anything from this tug of war -- for it has cost your time and mine -- please "reconsider" my last version of the pivottal question (first paragraph of this subsection). Due to the fact that not one aspect of my editing has been "allowed" to remain, however, I doubt this is possible. Have you considered that wikipedia must be objective in process as well as content?
It seems that wikipedia is doomed to be built of palatable histories (skirted by conventional debates) mistaken for objective ones. You all will succeed in rewriting the traditional encyclopedia yet. Is the dictionary next? User:Delire

Delire, it's not a good idea to start your Wikipedia career with a large article on a major subject, one that has seen lots of controversy and rewriting, and attempt to wrench it to your own point of view. However, there is a limitless field of opporunity in the articles that are LESS general and LESS developed. If you are concerned with the mistreatment of American indigenous peoples, then make sure that the specific incidents are well-researched and described. Take an area that you know well -- would it be Canadian residential schools for Indian children? -- and make sure that this is covered. It's more work, but it's also a solid contributio to WP. Zora 18:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Henige

In the "population overview" section, can it be demonstrated that Henige's statements represent only "a minority opinion", as mentioned in the sentence: "Historian David Henige, representing a minority opinion, has argued that many population figures are the result of arbitrary formulas selectively applied to numbers from unreliable historical sources."? At first blush it and his subsequent quoted statements would seem to be eminently sensible, and that data on pre-Columbian populations is indeed poor (to the extent of being virtually non-existant). Any estimates produced for that period necessarily rely upon a wide range of assumptions each of which may be validly critiqued— and hence the wildly-varying estimates which have been produced. Is the "majority opinion" therefore understood to be that such estimates can be unproblematically produced?--cjllw | TALK 01:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's the "majority opinion" as Henige presents it: he argues that demographers and others tend to downplay or ignore problematic issues with their sources. For example, contact population estimates for the New World are often based on figures cited by Spanish explorers, guys who according to Henige did not provide accurate population figures for cities in Spain (which can be checked against other data). Henige himself characterizes his views as outside the majority: his take is that demographers seem to prefer number-crunching over any serious consideration about whether or not these numbers have any real meaning. I highly recommend Henige's book to everyone no matter what your area of interest -- he raises a lot of interesting questions regarding historical methodology and epistemology. He may turn you into a skeptic about numbers, though. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 02:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, Kevin- if I come across his work I'll look it over, though I need no further encouragement to be sceptical about the relative validity of estimates based on little or no data :-) Henige certainly has a point, although perhaps he's a little unfair in ascribing such widespread lack of professional care in the field. One would hope that at least some demographers and historians consciously qualify their estimates as such, though I'm sure there are those who do not. In any event I'll consider some rewording which might remove the impression I picked up on first reading, namely that such estimates should be seen as mostly problem-free. Cheers, --cjllw | TALK 06:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. BTW, don't consider Henige unfair until you read his book -- it's a detailed, point-by-point criticism, not a scatter-shot indictment. My characterization of his argument above is a little misleading: he's a critic of specific scholars, not all of 'em. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 14:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks; I took a crack at rewording and adding to the passage so that it reads less like inadvertant support for Henige's targets.--cjllw | TALK 06:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Does he discuss military history at all? I keep bumping up against editors of history articles who are willing to believe whatever estimates the chroniclers give. The Byzantine emperor had 50,000 troops? OK! That's a fact! I say that's a wild estimate and get tuned out. Would Henige be ammunition? Zora 18:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think so, although he may not mention the specific cases when you need him. But, if I remember correctly, he talks about how, for example, 40,000 (?) was a symbolic number for pre-modern Christians, and they fequently used it to mean "a lot". My understanding from Henige is that big numbers were used impressionistically in pre-modern times, not as precise estimates. It's been a year now since I've read his book, and my recollection may have gotten fuzzy, but I think you'll find his book useful. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 18:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The genocide debate 2

The section is too simplistic because it puts together two models of colonization that were very different. In most of Spanish America, Native Americans or Mestizos (of Native American and European Origins) make up the basis of the population. In Mexico Native Americans and Mestizos make up 89% of the population, being the white population only 9%. Roughly the same can be said of Central America, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador etc..

On the other hand, Native Americans were virtually eliminated in the US and Canada. The present population of Native Americans in these two countries is negligible and bears no comparison with Spanish America, although they are increasing their numbers now under the description of Hispanic, by immigration from Spanish America.

In most of Spanish America Native Americans suffered from cruelty, slavery and death, but they were not exterminated and actualy survived to be nowadays the basis of the population in that area.

In the US and Canada the term enormous genocide could be applied because they were exterminated from a land area that has the dimensions of a continent.

So, those two extremely different situations should be dealt with in the article.

Nonsense! In Mexico for example, tribes outside of the Aztec empire (and Toltecs) were persecuted and killed, rather than intermarried with Spanish colonists. Mayans, in particular, have not been absorbed in into the Mexican Mestizo population to the same degree as more northerly tribes, although they have miraculously survived. And I don't think "Roughly the same can be said of Central America, Peru, etc..." at all! And leaving out the examples of Brazil and the Carribean, and focussing on the US and Canada, does not help create a convincing argument. I do, however, agree the term 'genocide' should not be lightly applied to the treatment of all indigenous people by all European settlers (or conquistadors)

80% died by disease

Someone added a fact template for this. As far as I can see, the number could come from the referenced Matthew White where he quotes Rummel as a source for numbers which work out to 80%. However following the link to Rummel provided, shows him saying that determining a percentage is as good as pulling a number from a hat and that some estimates run to 95%. Rmhermen 14:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


Wild accusations

It was exactly my reaction when I read the web site I referenced. It was so unbelievable that I ordered the Stannard's book American Holocaust (published by Oxford University Press) from the Amazon. It is a page turner and when I finished in the wee hours of the morning, my whole world outlook was changed.

Stannard as a source has been discussed on this and related pages. His methodology, perspective and accuracy have all been called into serious question by historians and researchers. In all cases, his perspective has been viewed as seriously biased and, when cited, has to be supported from other sources. From that perspective, I would agree this external link is too problematical and lacks appropriate references. I will delete it. WBardwin 22:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Acuna-Soto and hemorrhagic viruses

I have no particular expertise in this field, so instead of editing the page of a controversial topic I put this here for expert review.

There is an article in a recent Discover magazine about the work of Mexican epidemiologist Rodolfo Acuña-Soto. He is researching the theory that a local hemorrhagic fever was responsible for a huge number of deaths in native Mexican populations around the time of European colonizations. As I said, I have no expertise in epidemiology or the relevant period of Mexican history, but it's an interesting idea and wonder if it's worth mentioning in this article. I appreciate the attention of editors. --George 03:06, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Ksargent's changes

Ksargent recently added a somewhat confused para that seemed to be saying that there's some debate about when the depopulation occurred. However, since scientists as far back as Kroeber are cited, it's not all clear that there is any contemporary debate, or if the new editor has just misread some of his sources. I have reverted the para, but kept a reference to a recently published book. Zora 19:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I moved two paragraphs from European Contact (notice the capital "C") to ==Depopulation from disease==. It was an "orphan page" and only two paragraphs long. Since I am not the author of those two paragraphs, I will leave it to the original author to accept or reject your revert. I then created a #REDIRECT in European contact (small "c") and created European contact (disambiguation) since 'European contact' is such a broad topic. Finally, I deleted the original page and did a #REDIRECT to the disambiguation page. K. Sargent

Cultural assimilation

This subject is mostly ignored on this page. As an amature historian living in Virginia, I am particularly interested in what happened to the Eastern Woodlands Indians. It seems these tribes were highly developed and the area heavily populated at the coming of the Europeans, yet they seem to just disappear from US history. Many of these tribes were once greater in numbers than the western tribes yet there numbers today are almost non-existant, except for decendents of "Trail of Tears" survivor in Oklahoma and a few tiny reservations in New York, New England, and North Carolina. It has always seemed unreasonable that an entire continent of people, numbering in the millions, were dwindled by mere warfare and disease alone. Based simply on common sense, I find the idea that 80-90% of the Indians died from disease unlikely at best. Surely by the time of Tecumseh, Eastern Indians would have developed the same immunities as other Americans. How than to explain population loss of this generation of Indians, hundreds of years after contact? I've often wondered what percentage of Indian population loss can be explained by mere cultural and, subsequently, genetic assimilation. This is not unlike what happened in Latin America, where mestizos, or mixed-race, are the majority. The difference being that the Indians populations of the US was smaller while the number of arriving immigrants and subsequent birth-rates were much higher, while at the same time, a greater social mobility, even in colonial times, would have encouraged cultural abandonment. Are there any studies or estimates of the role cultural assimilation had in reducing the population of native peoples in the United States? In colonial Virginia or New England, white and Indian villages often existed side by side. What was to stop entire villages from "going white" and blending into the overall population. Economic, cultural, and religious factors must have been a powerful draw on young Indians seeking a prosperous lifestyle, willing to abandon traditional ways. The vast majority of Cherokee today are of mixed ancestary, and we know all of the "Five Tribes" were highly adoptive of "white" culture, and intermarrying was not uncommon. I dare say most Americans (particularly those who can trace ancestary to 17th and 18th century America) would have some trace of American Indian DNA. I find it reasonable that the vast majority of Eastern Woodland tribes would have been "depopulated" in this fashion. Is it even possible to guess what percentage of the Indian population simply blended in and disappeared as a unique ethnic group? I've just wonder if this occurance is even considered in modern academic circles? User:Stolpin

Unfortunately, 90% mortality from new diseases is not unbelievable. There are records from various South Pacific island groups (which were also quite isolated) showing just such drops. However, that's not to say that there wasn't mixing. How much? DNA studies needed. Read up on Cavalli-Sforza, then lobby for government grants to the right academics. Zora 02:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
My thoughts were centered more on post-contact population loss. By 1750, the Shawnee, Cherokee, Mohawk, or Choctaw were not isolated from Europeans the way Pacific islanders would have been isolated in those studies, and they still had significant populations at that time. They do not have large numbers today; their decendents must have gone somewhere.
As I understand it, all over the US Native American numbers declined continuously from contact right through to the early 1900s, when they started to recover. It is possible that part of that is due to assimilation, but again, that's something to be studied. I don't think anyone here has an answer for you. Zora 04:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Stolpin, you say that Shawnees and Cherokees "still had significant populations" in 1750, but "they do not have large numbers today." In actuality, both of those tribes are more populous today than in 1750. Shawnees numbered about 2,000-4,000 souls circa 1750; today they number 6,000 to 12,000 [2], depending on how you count. Cherokees went from about 22,000 in the early 1700s to ten or twenty times that amount today. Native populations in the Eastern Woodlands in 1750 were probably far lower than you imagine: the massive population loss from epidemic disease occurred before that date. —Kevin 19:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Restored paragraphs

I have restored the paragraphs that were deleted to due sourcing issues. Clicking on Note 20, the ref after "...major victims of this century." comes up, though it is to "[22]" (rather than 20), referring to Poole. Clicking on Note 21, the ref after "...starting in the 1850s." comes up, though it is to "[23]" (rather than 21), referring to Poole. Note 21 is not specific enough (ISBN and author would be helpful), and it should also be listed in the References section, but this is no reason to delete the ref and the paragraph. Please be more careful when verifying sources and be more cautious before calling someone a vandal. Ufwuct 13:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Name change

I propose the idea that the name of this article be changed to "Population history of American native peoples". Indigenous is quite controversial. These peoples' ancestors are believed to have migrated from Asia, just like the Whites arrived from Europe. "Population history of American native peoples" would be more correct. --Shamir1 22:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Native would have the exact same problem for the exact same reasons. Rmhermen 01:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Population history of Native American peoples, there? --Shamir1 07:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

NO, that wouldn't work because Native American is a term used in the US. In Canada, the preferred term is First Nations. I dunno what it is in Central and South America -- would be Spanish, which I don't speak.

Shamir, when this article was getting off the ground, several years ago, there were intense debates re the name, and frequent moves to a new name. This article must have been moved a dozen times. We finally settled on the current name, and it has been acceptable for years. Please please please don't ask for a rerun of the earlier name wars. Let sleeping dogs lie. Zora 08:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Scientific Issues regarding the disease hypothesis

What I can not comprehend is why there was not a parallel "virgin soil" epidemic for the colonists? Why wouldn't the colonists be exposed to roughly the same number of virulent diseases as the indigenous population. Furthermore, wouldn't we expect to see outbreaks in Europe from travelers who take whatever new diseases contracted in the "New World" back to Europe. These arguments of disease being the causal agent for the genocide wreaks of holocaust denial, and in fact mirrors the claims of Nazi Holocaust revisionists. But clearly it can be done in this case because these are not crimes that were committed by someone else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaidkhalil (talk • contribs) 22:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The article mentions Jared Diamond's ideas from Guns, Germs, and Steel. There is some debate over whether syphilis is an example of a reverse outbreak. -- Avenue (talk) 12:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed a link

I removed a link to a site that claimed, no ifs, ands, or buts, that smallpox infested blankets were passed out and caused an epidemic. Since we cover the controversy in detail, I'm not sure what is to be gained by adding a site that has less detail than the article. Zora 01:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Amherst/Bouquet/etc.

Whether or not any smallpox-contaminated blankets were actually distributed, Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst and Henry Bouquet certainly wanted to do it, and corresponded about doing it... AnonMoos 22:45, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

See the Deliberate infection? section in the article and the "old" talk section "Blankets and smallpox" above. The story is well laid out in Pontiac's Rebellion, a well-written featured article. WBardwin 22:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
The incident is adequately covered in various places, but not in the "Deliberate infection" section of this article, where it is discussed over a whole paragraph, but the most incriminating details seem to be carefully omitted from the discussion. If the incident is to be discussed at all in this article, those details should not be omitted... AnonMoos 23:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Theoretical fiction

This article is based on theoretical fiction. There is no way to examine the immune systems of people from the past. Scientists have enough trouble studying the immune systems of living people, much less those of the past. Populations plummet for a number of reasons, including war. There was surely no shortage of diseases in the Americas. The article sounds as though America was disease free until the Europeans arrived. Current scholarship says that Europeans may have been the first people in the Americas. Thomas Paine1776 23:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Smallpox, measles and TB are theoretical fictions? I suppose historic pandemics like the Bubonic plague and Black Death probably didn't occur either, because the people affected are dead, and there's no way to study their immune systems.
Again, you have not indicated which scholarship claims Europeans were "first". I have pointed out that Solutrean hypothesis (if that is what you're referring to) makes no assertions regarding the timing of the first human arrivals in the Americas. Saying Solutreans sailed along Atlantic pack ice in 17,000 BC does not rule out humans exploring the Alaskan coast in 20,000 BC or before. Twalls 12:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Native American Genocide

The Native Americans practiced genocide and this also had an effect on their demographics.

Without going in to detail, one example: The Erie (tribe) were exterminated by other Native Americans recently enough we have the written records of the event (over several years) by western trader observers.67.161.166.20 05:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


Wow you are truly ruthless. You accuse them of genocide. What's next? Jewish people are nazis and black people are slave masters? While you're at it you could say Armenians are genocidal too. You enfuriate me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.115.119 (talk) 20:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

In fact, black people are slave masters in some places. Read the article Slavery in modern Africa. Just because a group of people was persecuted, oppressed or exploited at one point in history doesn't mean that that same group can't be persecutors, oppressors, or exploiters in another context. Christians are tortured in China -- does that somehow deny the horror of the Inquisition and the Crusades? By taking a "once a victim, always a victim" attitude, we allow ourselves to turn a blind eye to real injustice in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.98.195 (talk) 13:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

unnecessary baggage

I just snipped off some bracketted fact about how europeans had 2 storey houses with the 1st floor acting as a barn. Things related to things related to this subject are important, but they should be in other articles and you should link to the relevant article instead so that this article can be concise and to the point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.151.144 (talk) 02:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Genocide debate submission

The following material by User:Siniestra, moved here for discussion, clarification and a source for what appears to be a quote. WBardwin (talk) 03:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Although some other historians face it differently and keep in mind widespread colonizers conceptions like in North America: - "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.", as exposed in Wounded Knee Massacre (1890).

GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "World History-Americas" articles. I believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. However, in reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed. I have made minor corrections and have included several points below that need to be addressed for the article to remain a GA. Please address them within seven days and the article will maintain its GA status. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted. If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN.

Needs inline citations:

  1. "In what is now Brazil, the indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated 4 million to some 300,000"
  2. "Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of their own cultural and racial superiority, as historian Francis Jennings has 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.""
  3. "The most devastating disease was smallpox, but other deadly diseases included typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, mumps, yellow fever, and pertussis (whooping cough)."
  4. "Similarly, in the fifty years following Columbus' voyage to the Americas, an unusually strong strain of syphilis killed a high proportion of infected Europeans within a few months."
  5. "Using evidence from 24 epidemics, Acuña-Soto concluded that the Spanish did not bring the epidemic to the Aztecs, but arrived during its onset and intensification. Acuña-Soto's theory is controversial and not widely accepted as of 2007."
  6. "Serfs stayed to work the land; slaves were exported to the mines, where large numbers of them died."
  7. "However, since Las Casas's writings were polemical works, intended to provoke moral outrage in order to facilitate reform, some scholars speculate that his depictions may have been exaggerated to some degree. No mainstream scholar dismisses the idea that atrocities were widespread, but some now believe that mass killings were not a significant factor in overall native depopulation. It may be argued that the Spanish rulers in the Americas had economic reasons to be unhappy at the high mortality rate of the indigenous population, since at least some of them wanted to exploit the natives as laborers."
  8. "...genocide was defined (in part) as a crime "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such.""

Other issue:

  1. The "Pre-Columbian Americas" section should either be expanded on or incorporated into another section. It is currently too brief to warrant its own section.

This article is in good shape and it's good to see that there are not that many issues. I will leave the article on hold for seven days, but if progress is being made and an extension is needed, one may be given. I will leave messages on the talk pages of the main contributors to the article along with related WikiProjects/task forces so that the workload can be shared. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind me striking the ones that get done. Murderbike (talk) 18:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I actually prefer it, as it's good to see progress being made. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 19:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Is anyone planning on completing the rest of the changes? If not, I will unfortunately have to delist it. I will check back in a few more days to see if there is any additional progress. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: Failed

Since the issues I raised were not addressed, I have regrettably delisted the article according to the requirements of the GA criteria. If the issues are fixed, consider renominating the article at WP:GAN. If you disagree with this review, you can seek an alternate opinion at Good article reassessment. If you have any questions let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Genocide Committed by 'europeans'?

My belief was that the vast majority of genocide was committed by american citizens as opposed to the catch-all mis-direction descriptive 'european'. In fact isn't it true that the so-called 'American Revolutionary War' was fought to enpower certain influential rebel land owners to tear up the Indian Treaties, steal land and gain vast mineral rights at any cost and not an ideological issue at all.Twobells (talk) 13:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure you also recognize that "American" citizens is a bit of a vague term in and of itself, since European "America" and the citizenry thereof were actually citizens of their respective European motherlands until 1776. Also, the initial attempt at enslavement by the Spanish Conquistadors is argued to have caused "Over three million [...] perished from war, slavery, and the mines from 1494 to 1508" (Las Casas, circa 1500) on page 7 of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". Given, this number is probably a bit large to be average, it testifies as to how a "genocide" probably did occur by the Europeans' own accounts. I'm not going to insert into an article the NNPOV that I hold that it's quite rubbish of the most vile, festering variety to say that the extinction and endangerment of Native American peoples was not a result of European genocide and the perpetuated denial of NA genocide represents a horrifying eurocentrism that pervades American history to this day. --Utopianfiat (talk) 05:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Disease

The following was deleted by an editor at Encomienda but doesn't appear here:

killed many Indians, although new research suggests that the natives, in fact, may have already suffered from many of those diseases when the Europeans arrived.<ref>John Wilford, "Don't Blame Columbus for All the Indians' Ills," ''New York Times'', October 29, 2002</ref> Studies of more than 12,000 sites that existed before Columbus showed a decline in health before the Spaniards arrived, and Henry Dobyns concluded that all sorts of epidemics swept the New World before 1492.<ref>Henry Dobyns, ''American Historical Demography'' ''''(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976)</ref>

Any use for this referenced text?--Wetman (talk) 05:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hypocrisy

Although it is socially acceptable to question the number of Native Americans murder (frequently by Jewish historians)*, it is taboo to question the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

There is a word for questioning the number of Jews murdered (Holocaust denier) but there is no term for those who question the number of native Americans murdered (American holocaust denier).

Does anyone here know any authors who talk about this hypocrisy?

*I have read a few criticisms that Jewish historians will dismiss or downplay all other holocausts, such as the Armenian holocaust, because they feel having more than one Holocaust makes the Jewish Holocaust less potent in society's imagination.

Inclusionist (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

What does this thread have to do with improving this article? This appears off-topic. Wikipedia is not a forum. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The great title search

This article has had numerous titles and proposed titles, including:

A number of alternate titles were proposed here:[3], including:

  • Decimation of Pre-Columbian populations
  • Devastation of Native American populations
  • Destruction of the American Indian
  • Demographic disaster
  • Impact of the European conquest of the Americas
  • Destruction of the native peoples of the Americas
  • Impact of the European conquest of the Americas
  • Post-Columbian Depopulation
  • Genocide in the Americas

and then there's the current title:

I proposed the current title, arguing that the previous title ("Destruction...") was POV, implicitly endorsing the provocative, minority assertion that the massive depopulation of the indigenous American people was deliberate. SimonP disagreed with this title, saying "it does not describe the content of the article." The article was rejected for Collaboration of the week, in part because the titles suggested were POV, as well as someone objecting to one or more of the long names.

I think part of the reason the article was renamed so often is that people (including me) moved it without first trying to find some sort of consensus. So I suggest we do this now. I agree with the criticism that the current title is too long and doesn't quite speak to the point.

Probably my vote would be Native American depopulation. Some would argue that "depopulation" is a euphemism for genocide, but I think that term covers both the disease portion of the debate as well as the genocide arguments. Also, the intro of the article should also make clear that the term "Native American" applies in this case to all indigenous peoples of the Americas who aren't always included in that term -- variations like "American indigenous peoples" are too awkward for a title.

Another potential is Native American genocide. Although that is clearly a POV title, at least the article now (and should continue) to explore whether or not the term genocide actually applies. Plus, the title is short and clear.

What do you think? --Kevin Myers 13:11, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

I think depopulation is about as NPOV a term as is possible. I do think some indication of the time frame is useful, however, so I would suggest something along the lines of "Post-Columbian Native American depopulation" or "Post-colonial Native American depopulation". Also many thanks for your recent edits, they have much improved this page. - SimonP 14:20, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
Depopulation is a neutral word and should do the job -- but not too descriptive. Something like "Native American Population Crash" might be more accurate. I'm not married to this one however. WBardwin 23:20, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I will admit that the current title makes me expect a graph with numbers rising and falling over prehistoric and historic time periods. And "depopulation" is overall better. But, on further thought (see above) -- the topic of the article can be clearly divided into two segments.
1) Disease related population crash -- the result of the biological separation of the two hemispheres and the sudden biological collision. Despite the arguments over isolated incidents of bio-warfare, the population effect was a passive one, one without intent on either side.
2) Population effects due to colonialism -- here we deal with an active intent, sometimes genocidal. Issues such as fuedalism, religious oppression, slavery, differences in subsistance activities, warfare over territory, attempted bio-warfare, manipulation of native peoples, cultural misunderstandings, etc. heavily impacted the populations' health, vitality and numbers. Disease was a factor here too, as Europeans changed native lifestyles, but they were more likely to be endemic and chronic diseases rather than infectious epidemics.
Despite my fear of sounding like an division junkie, would two cross referenced articles cover the overall issue in a better way? Kevin's fine work has certainly given us plenty to work with, and his sections fall cleanly on these lines. But -- then we would have to search for two titles! WBardwin 08:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is the only genocide in the world that was successfull and you still talk about bullshit names? Its called Native American Genocide.Korrybean 21:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Most people with whom I have spoken, including children of Holocaust survivors, refer to a Native American Genocide, so how did that term become: "Population history of American indigenous peoples"? Frankly, the present title is abusive. It is understandable that there is debate over how to define the population decline following European colonization, but the title for that should read something like "Post-Colonial Depopulation" rather than "Population history." Population history should include everything since the Pleistocene. Yes, "depopulation" might sound something like extermination, forced removal, and starvation, but it can also represent war, or a natural plague; all of the above played a part. Right now, section by section, the article reads like an argument decrying the term Genocide, but in the process it glosses over and belittles a huge tragedy of one people displacing and decimating another, intentionally, and unintentionally.--Dante456 06:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

There are problems with any title anyone could come up with. To my mind the major problem with terming this a "genocide" is that it makes the assumption that all indigenous Americans represent one unified people who were all treated exactly the same by one unified group of Europeans. This is not at all the case. The current title has other problems, but it's closer to being an accurate description of what the article covers.--Cúchullain t/c 07:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for or against the term genocide, the present title is inappropriate. In terms of populations, the Europeans can be termed a group, and the indigenous Americans can also be termed a group, even though neither group was politically or ethnically cohesive. Particularly in the case of North America, one population did displace and decimate the other, intentionally, and unintentionally. The article's focus, and the broader debate, is on the culpability of European colonialism in this tragedy. The present title is misleading, and does not represent the article's focus. Furthermore, the brevity of certain sections, particularly the section on displacement, is specious. If I marched your family hundreds of miles to a desert because I wanted your land, and your wife and children died of starvation, should I call it a "disruption which resulted in fewer births"? Or, can we be a bit more descriptive? --Dante456 15:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You can't use 'American Holocaust' as a redirect it should be an article on the book on this title. -PatPeter 18:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

With the main article being named Indigenous peoples of the Americas, for sake of consistency then this article should be named Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, no?--Old Hoss 17:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

You all need to stop thinking about wikipedia's neutral policy for one second and realize that this is genocide! Way more people were killed, and the Europeans DID intend to wipe them out. I find it a bit insulting that there is even a section on the article that considers this a "debate" as if there is anything to debate about 100 million people being purposefully slaughtered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.115.119 (talk) 21:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

We are currently using this page as part of a study on the continuing racism expressed towards the American Indian. It is interesting to note that wiki is one of the few places where there is still an ongoing argument about the fact that a genocide of the American Indian took place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.123.16.11 (talk) 19:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Population Graphs please

A page concerning "population history" requires graphs of population vs history to aid understanding. Please add from the various population figures given. Fig (talk) 13:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

This page does not "require" graphs, and I don't see many numbers here that would benefit from being displayed graphically. The only time series of more than two points given in the text is for South America, and seems to refer to total populations, not just indigenous people, so it may not be that relevant. -- Avenue (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Text about Fort Pitt smallpox incident

I removed the following text:

For one thing, the germ theory of disease wasn't widely accepted until the middle of the 19th century; educated Europeans largely believed infectious diseases to be caused by bad air. Accordingly, it would be unusual for these soldiers to have had the requisite knowledge.

It lacked a citation directly supporting it, and it is directly contradicted by documentary evidence showing that officers involved believed that smallpox could be spread through blankets.Mark Foskey (talk) 16:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Population Through Time

How about pop. estimates for both of the American continents at 1492, 1650, 1750, and 1850? How about pop. estimates for North America north of Mexico? In 1650 were there 30,000, 300,000 or 3,000,000? There are tons of information about small pox in this article but not very much on population. Regarding the listed population figures for Mexico: are they pure indigenous peoples, pure and mixed indigenous peoples, or the total population? Nitpyck (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Genocide debate

There's some major POV changes between edits in the Genocide section. See the changes in this edit. There are deniers and supporters I suggest splitting the debate section into the two camps and allow text from both the earlier and previous edits to exist in those sections. Otherwise we are looking at continual edit warring and it would be nice to avoid that. My suggestion but I will not be WP:BOLD today. Alatari (talk) 01:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree -- the most recent edits by the IP go way too far, especially since no sources are being used, existing sourced info has been eliminated, and info has added that suggests it was supported by already existing sources. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 15:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I was simply following the same kind of formatting for material presented as a priori fact on the wiki page dedicated to the Jewish Holocaust. I am building up the supporting materials for the genocide of the American Indian as other pages on wiki with links including the various racist statements of our former presidents and their executive orders for forced removal etc. If you are unfamiliar with these materials please give me the time to link to other pages. I noticed as well that you refuse to allow me to call those people who deny a genocide of the American Indians "genocide deniers" even though that is exactly what they are. At this point the fact that American Indians were the victims of genocide is widely accepted just about everywhere in the world, everywhere but here on wiki. It appears to me that there is a thread of genocide denial among wiki editors that points toward a racist anti-American Indian agenda. I'd heard rumors of white supremicists on wiki, but until now had not seen it in action. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.123.16.11 (talk) 19:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

You add material with absolutely no sourcing and I’m a “white supremicist [sic]” because I revert it? Interesting leap. The problem with your use of the term “genocide denier” makes the same type of leap -- attempting to demonize folks that happen to disagree with you. Typically, you start in with the demonization before you even attempt to determine where your target disagrees with you and what you may have in common.
In fact, I am quite familiar with the various policies and statements made with regard to Indian Removal in the United States. If you were at all familiar with the historiography of the era you would realize that it is quite possible to acknowledge the racism of national leaders and the injustice inflicted on Native Americans without the need to rely on a genocide model.
Your claim that “American Indians were the victims of genocide is widely accepted just about everywhere in the world” is interesting, if you can substantiate it. Of course, what is relevant to this article and the various related ones on wikipedia is what historians of the era have to say. I suggest you review Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:No original research and let them guide your future edits.
A few sources I would rely on include Robert Owen’s “Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy”, Anthony A. C. Wallace’s “Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Indians”, Robert Miler’s “Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny”, Robert Remini’s “Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars”, and “Old Hickory’s War: Andrew jackson and the Quest for Empire by Heidler and Heidler. All of these as well as numerous others paint a harsh picture of United States policy ("the various racist statements of our former presidents and their executive orders for forced removal etc" are all there), but do it without ignoring the context of the 19th Century. Of course, since they don’t speak in the sensational language that you espouse they are nothing but white supremacists and genocide deniers. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm part Osage and love and respect my ancestors. White supremist... no. Following the wiki rules of sourcing, reaching consensus and allowing for various POV's... yes. Some of your additions were interesting and prolly supportable but it takes work to source your info and wikipedia doesn't allow you to source from other wiki articles. It has to be from reliable sources. This can be frustrating and very time consuming but if you are dedicated to improving this article and have some time then put your stuff in with sources and don't delete all the previously sourced material. Reach a consensus with editors on this talk page with suggestions of changes and your sourced POV can be expressed. I've been involved with some contentious pages (like The Holocaust) and the best way to add information that can be contentious is to reach consensus on the talk page then adding teh material. I sincerely hope you find the time to get the work done. Also it helps to have signed up for a Wikipedia account no matter what is said, from my experience, editors find it easier to assume WP:FAITH when the other editor has an actual account. Alatari (talk) 06:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

"Nearly all"

"Nearly all scholars now believe that widespread epidemic disease, to which the natives had no prior exposure or resistance, was the overwhelming cause of the massive population decline of the American natives..." - wouldn't we need more than one source to really have a basis for this claim on "nearly all" sources?

On another matter, it is rather odd that the topic of exploitation has been unlinked from that of disease. Obviously, ill-nourishment and forced labour lower people's defenses. It is not that easy to die literally of starvation with plenty of new diseases around; one of them will catch you first. Feketekave (talk) 05:13, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Can ANYONE provide evidence that the Western (History revised view) is the prevalent view? Anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.146.164 (talk) 04:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Ridiculous! How is the Native American Holocaust/Genocide even debatable!?!?

Are Ahmadinejad and USA Citizens that deny the Native American Holocaust feathers on the same bird?

While early relations with the pilgrims were peaceful for the first year or so, they began deteriorating as early as 1622. The Wampanog maintained an uneasy peace with the pilgrims, watching as they encroached and invaded neighboring tribes, with the first full scale war between settlers and indians occurring in 1637. While the first thanksgiving was a peaceful affair (largely because of Massasoit's deciding it would be wrong to let the failing pilgrims starve to death), the plymouth rock settlers celebrated over 20 of them with Metacomet's head proudly displayed rotting on a pike.

In the greater picture, while disease was indeed a huge cause of much of the death (and it's widely disputed how much was known biological warfare, we do know for a fact that some of it was), the official policy from the time of the pilgrims, and accelerated once the U.S. was a country under Washington, Jefferson, and especially Jackson was forced removal, systematic destruction, and cultural destruction/assimilation. The government participated in biological warfare, death marches, and concentration camps on a massive scale. Entire tribes were completely wiped out and have no living members while others were forced to live stagnant lifestyles on reservations and were prohibited from leaving. Children were forced into boarding schools where they experienced mental, sexual, and physical abuse on a scale that is only now being fully uncovered and understood. Everywhere you go in this country there are thousands of unmarked graves because of your government's actions. This, by the definition not only widely accepted by most of the world but the formal U.N. resolution, is genocide, and should be treated with the same distaste and condemnation as the holocaust.

Forced removal and cultural assimilation are well documented. But how was 'systematic destruction' perpetrated? What sources describe the 'concentration camps' and 'biological warfare', along with their 'massive scale'? If true, this material belongs in the article. But it must be carefully documented.
In Central and South America, at least, there was a systematic destruction of working state and commerce structures. Entire cities were razed and new cities built on their ruins; see, e.g., Cuzco and especially Mexico City. As for "concentration camps", this presumably refers to some reducciones under the encomienda system; labour was extracted from a captive, ill-nourished and diseased population, with the expected consequences. Feketekave (talk) 14:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The 19th century saw little sympathy for Native Americans, and even in the 20th century 100,000 Indigenous were killed.

Martin Van Buren continued Jackson's policies and escalated a war against the Seminoles. It was also during his presidency that Federal troops forced 15,000 Cherokees into detention camps.

William Henry Harrison died after 20 days, but spent much of his political and military career advocating indian removal, taking territory by killing them or swindling them.

Now how the hell are people still trying to make excuses for the murderous imperialists? World Views (talk) 16:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

To think that Native Americans could have avoided it all --if they had invented visas prior to the arrival of the invaders (excuse me, the "pilgrims" --sounds a lot nicer). --SciCorrector (talk) 21:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I concur that it is ridiculous to claim that from point on onwards that the intent was not genocidal. Referring too: "Some historians argue that genocide, a crime of intent, was not the intent of European colonization while in America." Consider: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requerimiento This is an abhorrent document pretty much declaring genocidal intent from the get go, the eradication of their religious culture via the most extreme and violent means available to them. I believe it should at least be referrenced in argument against the quoted claim. Quite frankly, I find it hard and shocking to believe that this wasn't satire.. I've yet to here a speech Ahmadinejad has produced that is as openly nasty and vulgar as the requerimiento. While I understand that this is a difficult political subject, I find wiki's excessive neutrality that appears to extend at least some distance beyond fact to be disappointing. Debate about numbers and causes of numbers of deaths is fair enough but the overall the deliberate intent is very hard to deny and I am disappointed that some paragraphs make it sound as appart from a few one of atrocities of the era that it was mostly an accident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.35.228 (talk) 01:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

While difficult to verify, I must also point out that it's likely many atrocities were covered up in later times. This wouldn't surprise me as it seems to be common in Christian history. Typically it seems quite often a christian scholar, well trained in literacy will come across something disagreeable and destroy or alter it.. A personal example of this I have come across in lightly studying the ancient civilisations of the americas and the pacific islands. Many a time I reach a dead end in my reading with the terminal tale of chritian missionaries or crusaders arriving, translating the local texts and destroying it all when it did not agree with their book or thinking. This is not a one of event but somewhat common. If someone has more time than me please look these incidents up and include them. I believe one occured in easter island and various others can be found if you look into ancient writing of the americas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.35.228 (talk)

Wikipidia Loves Lies

this wikipedia entry is embarrassing. it is biased. it is sick. but nevermind trying to correct anything lest the edit nazi's just undo it. wikipedia sucks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.253.221.207 (talk) 04:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You can correct anything you want so long as you follow the rules. Namely, anything you add has to have a verifiable reference/citation. And, you cannot delete anything that does have a verifiable reference/citation without explaining it either in the edit summary or on the article’s talk page. Finally, if your edits get reverted, first check the edit history to find out why. If that doesn’t answer your question, then contact the editor who reverted you, and civilly ask him/her why. — SpikeToronto (talk) 06:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Spike, but this is a bit beyond civility. I doubt very much you'd insist on civility if the same kind of denials/obstructionism was perpetrated on the wiki article on the Jewish genocide. Like the vast majority of North American's you are likely a closet racist when it comes to the indigenous people of this continent, more than willing to deploy any kind of argument to support the view that there was no genocide of Native Americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.255.108.246 (talk) 22:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Nothing Spike said was objectionable. Saying he's probably a "closet racist", however, probably breaches our no personal attacks policy. Please read it, if you haven't already, and consider revising your comment. -- Avenue (talk) 01:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but the entire article and anyone who blanketly supports it is objectionable. You want to quote policy, but you ignore the fact that this is a sick/biased article. And I'm one of many who feel this way, who've tried to make edits - with references and have simply given up because our changes are quickly re-edited to represent a gross bias. I'll go on to argue that the administrators/editors who allow this article to continue to exist with its current anti-Indian bias intact are also racists. Take the time to compare it to the article on the Jewish genocide to get a measure of how fucked up this article is. To date I've seen two lectures using this article as an example of why wiki is unreliable and likley controlled, in part, by eurocentric racists.

Dear Anonymous, if you truly believe that there is a wrong on wikipedia, you have to realize that the only way you can change something is by following the rules of the system, or using the system itself: no matter how right your cause, you cant be calling people nazis. You simply wont win with that behavior, on wikipedia at least. If you want to support your cause, you need to maintain a civil, sophisticated air. Its really the only way you're going to win on wikipedia- regular internet rules do not apply, no matter how just your cause (and I do believe it is just). Basically, in the future, don't start out calling people Nazis, or saying that wikipedia sucks. Instead, call people racist in a sophisticated, eloquent way that makes you look more intelligent. -Anon 69.134.9.155 (talk) 04:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia does lie, i agree with the above

Dear readers,

one thing is quite noticable: Whenever it comes to issue of genocide, the genocide of the Jews seems the biggest issue in mankind's history.

However, everyone with a basic knowledge of history knows better. Knowing that the Americans and British, the self-proclaimed "forces of good", commited one of the worst Genocides in mankind's historyt, i tried to have a look what information Wikipedia provides.

And frankly, i am shocked. Who created this Article, please? IT IS BIASED it is unscientific, and it is belittling and even LYING. Because in this unscientific article, not even the TITLE is correct. It is a GENOCIDE, and one of the most notorious at that. Why is the Word "Genocide" not in the Title? The very first thing in decribing a genocide, has to name it like that - not trying to cover it up.

And secondly: The content is a disgrace. Whoever wrote or censored this pathetic and UNTRUE Article, they always follow the same political biased line: Everything that tells the truth about Genocide, namely, that the SHOA was not the only one (and certainly not the only cruel and horrendous one), is deleted by some "invisble" hand from the USA.

Could it be that a powerful Lobby in the White House does not like people to publish the truth in Encyclopedias? So it seems.

As for the content, the reader, after having started with a wrong title which embezzles the term GENOCIDE, reads an endless sermon of how the poor Indians all died by some kind of accidental events: diseases and other "natural" desasters. If we believe Wikipedia, it almost seems as if the "innocent" American and British leaders, worldwide known for their benevolence (ask Iraq, Vietnam or Dresden), seem to have nothing to do with this genocide.

I ask the responsible people for this article to alter. Also i ask the Wikipedia people in charge, to keep bias from this article. I am not going to delete anything, but i will check again in a few days.

I am sorry to tell you that i am more and more disappointed by Wikipedia, because this site is not a reliable and renowned Encylopedia but a construct of selective information of Hollywood-Historians who write a selective and fraudulent "Winner's history": lying by omission. This gives Wikipedia a bad name, and everybody knows that i am not the only one to say this.

I again repeat my suggestion:

The title has to run NATIVE AMERICAN GENOCIDE or NATIVE AMERICAN HOLOCAUST, a term used by the descendants of the survivors themselves.

The recent title is an insult to the survivors and a mockery to those who perished - it thus has to be changed speedily. When describing a Genocide, the word GENOCIDE has to appear in the title, especially if we deal with one of the world's biggest and most gruesome genocides. I accuse anyone who tries to prevent an appropriate title of this work to abuse Wikipedia for political and ideological objectives.

Also, the content has to be cleaned-up. There is too much talk about diseases, however the majority of Native Americans were not wiped out by "coincidende", but because the British Empire pursued a racist policy of Ethnic Cleansing,on their belives of "racial superiority", indicating the Natives were subhumans or less than animals. Sounds familiar? No, it was not Hitler who perpetrated the first Holocaust. It happened long time before that, on American soil.

--PeterBln (talk) 01:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If you can back your claims (citing verfiable references) that 1) the British Empire had a policy of ethnic cleansing and 2) that more Native Americans were murdered than died of disease, by all means add them.Cromulant (talk) 20:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Without proper sources, your claims are not acceptable for inclusion in the article. If you can find respectable, scholarly evidence to back up your (ridiculous, in my opinion) allegations, then feel free to add them to the article proper. But a word of caution-- if you use the language that you used for this talk post in your edit of the page, it will most probably constitute an NPOV violation. So keep it legitimate, keep it objective. ~~Lothar_von_Richthofen (talk) 3:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Proper sources? The sources have been covered up for centuries. Thats the best thing about this thing, you get the whole Amademajad approach with this argument. "It didn't happen where's the proof?" The proof was covered up, the deaths of the Indians were and still are covered up. And ridiculous claim? Can you provide any evidence or reasons of why you think that is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.146.164 (talk) 04:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If you do not have any sources, please do not continue with any further arguments. An argument without facts/sources is by all means just your opinion. To be truthful for you to say "its been covered up for centuries" makes it sound more like a conspiracy. If you so happen to find proof or facts, please cite them. Another thing, if everything is covered up, how do you know of it? Does it not make sense that if you know of it, everyone else can too? Please cite sources or stop arguing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjwho2 (talk • contribs) 04:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


  • Your ignorance is shocking..
  1. Russell Thornton. American Indian Holocaust and Survival : A Population History Since 1492. (Civilization of the American Indian, Vol 186). University of Oklahoma, 1990.
  2. David Stannard. American Holocaust : The Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press, 1993.
  3. Hans Koning . The Conquest of America: How The Indian Nations Lost Their Continent. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1993.
  4. Jan R. Carew. Rape of Paradise : Columbus and the Birth of Racism in the Americas. Brooklyn, N.Y. : A&B Books, 1994.
  5. Ward Churchill. A Little Matter of Genocide. Holocaust and the Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present. San Francisco: City Lights, 1997.
  6. Mike Davis. Late Victorian Holocausts : El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World. London: Verso, 2001. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.152.162 (talk) 02:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Please don't be rude, see WP:AGF. It looks to me as though certainly Thornton and Stannard meet all our criteria, as does Churchill and Davis (who writes specifically about Brazil). I'm not sure about Koning & Carew but it doesn't matter as we can use the other sources. And in fact we do have Stannard in the bibliography ELs but not used as a source, and Thornton is used as a source. So how should we be using Stannard and Thornton in ways we aren't, or didn't you see that we are using them? If you are just arguing with another editor on this talk page, that's not appopriate as the page is only meant to be used to discuss the article. Dougweller (talk) 08:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The Title has to be changed into NATIVE AMERICAN GENOCIDE, anything else is lying by omission

PS: I just read some more entries. This confirms me in my view that some people apparantly try to deliberately hide and delete historic facts - IMPORTANT historic facts at that. This is not acceptable. It seems to me that i am not the only one wo sharply critizes certain circles in the Wikipedia-Administration for deliberate lies by ommission, deliberate lies by denial and deliberate lies by highly inappropriate Euphemism.

It is quite obvious for the public to see that this whole biased encyclopedia is controlled by a group of influential people who pursue no scientific work, but political ideas. Their main goal as for Genocides seems to be, trynig to prevent any competition for a certain other one that is hyped by media every day.

THE TITLE MUST BE CHANGED. THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST GENOCIDES IN HUMAN HISTORY.

Everybody who tries to hide the fact that we are dealing with one of the worst GENOCIDES in human history, by hiding it even in the title, should be barred from scientific work. Lying about history, lying by omission is not acceptable for an encyclopedia.

--PeterBln (talk) 01:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The debate exists. To justify a title change, you'd need to demonstrate that your view is the prevailing one.Cromulant (talk) 20:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

How do you prove the American revisionist view is the "prevailing one." The world knows different... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.146.164 (talk) 04:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

History as written by a majority viewpoint? No matter how wrongheaded or biased. In Iran, and most of the Islamic world in fact, the Jewish Genocide is debated and the prevailing viewpoint among that population is there was no genocide, just a series of removals with unforseen circumstances. Should wiki hold with that view, or the minority western view that in Europe in the mid 20th century there was a genocidal campaign to eliminate the Jewish people? The double standard here is amazing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.123.16.11 ([[User talk:128.123.16.11|talk]]) 16:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Not calling this the Native American genocide it was is simply "history" written by the victor, and people of white European descendant in the US today simply don't want the pang on their conscience of what their invading ancestors did so they stop the use of the term Native American genocide in public and try to downplay: "oh it was from disease" or even "oh those were stone age people that got what they deserved", etc. This seems much like what some people say about Nazi Germany during WWII, that most people in the concentration camp died not of direct Nazi actions but rather from malnutrition, exhaustion from overwork, diseases like typhus and cholera, etc. It is just that the Nazis did not win WWII and thus they are not writing the history rather the victor, in this case the Allies (US, British, Russians, etc.) get to write the history. Many people have even noted that in earlier times the Soviet Russian's were able to downplay things they did and put them on the Nazis instead! But after the Cold War period American writers need ammo to attack the Soviets so they "rediscovered" different Soviet actions they then called atrocities! It is all history written by the victor to ease their minds, etc. Historylover4 (talk) 05:26, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Please go read WP:NOT#FORUM. Thank you. Heiro 06:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this the most politically correct article title on wikipedia's entire site?

"population history"? I propose there should be a separate article for the genocide. Wikipediarules2221 12:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Support ,,I do think its better to separate the 2 subjects in this one article into 2 articles ..just as Wikipediarules2221 is suggesting..To rename it would not help..but 2 articles that link to each other would be best..Buzzzsherman (talk) 18:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
If you read down the article, one of the sections has a main/see template to another article on exactly that topic. But the notion from Wikipediarules2221 that "population history" and "genocide" are synonymous is not correct at all; population history would include the rebound in this century, for example, and also the genocides of various indigenous peoples by other indigenous peoples...as well as the various mgiration histories etc..Skookum1 (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
That link is actually to the relevant section of our Genocides in history article, not to a separate article. Perhaps ironically, that section has a main template linking back to this article. I have no objection to a separate article on Genocides in the Americas. --Avenue (talk) 20:01, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually I guess you could make an article named "Indigenous American Genocide Controversy". Inter-link with this article.plarq 17 May 2010 —Preceding undated comment added 06:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC).

Important source re Pacific Northwest

I may have mentioned this book before, but an online edition is available at googlebooks The Resettlement of British Columbia, Cole Harris, who is a UBC historical geography professor; contains detailed analyses of population history/data for Pacific Northwest/Northwest Plateau indigenous peoples, and is not limited only to British Columbia. Read away, there's lots in there could be added here....Skookum1 (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Are massacres limited to United States territory?

The article can be surely improved by expanding on massacres happening outside of the US. Spaniards organised at least one significant massacre per each conquered area to intimidate the natives. Xaragua and Saona on Haiti, Caonao on Cuba, Cholula in Mexico, Cajamarca in Peru, and the list can surely be continued. Massacre on Saona island (700 dead) depopulated the island. At least for this part of the world massacres had significant impact indeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.2.179.160 (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There is however a small difference between the massacres perpetrated by the Spaniards, and those performed by the european pilgrims. Check the percentage of Native american population present nowadays in the former spanish colonies, and that in the USA. Former spanish colonies have a variable but always significant proportion of descendants of the original population, pure native or mestizo (spanish/native blood), while in the USA the native population is insignificant. There were in 2008 308,745,538 inhabitants in the US, of which 3,100,100 were native (including Alaska). That equals 1%. Numbers don't lie. If virus and unknown diseases had killed most natives, how can we explain that the black plague in 14th century Europe did not reduce the european population to 1% in our days? There is one reason: there was not an invader with superior weapons pushing the border to the West. The massacre was not limited to the US territory. It had just giant proportions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.127.79.40 (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a good question. Try this for an answer.
Basically, the English settlers were the only serious colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Spanish were "grandees" who wanted to establish large plantations. They were not small farmers. The French were essentially unenthusiastic about colonization and it eventually cost them Canada and their other possessions. Just not enough people at all.
The density of English put the native population "at risk" because they were contending for the same land and (can't separate here) because of the natives heavy exposure to the colonists diseases. As we know, these diseases didn't have to be "serious" like bubonic plague. They could "merely" be measles or mumps or even cold viruses. Granted that these diseases should have run rampant before the colonists landed in the early 17th century. The natives should have caught these diseases from the trappers of the 16th century. This kind of holds up. Only the French and English territories had heavy trapping. Spanish territories had freebooters but not that many of them.
I suspect the natives remaining had fully integrated except the Cherokees and Seminoles in the Eastern US by the 20th century. I realize there are folks who pretend to be natives in the East to be eligible for gambling revenues, but that is another story. I had native American ancestors as do many people from the Northeast and Quebec. I look European.
The Spanish particularly maintained a barrier, in their rather strict caste system. This may have helped isolate the natives from disease. Granted, natives were vital for doing the work. They were "in the way" in colonial New England.
The killing was not one way. One of my ancestral families was massacred during King Philip's War. As a result, that family name is fairly rare today. Only one male ancestor remained. 10% of the New England colonists were killed during the war. It was a touch and go thing and the colonists barely made it. Needless to say, they were "unenthusiastic" about the presence of natives for a long time thereafter. Student7 (talk) 22:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
This is not quite correct - particularly there were not really any strong barriers on interaction in the the caste system - it was designed in a way that actually promoted intermarriage. Spanish colonizers had a different approach to colonism which promoted intermarriage to a much higher degree, and which relied on the colonial exploitation of indigenous labor (a reason not to massacre them), whereas English colonialism didn't rely on indian but on African slave labor - probably because of the generally much lower populations in the areas colonized by the British. The Spaniards also did frequently commit massacres, mostly in order to crsh the frequent indigenous rebellions, and during the first 100 years of colonization to submit new territories to colonial rule. The most probable reason is that population density before contact was many times higher in most of Central and South America than in North America, and the fact that Spanish colonists never aimed directly at removal/extinction of indigenous populations but always at assimilation and accomodation. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:39, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Many years ago, in the '90s sometime, I was visiting Teotihuacan and there was a history of Mexico I wish now I'd bought, haven't seen it again; I browsed it for a while.....in the passage on Spanish-era depopulation it was explained that the primary cause of population collapse in the Valle de Mexico was the Spaniard's banning of human sacrifice, which caused a population boom leading to famine resulting from an inadequate food supply. North of the US, the slaughter of the Beothuk of Newfoundland was not just one event, it happened over time - and involved Mi'kmaq, whose descendants now live on the Island, brought in by the British colonists to aid in the manhunt/bounty-killings.....there were no particular massacres in British Columbia, I know for certain, other than intertribal slaughters such as that of the Qualicum by the Haida (see Adam Horne) or the massacre of the Owikeno (Wuikinuxv) or Rivers Inlet people by, I think, the Bella Bella Haisla, due to a mass poisoning of their leadership at at a "peace feast" hosted by the Owikeno a few years before....the list is long, actually, the Chilcotin massacres of the Lillooet and Carrier, the Shuswap-led and over-time massacre of the Stuwix (Nicola Athapaskans), the Ktunaxa massacres of the Sinixt and so on....and of course in Ontario the wiping out of the Huron population there by the Iroquois....it seems all too often forgotten that massacres were not something done only by white people....Skookum1 (talk) 23:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

To answer Maunus. Again, good points made.
The English came with families. They had no great need for wives, as did the trappers and French. And maybe Spanish. Women were unenthusiastic colonists except from England. I have no Indian ancestors in my English line which is extensive in the colonies. All French, which is fairly typical BTW. Can't speak for the Spanish, but the situation sounds similar.
I think we've got the picture, but it is not one smooth picture. Killed by disease or "in the way" of the heavily immigrating English. Tolerated, sometimes even appreciated, by the French and Spanish who were reluctant immigrants. But their land vanished there as well and the populations could not really avoid disease.
The English came to import their own way of life to America, and enthusiastically, in great number.
The French came to import their way of life, but with little enthusiasm. Impoverisheed Frenchwomen had to be given a substantial "bribe" to immigrate to be potential brides for men on whom they had never set eyes!
The Spanish, particularly, came to extract wealth to send back home.
All results proportionate to the "seriousness" of the colonization. Student7 (talk) 23:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion about attrition warfare and the Natives' utilization to the New World

This was no Genocide. In South America to the North the atrocities commited by both sides are equal. To the Mapuches raiding and killing countless Spanish civilians: to the Spanish exacting Guarionex and Enriquillo (the [1] Tainos) to expel and revolt themselves from the enconmienderos: to the Xiu, Champoton, and Campeche lords of the Yucatan eating the hearts of the Cocom and Chitchen Itza: to the Chichimeca and Zacoteca raiders destroying at will—the Tlaxcalla and Tarascans: to the Dakota uprising in 1862: to the Sand Creek Massacre: to the 30,000 Incan renegades under Pizarro's leadership burning Manco Inca's generals alive: to Cortes's Tlaxcallan auxiliaries purging their forces (both Indian and Spanish) to massacre the Aztecs at every turn: to the Seminoles holding out in the everglades eluding and defeating countles armies and army detachments: to the Cherokee, bravely holding out against superior numbers without and, later, with allies: to the failed confederacies; to the successful ones: to the Iroquois, taunting their Huron captors—as the red-hot coals and embers entered their bowels—and still, fighting the French to a standstill whilst keeping Britain as a captive ally—and low-yielding traders: to the Cree, fighting Otter's men from 50 men out—preventing a massacre: to the 30 Menominee and 25 Canadians who held off 1,000 Americans at Michilimackinac: to the Modocs fighting for more than a year with nothing but cattle and odds against them: to the War of 1812 when my ancestors fought the long-knives. No. My braves fought like dogs and lions for us. InternetHero (talk) 03:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

removed reference to "cellular differentiation"

I removed "cellular differentiation" from the section about Amerindian genetic similarity. I'm pretty sure their cells are differentiated the same as all other human cells... unless they're sponges instead of humans. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:34, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

It's been noted that some Indians don't grow facial hair. Weather this is diet or genetics, I don't know. I've seen arguments on both but didn't pursue the debate. Eskimos as well.

Mofuggin bob (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC).

Pure Native Americans are descended from Mongolian ancestors who are, famously, not particularly hairy. Student7 (talk) 00:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This is why Wikipedia is full of lies and why it's not accepted in University...

First of all, Human cells are Animal Cells. The cell of a Native American is the same as the cell of a Native African. The lack of hair growth is due to genetics, it is a gene just like the blonde hair trait found in many Native Swedes.--UnbiasedNeutral (talk) 01:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedias are generally not accepted as sources in Universities, not just Wikipedia. Universities do set projects for their students using Wikipedia, however. Dougweller (talk) 04:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Entry not recent

"The overall pattern that is emerging suggests that the Americas were recently colonized by a small number of individuals (effective size of about 70), and then grew by a factor of 10 rapidly.[17][18] The data also show that there have been genetic exchanges between Asia, the Arctic and Greenland since the initial peopling of the Americas.[18]" (bolding added) -> This is simply wrong. The reference cited actually talks about 14,000 BP. Yes, it uses the word recent, but the article is talking about genetic time. Clearly, in a general article like this, "recently" is not likely to bring to the mind of the postulated typical reader that kind of time frame. Maybe a date would help - our some=thing like " in the last twenty thousand years or so." 76.126.109.131 (talk) 05:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Inexplicable (and major) changes in article

This set of edits is confusing.

1. Population decline - there may be non-European factors, but the article should state them if it's going to say they existed.

2. If you click on 'warfare' you get an Easter egg, you go to our article on the Second Seminole War. As our guidelines say, " Per the Wikipedia:Principle of least astonishment, make sure that the reader knows what to expect when clicking on a link", and I don't think they'd expect that.

3. 'Successful' has been changed with no explanation to 'unsuccessful' in the sentence " Europeans proved consistently unsuccessful in achieving domination in warfare" and if you click on the word 'unsuccessful' you go to Esopus Wars, 2 localised 17th century conflicts won by the Dutch.

4. The reason given for the unsuccessfulness of the Europeans is funnily enough a reason given for the success of the Europeans, 'staying power' (some text dealing with European success was deleted also).

5. The statement that one reason for the European success was that "The European approach to war, which was less ritualistic and more focused on achieving decisive victory," was changed to "The European approach to war, which was less ritualistic and more focused on achieving decisive victory, was made equally ineffective by the lack of knowledge of the surrounding terrain. Note that clicking on 'terrain' takes you to labyrinth.

The Easter eggs need an explanation, but so does the major change to the article. Dougweller (talk) 13:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I missed something, the link added to 'decisive victory' takes us to our article on the military marching step. Dougweller (talk) 13:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
At first glans all looks ok...but you look into in deeper and you see a change in the statements as pointed out above with 'unsuccessful'. Then we have links to unrelated articles. I would say the edits were done with a misunderstanding of wiki policies. Lack of sources etc...i belive the reversal was done in a proper manner .Moxy (talk) 13:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe we are dealing with a garden variety sub-bridge dweller, User:InternetHero. His edits should probably be reverted on sight and his acct given a couple of day vacation so he can ponder on whether he wants to be a productive editor or take a long term editing vacation from this site. Heiro 17:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I've been looking back over this editors contributions and on many occasions I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out exactly what it is they're even talking about. I'm also seeing lots of examples of them dropping their own unreferenced analysis here and there; sometimes only changing a word or two, but in some instances completely reversing the meaning of the original content thereby without benefit of explanation. These are activities that this editor has been taken to task for in the past and they simply appear to be ignoring advice. In my opinion; I believe that the project needs (even short term) protection from Internethero's present editing practices. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 17:46, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I've been checking some of their contribs as well, and concur. At present, they are a hazard to the integrity of the articles and need to immediately stop, failing that, they need a block. Heiro 17:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed in their most recent additions to the Indian auxiliaries article, that this editor is now posting purported statistical information alongside references they provide (including page numbers) which do not support the numbers they're claiming. Deliberately adding false information? Hmmmmm.... Deconstructhis (talk) 22:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

This article has some sections in it that do not adhere to Wikipedia's policy on neutrality: Genocide debate, Deliberate infection?, the introduction - to name a few. The constant pointing to the Spanish whilst not discussing the events in the northern hemisphere raise questions on neutrality; the insistance that this is a manufactured "debate" by certain historians (Stannard is specifically targeted) is pushing a pov & not well backed up. Also the criticism of "revisionist historians' POV" using things like the 1637 Pequot Massacare to mislead the public (see Genocide debate) is pushing a certain pov; the Population overview mentions nothing on the estimated 10-13 million north of the Rio Grande in 1491 (again, the focus is only on the Spanish territories); the Massacares doesn't touch on the numerous ones in the northern hemisphere before or after 1776 in any serious way (CA only? What about the Jackson & Harrison actions?); the part on Formal apologising seems to be without purpose; the use of "domocide" as opposed to Genocide is highly questionable & steering. I ask editors to propose ways to address these problems. Let me add, I've read some of the earlier complaints above, and I do not agree with how people approached it with lots of rhetoric; please let's keep it civil & focus on scholarship. Ebanony (talk) 12:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Update on my earlier post. In Genocide Debate there is a notable attempt to frame a "debate" in ways not reflected by the sources or reality. Some scholars deny Genocide in the Americas, but not all, and the blatant attack on scholars like Stannard & others with similar POV's is evident. His data, claims & demographic information is misconstrued to present him & those like him as fringe writers working on conspiracy theories. I propose deleting the section; it never should have been added.Ebanony (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I've looked at the paragraph as it was when first contributed, and how it has changed over time. This section was 1) never accurate or 2) neutral. To be clear, The "debate" on Genocide today, consists of the word "intent", and in a narrow sense because it's terminology important to lawyers. That there was a genocide is not something Stannard came up with; this dates back to Lempkin, who discussed this in his work (not published). The characterisation of scholars "copying" his claims "without demographic studies" is false; the reference to Poole is "undue weight", and the dismissal of scholars with such select quotes is outreagous. Rather than being neutral, it argued against Stannard & people like him, not the purpose of Wpedia. There was no way to fix the section. At any rate, the numbers of peole killed & the definition of genocide will be covered in the proposed section Tobby72 & I discussed below; other editors should refer to section #15 presenting minority pov's. Ebanony (talk) 03:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Citations Needed & Notice Added

The article has numerous statements & sections that lack citations and references. I'm asking editors to make an effort to properly source the claims in this article. Information, as per Wikipedia's policy, must be cited to outside sources. Ebanony (talk) 02:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

presenting minority pov's

Tobby72, I've reverted your edit on this page because you 1) have decided to erase previous & respected information by scholars & did so without so much as a discussion; 2) you insist on using & relying on the opinion (not of anthropologists who've conducted the demographic studies, but based on 1 historian's opinion the majority do not agree with); 3) these figures you put of 2 million inhabitants north of the Rio Grande & estimates of 2-7 millions is in direct conflict not only with the consensus, but the major demographic studies, and the historian you cited - what semographic studies did conduct?

You should make an effort to discuss other editors' concerns, and use sources that represent consensus & more accepted academic opinion. I'm warning you for the 2nd time on Wikipedia's policy of pushing of minority pov's, which it appears you may be doing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute#POV_pushing & the policy on NPOV disputes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute I'm not accusing you of this, but you outright refuse to even work with other editors to reword sections in question & now have done it in 2 articles on the same topic.

You likewise deleted and used the same text on the article American Indian Wars & this one here. Both have disputes for neutrality. So far, you've not responded in any meanginful way to the numerous problems I asked you to. If you continue to make edits like this, I'm going to ask administration to look into the matter.

Clearly you have a problem with the estimates given by respected scholars like Kroeber (whose study specifically focusing on population is well regarded) and Dobyns, Henry, Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (he's a respected anthropologist & his work is peer reviewed). You can't just take a statement like you from a historian & claim those studies don't count. They do count & in universities receive lots of attention (1939 & 1966 studies). And Thornton, Russell, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, which I cited earlier, likewise evaluates these things and is a respected source. Ebanony (talk) 23:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"I've reverted your edit on this page because you 1) have decided to erase previous & respected information by scholars & did so without so much as a discussion".
I didn't erase anything on this page. On the contrary, you have repeatedly erased sourced information & reliable sources just because they are against your POV.
"2) you insist on using & relying on the opinion (not of anthropologists who've conducted the demographic studies, but based on 1 historian's opinion the majority do not agree with);.
"the majority do not agree with" ... It's just your POV. Your thoughts are completely irrelevant. I have added sourced content per WP:RS policy, while you have systematically vandalized my work.
"3) these figures you put of 2 million inhabitants north of the Rio Grande & estimates of 2-7 million , but the major demographic studies. The historian you cited -what demographic studies did she conduct? She expressed her opinon.
What demographic studies did you conduct? You expressed your opinion.
Shoemaker, Nancy (2000). American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century. University of New Mexico Press. p. 3. ISBN 0826322891. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)

Whereas Mooney had estimated 1.15 million Indians north of the Rio Grande at the time of contact, Kroeber substituted lower figures for California and speculated that with further research Mooney's estimate would "ultimately shrink to around 900,000." Most estimators consider Kroeber's low estimate too low and Dobyns' high estimates, whether 12 million or 18 million, much too high. The majority of estimates fall in the range of 2 to 7 million. For the contiguous United States, the estimates fall more within the range of about one to 5.5 million.

Tobby72 (talk) 01:28, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
1) Yes, you did delete information on the American Indian Wars page & the Population of the Indigenous People's page. Was it not Tobby72 who on Oct 26 made this edit & deleted & changed this text? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Indian_Wars&diff=392960741&oldid=392907781
And this edit on October 24th? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Indian_Wars&diff=392776603&oldid=392605547
And on October 23rd? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Indian_Wars&diff=392306392&oldid=391839779
Not only did you delete information (sourced correct), but you further did so on the Population of Indigenous People's page. On October 26 you deleted an entire paragraph that was sourced, and the record shows it http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=393083216&oldid=393080466
Is there any other Tobby72? How can you claim that you didn't erase things? "I didn't erase anything"?
On the same point 1) you then say in reference to me "On the contrary, you have repeatedly deleted sourced material & reliable sources just because they are against your POV." False. I have not "repeatedly deleted mmaterial" on the Indigenous People page. In fact, I made 3 edits, and only one was to delete information: your edit I cited above on Oct 26th & I explained why I reverted it in the talk page. Here's the evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&action=history
Again, your next claim is false, for as to accusing me of using opinions that don't go "against my pov", you've presented 0 evidence to substantiate this claim. The edits I made to the other article, American Indian Wars, I have clearly explained in the talk page: See Sections #25-27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Indian_Wars#NPOV_Apparent_lack_of_neutrality
2) You said: "I have added sourced content per WP:RS policy, while you have systematically vandalized my work." #1, this isn't my "opinion". I cited expert anthropologists, historians etc who clearly conducted respected studies that a great many academics respect. You cite Shoemaker who happens to agree with you. I did not ever "vandalise" your work "systematically" or in any other way. I changed the edits because you have & continue to push minority pov's & have the audacity to claim they represent the mainstream thought on the matter.
Rather it's your "sourced content" which is highly selective and does not represent the majority POV, contrary to your claim against me. You excluded 2 highly respected studies:
Dobyns, Henry Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983) - this is a highly respected study
Thornton, Russell, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987) - yet another respected source & reviewed by Matthew Snipp in the "American Indian Quarterly" Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 85-87 - among others like Cambridge Journals http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=4160840; and is even recommended by CUNY (City University of NY) in its courses dealing with these topics. They likewise recommend both him and Henry Dobyns; they say "For a far more honest estimate, deriving from the evidence rather than ideological preoccupations, see Dobyns, Henry" & cite the study he did (above). http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/progler/readings/articles/whitestudies.html
That is a respected university. The point is these scholars do not approach the material like Jennings, but rely more on evidence, and Thornton reviews these and earlier studies. He is an expert in the field (like those above). All you do is find Shoemaker who wrote her opinion, upon which you base all these edits in the 2 articles. That's not responsible.
Dobyns is highly respected & his work on these topisc is reviewed: Daniel K. Richter, The William and Mary Quarterly
Douglas H. Ubelaker, Ethnohistory Vol. 31, No. 4 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 303-305 Third Series, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Oct., 1984), pp. 649-653 Ebanony (talk) 04:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
3) "What demographic studies did you conduct? You expressed your opinion." Excuse me? What studies did I conduct? Try to be more civil. 2nd, you don't know my qualifications, and the fact you placed an "attention experts" label in the introduction indicates you are not one. I remind you of the need to use a neutral POV "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight No progress has been made in this because you continue to claim the majority POV is irrelevant, and then you calim it's my "opinion" & also "irrelevant". Now you've done this to 2 pages. You're giving "undue weight" to minority pov's. "undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views." Shoemaker cannot simply dismiss everything, and this is only a partial list (much more I haven't got the time to write right now).Ebanony (talk) 04:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Tobby72 your edit of Oct 27 #1.1) (below) including the population estimates of Dobyns & Thornton is an improvement of your earlier edits because it's more inclusive of academics with majority POV.
  1. 1)Your edit from Oct 26:
"There's no conclusive evidence to determine how many Native peoples lived in North America before Columbus.[1] The majority of estimates fall in the range of 2 to 7 million."
  1. 2)Your new edit as of Oct 27:
"There's no conclusive evidence to determine how many Native peoples lived in North America before Columbus.[4] For example, Cherokee historian Russell Thornton believes that there were 7 million people living in North America, whereas other estimates range from a low of 2.1 million (Ubelaker 1976) to a high of 18 million (Dobyns 1983).[5]"
You still give no explanation for removing the earlier text and for replacing it with your edit in the first place. What is wrong with it? You removed this:
a) the book A population history of North America discussing Canada’s population by Michael Haines (using Thornton’s work); b) the 500,000 figure currently accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health in “Handbook of North American Indians: Indians in contemporary society'” by Garrick Alan Bailey; c) information on diseases by Donna Wilson & Herbert Northcott; d) the smallpox problem in 1630 in “Rotting face : smallpox and the American Indian” by Ronald Robertson. Your edit & the information you deleted: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=prev&oldid=393083216
You also claimed on October 26th that you “didn't erase anything on this page.” According to the log, you deleted all of points a)-d), as noted above. You replaced them with your edit on Oct 26 (#1.1 above). I removed your edit & explained why on Oct 26 above in this very section, warning you not go from page to page promoting minority POV's (on "American Indian Wars" you did the same http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Indian_Wars#Estimated_number_of_inhabitants_in_North_America ). On Oct 27 (#1.2 above) this is your new edit (above). See Section #27 for the discussion, your own talk page
The second problem is you say Thornton is Cherokee (see above, my emphasis), which is true, and he sometimes does this himself. But why do you highlight that Russell "Thornton believes that there were 7 million people" & at the same time include that he is Cherokee, the implication being he is not white? Why emphasise his race & ethnicity? You don't discuss Dobyns' race or ethnicity even though his claims received more criticism than Thornton. You don't discuss Douglas Ubelaker's background though his claims are far more controversial. If anything, Thornton is probably the least controversial of the three. Yet you focus on the indigenous person. Why? Are you trying to insinuate "cherokee" or other indigenous peoples are biased?
You don't discuss anywhere Nancy Shoemaker's, A. Kroeber's or James Mooney's background. Do you usually put a person's name and (black) or (white) next to said individual & insinuate there is a problem with his/her work? Your language towards Thornton is one of skepticism ("believes") & done in a way that points out his racial & ethnic background (Cherokee). Do you understand why this is not neutral & why there is a problem? Is there something wrong with Cherokee scholarship? Thornton happens to be Cherokee, but is a highly respected scholar. His background or beliefs have little bearing here. You’ve made them relevant. Why? The fact you insist on "2 million" or close to it being the valid pov, makes it worse because Thornton's estimate is above the ones you preferred.
Continuing: "For a far more honest estimate, deriving from the evidence rather than ideological preoccupations, see Dobyns...and Thornton" - That's CUNY & plenty more say it.
How can you claim he (Thornton) "believes" a population number of 7 million? This isn't some arbitrary number he made to malign Europeans/Americans. You didn't write "Ubelaker believes" or "Shoemaker believes". I've been telling you since your first edit that 7 million is a valid number. You continue to insist, with your language & now in racial terms, that the lowest estimates are the valid ones. Thornton, whether you like it or not, is an expert. One more thing, you have cited "Thornton, Russell (1990). American Indian holocaust and survival: a population history since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 26" That terminology doesn't reflect his writings: it's not a belief by some unqualified "Cherokee". It's a table enumerating the work of other scholars, including his own. You’ve not represented his work fairly, and you’ve focused on his race & ethnicity & only on his race & ethnicity. How is this even a topic of discussion?
In addition to that, most earlier work specifically excluded non-whites, like the controversial claims you were talking about earlier by promoting the idea that there were very few people in the North American continent in 1492, and excluding those with higher estimates. Your insistence on excluding Dobyns & particularly Thornton earlier raised questions about your neutrality. Now your unfounded terminology about Thornton in the context of race and ethnicity– and only his race & ethnicity – coupled with your insistence on using only the lowest population estimates raises serious questions (it's noted you recently put 18 million) as to the motivations of your edits. This page from CUNY (City University of NY) focuses on the problems involving race & how scholars have done these things. “The manipulation of data undertaken by succeeding generations of Euroamerican historians and anthropologists in arriving at the official 20th century falsehood that there were "not more than one million Indians living north of the Rio Grande in 1492, including Greenland" is laid out very clearly by Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975).” http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/progler/readings/articles/whitestudies.html#[16] Note: my emphasis.
Now perhaps you can explain why you removed any reference to Francis Jennings (Note* meant & earlier wrote above David Stannard) as well on the page American Indian Wars. You demanded his any work be removed. Not once, but 3 times! His work is more controversial, but he can't be ignored (it's there now as of your last edit, but not on this page for some reason). http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Indian_Wars&action=history What do you have against indigenous peoples, Francis Jennings or scholars who don't agree with the ethnocentric pov's peddled by earlier scholars like Mooney? Regardless, it violates Wikipedia NPOV & the racial/ethnic focus is taking things way too far. Remove the offending terminology; stop focusing on academics race/ethnicity & questioning their research and only their research with such insinuations not even based on the source (this is your added opinion); treat all the professors with some respect; include a wider variety of pov's; and work with & consult other editors, instead of continually ignoring them on the talk pages and making false accusations when you finally feel like responding. This isn't a joke, nor is it to be taken lightly. These are highly sensitive projects dealing with race & Genocide, and that some have an agenda is well documented. You know this.Ebanony (talk) 03:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
You still give no explanation for removing the earlier text and for replacing it with your edit in the first place. What is wrong with it? You removed this: Your edit & the information you deleted: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=prev&oldid=393083216
I don't really know what you're talking about; you are very confused.
The second problem is you say Thornton is Cherokee
Done [4]
Now perhaps you can explain why you removed any reference to Francis Jennings as well on the page American Indian Wars.
I removed the thirdworldtraveler.com & enotes.com per WP:RS; feel free to include more appropriate citations from reliable sources. Tobby72 (talk) 10:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
You've removed what some would consider racially insensitive & offensive remarks. That's progress. Please don't single out indigenous poeple for their race & challenge their work with insinuations their work is unreliable.
I didn't ask for thirdworldtraveller or enotes to be included. I said David Stannard's book American Holocaust. American Indian Wars now has it, after you deleted it 3 times. But not here. (Note* I wrote Francis Jennings in my last edit, but meant & earlier wrote David Stannard). You knew the edit I referred to because you mentioned enotes - that was part of the same edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Indian_Wars&diff=392306392&oldid=391839779 We have an obligation to include "majority views", which includes Stannard.
You say "feel free to include more appropriate citations from reliable sources." Except you deleted my references to David Stannard's work 3 times. Since October 23rd you've not shown Stannard is unreliable. You also did it here with Douglas Thornton in racially charged terms. You base your claims/insinuations on?
On separate note when you say "I don't really know what you're talking about; you are very confused". This is your own edit on October 26: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=prev&oldid=393083216 I'm aksing you again, why did you make this change? I see no reason for it. So please stop this "I don't understand" speech. Ebanony (talk) 14:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Now, Tobby72, since you've made claims that promote minority pov's, I've called you out on it & your selective use of writers like Shoemaker & your claim that "The majority of estimates fall in the range of 2 to 7 million. For the contiguous United States, the estimates fall more within the range of about one to 5.5 million."
Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise, p 350, 351 "[T]here is now a rough academic consensus, quite sharply at odds with figures conventionally accepted earlier in this century...from 7 to 18 million people north of Mexico". That's just 1 respected scholar. Dorris, Michael Contemporary Native Americans pg 47 cites 12 to 15 million. Another scholar. Zinn, Howard , A People's History pg 16 who cites a population of 10 million in 1492 - another scholar. Add in Dobyns at 18 million (which is considered high - I agree - but his 1st estimate was about 8 million); Thornton about 7 million. All respected scholars. Really, talk of 1 million or even 2 million is not consistent with current scholarship.　You really should consider a wider range of scholarship, not just those that butress earlier discounted work,.
You know, this doesn't even include people in the rest of the continents, which need to be discussed as well. Those numbers were significantly higher - in the tens of millions. Ebanony (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
It seems like you are just cherry picking certain authors to support your POV.
Kroeber estimated the aboriginal population more or less north of the Rio Grande at only 900,000; Dobyns originally estimated it as high as 12.25 million, but recently has asserted it may have been 18 million. Estimates by other twentieth-century scholars fall at various points between those extremes, as indicated in table 2-5. However, most are around 1 million for the total aboriginal population of North America.[5]
In view of recently obtained data from archaeological and other sources, a conservative estimate is that at least 2 million natives inhabited the North American continent at the time of Columbus's arrival.[6][7]
Clearly you have a problem with the estimates given by respected scholars like Alfred L. Kroeber (whose study specifically focusing on population is well regarded), Douglas H. Ubelaker, or William Denevan. Tobby72 (talk) 17:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Tobby72 #1 This is the 2nd time I've told you: Do not edit my comments on the talk page. You have no reason to add brackets, adjust text or change what I wrote in any way. Your behaviour is lees than polite, and no editor appreciates others inserting words or brackets in their text. You want to add "wikilinks", you do it to your own text, mate. Don't do it again to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=393455475&oldid=393438054 The fact that you've edited my comments here twice and deny that you edited and deleted earlier comments on this main page raises questions about your honesty. I've been more than patient with you. Ebanony (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Best to read Wikipedia:TALK:Editing comments - If you have a disagreement or a problem with someone's behavior, please read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.Moxy (talk) 23:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Moxy for the advice on that page; it was helpful. To Tobby72 on editing my comments:
“Editing – or even removing – others' comments is sometimes allowed. But you should exercise caution in doing so, and normally stop if there is any objection.” (my emphasis) I first objected to this on Oct 27th when I wrote “Please follow talk page accepted practise of not placing your text in between mine. There is space below for you to respond. I'm moving your edit because according to the time log, it was made after all of my edits.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Indian_Wars#Estimated_number_of_inhabitants_in_North_America
Wikipedia also says “Do not misrepresent other people” which you did by inserting your text inside of mine. Not ok. “Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning.” This information is found on the link Moxy posted, and I object in the strongest terms to this practice or the adjustment of any of my text in any way for any reason by others. I've objected twice to your editing of my text.Ebanony (talk) 01:25, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
This is the 2nd time I've told you: Do not edit my comments on the talk page. You have no reason to add brackets, adjust text or change what I wrote in any way.”
I only added helpful wikilinks, Kirkpatrick Sale, Michael Dorris, and Howard Zinn, with a brief explanation of an edit. [8] You have my apologies, but please keep a cool head and assume good faith in your dealings with other people.
I first objected to this on Oct 27th when I wrote “Please follow talk page accepted practise of not placing your text in between mine. There is space below for you to respond. I'm moving your edit because according to the time log, it was made after all of my edits.”
Best to read Help:Using talk pages#Sections - If you want to respond to a specific comment, you can place your response directly below it. Tobby72 (talk) 08:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
No, you didn't add "helpful" links because they were unsolicited. Nor was that the first time you ignored Wikipedia policy to adjust my text in the talk pages. I did read Wikipedia's policy & reiterate to you what it says on editing other editors comments "you should exercise caution in doing so, and normally stop if there is any objection.” (my emphasis) I asked you to stop; you ignored me. 2nd Wikipedia is clear "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning.” Seems to me that's what you did, and that's why I said stop placing your text between mine. It's rude, unnecessary & can cause people to mistake your writing for mine ie distort my meaning, which is why the link you just posted changes nothing. You do understand the words "stop if there is any objection", don't you? You can't claim lack of "good faith" because I asked you on Oct 27 in no uncertain terms to stop; I told you again sternly, but not rudely, to stop again today. No need to purposely go round irking other people like that. You talk about "cool head"? Follow the rules and stop provoking problems which distract from your questionable editing. Understand clearly: please do not edit my comments in any way; I object. Ebanony (talk) 08:43, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


First, Tobby72, I asked you at least twice to explain your edit after you 1) deleted good information & refused to explain why; 2) you claimed you didn't know what I was talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=393197577&oldid=393094220 Your edit seems unjustified, and if you can't give good reasons for deleting the earlier information, it's my opinion it should be restored.

Second, you say “Clearly you have a problem with the estimates given by respected scholars like Alfred L. Kroeber (whose study specifically focusing on population is well regarded), Douglas H. Ubelaker, or William Denevan.” Yes, most scholars today have a serious problem with Kroeber’s estimates. Did you know that Douglas Ubelaker & Nancy Shoemaker likewise have problems with Kroeber’s estimates of “only 900,000”? You did. I'll get to that later.

Douglas Ubelaker:

“Low estimates of 900,000 to just over one million were reported by a number of scholars prior to 1962.” & ”The most comprehensive approach of the period was that of James Mooney…his data and total of 1,148,000…published…in 1928...formed the basis of A.L Kroeber’s work in 1939. Kroeber adopted all of Mooney’s estimates, except for those of California.”

Douglas Ubelaker again:

“In many instances, his notes [Kroeber] indicate that the 1492 number was greater than the figure presented…since the population may have already declined in size prior to the date of the population figures available”. Though Ubelaker doesn't agree with Dobyn's estimates, he says Kroeber left out many people & cited work in 1962 & Henry Dobyns’ 1966 study estimating a population of 9.8 million (later of 18 million), replacing Mooney’s and Kroeber’s earlier claims. Why? Mooney & particularly Kroeber “greatly underestimated population size” by not including “declines due to epidemic diseases.” A population history of North America by Michael Haines & Richard Steckel, in Douglas Ubelaker’s chapter pg 52-54. As you can see, Ubelaker doesn't agree with Kroeber's estimates either. They're too low. And Nancy Shoemaker says “Most estimators consider Kroeber's low estimate too low" (posted in your own edit of Oct 27th above) American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century pg 3. As I said, most scholars today have a problem with Kroeber's work. What's your point? Should I support Kroeber's estimates?

What's significant is Henry Dobyns’ conclusions reversed a whole generation of scholars' work, & Ubelaker says it. You, Tobby72, selectively focused on Dobyns’ & Stannard’s figure of 18 million to justify excluding their work (citing Shoemaker saying 18 million was too high, which very well may be true). However, Ubelaker also says Dobyns’ work has “greatly influenced many scholars who generally recognise greater population size than suggested by Mooney and Kroeber”, and his earlier estimates of around 8 million still receive a lot of respect. So Ubelaker doesn't just dismiss Dobyns. But you did. And whilst Ubelaker & Shoemaker have done good work, they know that "[T]here is now a rough academic consensus, quite sharply at odds with figures conventionally accepted earlier in this century...from 7 to 18 million people north of Mexico" Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise 1990, p 350, 351. This may be why you seek to exclude all but Kroeber, Ubelakey, Shoemaker etc: all have similar estimates of populations. Of course when your goal is talk about "2 million people", the scholars I mentioned don't really help you.

So yes, I agree Kroeber’s estimates were “well regarded” before 1962/1966. You, Tobby72 admitted knowing this when on Oct 27th you posted Nancy Shoemaker’s work above:

“Whereas Mooney had estimated 1.15 million Indians north of the Rio Grande at the time of contact, Kroeber substituted lower figures for California and speculated that with further research Mooney's estimate would "ultimately shrink to around 900,000." Most estimators consider Kroeber's low estimate too low” American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century pg 3. Again, yours is a one-sided argument in favour of the lowest numbers available. That’s not neutral.

So to summarise: Your argument rested on two quotations from Nancy Showmaker & Douglas Ubelaker (above), but neither agreed with the things you wrote on Kroeber or his estimate. Nancy Shoemaker says “Most estimators consider Kroeber's low estimate too low” & according to Douglas Ubelaker “[Kroeger] greatly underestimated population size” because he didn’t include “declines due to epidemic diseases.” Since that edit you've added new links which include: "for decades the Mooney-Kroeber figures stood unchallenged, but most contemporary studies reject them for being overly conservative." in American Indians: the first of this land by C. Matthew Snipp p 10, though his other claims are disputed by Kirkpatrick Sale (above).

Recent scholarship (since 1962/66) has the majority POV at odds with that POV. You cite only people like A Kroeber (discounted), Douglas H. Ubelaker, Nancy Shoemaker or William Denevan (low estimates). You have excluded Henry Dobyns landmark study (mid range range estimates); Dobyns later study (18 million & much higher); you also left out everyone else whose estimates are higher, but ranged roughly from 8-18 million: Kirkpatrick Sale; David Stannard; Francis Jennings; Michael Dorris; Howard Zinn; Russell Thornton (whom you treated in a racially disrespectful manner). In being neutral, I presented Stannard & Thornton, who both include estimates of around 7-8 million, and fall in consensus POV, and in the middle - not to one extreme or other, because I showed Stannard's 18 million was high. On the other habd, you excluded 6 important scholars who just happen to contradict your POV.


Third, separate but related. Let’s clarify the quote of mine you took on Kroeber & Dobyns from Oct 26th. I said he [Kroeber]“cannot be ignored”; I don’t mean Kroeber’s work or estimates form the majority POV today like Dobyns’ earlier work does – Kroeber's used to before 1962/1966, and I apologise if I’ve given that impression because it’s not my stance. Kroeber’s estimates have been severely criticised & is only respected by a very small group of people – scholars who’ve been accused of racism, "manipulation of data" (See Francis Jennings The Invasion of America) & worse as in downplaying Genocide; that's WHY that earlier 1939 study of Kroeber is not ignored in universities. Now some ‘‘parts’’ of his work are still respected, but not his estimates of 900,000. So yes, I should have written “was well regarded” as opposed to “is well regarded”. But this doesn’t change that fact that today in 2010 it’s not the majority POV, and to use his figures out of context is “undue weight”; so are the figures close to it like 2 million, as Kirkpatrick Sale the other scholars say. I continue to ask why you made racially insensitive comments against an indigenous scholar, Russell Thornton, and insinuate his work was unreliable; in this context, it's not a joke. His estimates of about 7 million are a problem for your pov, and at first you excluded his work too.

Further, you took my Oct 26th edit & did not attribute it to me by using quotation marks “”.:My edit “Clearly you have a problem with the estimates given by respected scholars like Kroeber (whose study specifically focusing on population is well regarded) and...”
Your edit of Oct 28 “Clearly you have a problem with the estimates given by respected scholars like Alfred L. Kroeber (whose study specifically focusing on population is well regarded)…”

Please don't copy my work like that; I object to it in the strongest terms. Other editors have had their accounts blocked for copying & pasting text like that. That's serious stuff. "Wikipedia's licensing requires that attribution be given to the original author." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copying_within_Wikipedia

Last, you Tobby72 “cherry picked” using the lowest estimates (from 900.000 to 5 million); you excluded those whose work form a major part of mainstream scholarship (roughly 7-10 million); you want to use earlier discounted work from before 1962/1966 out of context; you have given “undue weight” to minority POV’s on 3 pages dealing with the same topic. This isn't about my problems with certain scholars; it's about your editing in a non-neutral way & promoting fringe POV's. You propose 0 ways to help improve these articles. Ebanony (talk) 09:19, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't exclude anybody. In fact, I included both Thornton and Dobyns. I've added sourced content per WP:RS & WP:NPOV policies. American Indian Wars, 22 October 2010: [9], Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, 27 October 2010: [10], [11].
There's no conclusive evidence to determine how many Native peoples lived in North America before Columbus. Some scholars have estimated a population of as few as 2 million, while others put the pre-Columbian population in excess of 18 million.
There's no conclusive evidence to determine how many Native peoples lived in North America before Columbus. For example, Russell Thornton estimates that there were 7 million people living in North America, whereas other estimates range from a low of 2.1 million (Ubelaker 1976) to a high of 18 million (Dobyns 1983).
You have repeatedly deleted sourced information & reliable sources: American Indian Wars, 24 October 2010: [12], American Indian Wars, 26 October 2010: [13]. However, I believe you're just uninformed and confused. Once again, please keep a cool head and assume good faith in your dealings with other people. Tobby72 (talk) 15:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


You’ve said this twice, and it’s not quite correct:
"you have repeatedly erased sourced information & reliable sources just because they are against your POV." You then claimed "vandalism". You now repeat it: "You have repeatedly deleted sourced information & reliable sources: American Indian Wars"
What you left out was that I had already responded to this above on Oct 27, where I said "as to accusing me of using opinions that don't go 'against my pov', you've presented 0 evidence... The edits I made to the other article, American Indian Wars, I have clearly explained in the talk page: See Sections #25-27" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Indian_Wars#NPOV_Apparent_lack_of_neutrality The edits & their rationale can be seen there.
But of course I deleted some sources/non-sourced material. The problems were several:
1) irrelevant information/pictures that cluttered the article "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject."
2) NPOV statements & “undue weight” (yours)
3) Racially insensitive remarks on indigenous peoples
4) Controversial claims in the Introduction (yours)
Your selective examples: "American Indian Wars, 24 October 2010” & "26 October 2010". These were your edits & had problems of NPOV & "undue weight" & controversial claims in the Intro. But you're apparantly "just uninformed and confused" (your phrase) because you keep pointing to WP:RS; I never questioned the validity of the source; they're good sources. The problem is that these "sourced" materials represent "minority views" & you give them "as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views". You do so by presenting this figure of "2 million inhabitants as representative of majority opinion, and did so in the Introduction. Wikipedia says:
"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV
This "2 million" figure is minority, and should not get the same treatment as the higher mid-range figures; this not "my opinion":
"[T]here is now a rough academic consensus, quite sharply at odds with figures conventionally accepted earlier in this century...from 7 to 18 million people north of Mexico" Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise 1990, p 350, 351.
7 million is low & 18 million is high. 2 million is off the spectrum. Sadly, you continue to reject this & others who say the same. It’s one thing to discuss the controversy in the main body, but you insisted on a minority POV in the Intro & still claim it is majority POV; the "2 million" figure should be "in proportion to the prominence of the viewpoint", but it isn't, so it's a violation of NPOV rules. "Best to read" (your phrase) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV


Your other claims:
"I didn't exclude anybody. In fact, I included both Thornton and Dobyns.!"
Now maybe you’re "just uninformed and confused" again (your phrase). In this article on population you did not add them until Oct 26th; instead you had used the same Science article which made those "2 million" claims, but not more respected writers like Thornton & Dobyns work - it's "sourced" but a minority POV http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=393083216&oldid=393080466
So I undid it that edit for the same reason I undid your edits on American Indian War article: "undue weight" to minority POV (nearly identical edit); However, I didn't question the "source", just how it was used. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=next&oldid=393094220
Only afterwards did you add them; you wrote "add Russell Thornton's & Henry Dobyns's estimates", which was on the 27th after I asked you to, saying your "'sourced content'...is highly selective and does not represent the majority POV... You excluded 2 highly respected studies:" Thornton & Dobyns. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas&diff=next&oldid=393197577
These edits show you specifically excluded Thornton & Dobyns here in this article, and that I had to argue with you to get you to add them, which was after we had already had this row on the American Indian Wars page. Is this promoting minority POV's?
You went too far when you questioned the reliability of Russell Thornton’s work & singled him out for his race/ethnicity; I asked you to change it. Of course, you didn’t point to the race of those whose estimates were "2 million" people (those you agree with), just the Native American scholar with estimates of around 7 million you feel are too high. Is that neutral? This may not be a coincidence, but you refused several times to explain your edits. I don't want to speculate.


Your other claim of "cool head" compares well to your Oct 27th comment
"What demographic studies did you conduct? You expressed your opinion."
You called into question my credentials, which is unecessary; but you know Kirpatrick Sale is not "my opinion"; it's in line with Thornton, Dobyns, Stannard (whose work you likewise called into question using [unreliable source?] next to his book http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Indian_Wars&diff=next&oldid=392605547 There never was any dispute on enotes or 3rd World Traveller; the dispute is I have to go through all this just to get work on consensus range population estimates included - you didn't want them included. So really, it's you who questioned & excluded the "sources": Thornton & Stannard.
Some don't like high figures of above "2 million" as a population estimate. But "The manipulation of data undertaken by succeeding generations of Euroamerican historians and anthropologists in arriving at the official 20th century falsehood that there were 'not more than one million Indians living north of the Rio Grande in 1492, including Greenland' is laid out very clearly by Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America:" http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/progler/readings/articles/whitestudies.html
You seem to promote "EuroAmerican historians" and made 1 racially insensitive remark on the main page here about Thornton, an indigenous scholar, and questioned his work. Earlier you excluded his estimates. I ask you again: Why? That's neutral?
And you on Oct 28th you wanted "Alfred L. Kroeber" Douglas H. Ubelaker, or William Denevan, all of whom have real low estimates; But Kroeber is the least reliable. He's part of what CUNY & Jennings mean by "manipulation of data". How you can consider his work as anything close to majority POV is beyond me. Ubelaker & Shoemaker say he's too low.
I don't seek to exclude the writers you mentioned. We can discuss these things in context & fairly including the "debate". But some (this is not implied against you for you didn't make all those edits) push the argument that there was no "Genocide" & this was some empty "wilderness" with "the merciless Indian Savages" devoted to removing whites & "destruction of all ages" as something "is not disputed" in a twisted argument in serious breach of neutrality. These things were the American Indain Wars article. Talking about "savagery" & picking on people's race is "vandalism"; removing it is our obligation as editors. When you pointed to the edits I made on American Indian Wars, you ignored the fact that article needed major cleanup. All was justified. Now why do you oppose mid to high range population estimates & promote the lowest range available, incluing pre-1962/66 work? You point to Shoemaker? Good grief.


To bicker or go forward? Can we work together to treat these sensitive matters in a neutral & respectful way? Can we agree on using only the majority POV in the Introduction and discussing the controversy on estimates in its own paragraph? We can cover the major studies/authors and what academics say & highlight differences of opinion. Ebanony (talk) 06:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


"You seem to promote "EuroAmerican historians" ..." "EuroAmerican historians" are, for example, Kirkpatrick Sale, Howard Zinn, Michael Dorris, David Stannard, Henry Dobyns (high estimates), as well as Douglas H. Ubelaker, William Denevan, David Henige, Nancy Shoemaker, Michael H. Crawford (low estimates). [14], [15], [16].
"In the past forty years an entirely new paradigm has developed regarding the contact population of the New World. Proponents of this new theory argue that the American Indian population in 1492 was ten, even twenty, times greater than previous estimates. In Numbers from Nowhere David Henige argues that the data on which these high counts are based are meager and often demonstrably wrong." Henige, David (1998). Numbers from nowhere: the American Indian contact population debate. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 1. ISBN 080613044X. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)
Since the size of the Native American population prior to European contact remains a source of scholarly debate and disagreement, and we are NOT experts on the subject, I am proposing to keep the following compromise paragraph per WP:NPOV & WP:RS:
"There's no conclusive evidence to determine how many Native peoples lived in North America before Columbus. For example, Russell Thornton estimates that there were 7 million people living in North America, whereas other estimates range from a low of 2.1 million (Ubelaker 1976) to a high of 18 million (Dobyns 1983)."
Tobby72 (talk) 10:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
When I said "You seem to promote "EuroAmerican historians" that was an observation, not meant as an insult, nor a definite statement. Maybe you misunderstood because you wrote "EuroAmerican historians are, for example, Kirkpatrick Sale, Howard Zinn, Michael Dorris, David Stannard, Henry Dobyns (high estimates)". This 1st means background as in not being minorities; non-white scholars were are underepresented & so are their POV's. Douglas Thornton is Cherokee (minority), & you singled out his background & his estimates earlier as questionable. Zinn was a Jewish scholar & a minority. So it's their backgrounds & more importantly ethnocentric POV's; it was no coincidence that people like Kroeber & Mooney played with their numbers; both Douglas Ubelaker & Nancy Shoemaker say their numbers were too low (cited above).
This "manipulation of data" of "not more than one million Indians" in 1492 was done by "succeeding generations of Euroamerican historians and anthropologists".http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/progler/readings/articles/whitestudies.html
This is why, as Jennings' book, The Invasion of America, is villified by some; other scholars like Zinn (whose estimate is about 10-13 million) have likewise been treated with disrespect, though both some merit. Since Dobyns 1st wotk, those involved in downplaying Genocide look really bad; Dobyns & others did do really good work; and Ubelaker feels 18 million is excesssive (David Henige book would be correct that 18 million is too high - it is, but others say it's a possible high & feel it's around 7-10 million), but Dobyns' studies have a lot of respect with the 9.8 and 18 million because it has "greatly influenced many scholars who generally recognise greater population size than suggested by Mooney and Kroeber". A population history of North America, Haines, Ubelaker, p 54.
So this "entirely new paradigm" 40 years ago is not the 18 million figure (that didn't happen in the 60's). Dobyns' 1st estimate was 9,8 million, and Ubelaker's comment is disputed by many scholars. Kirkpatrick Sale says ""[T]here is now a rough academic consensus, quite sharply at odds with figures conventionally accepted earlier in this century...from 7 to 18 million people north of Mexico". Yes, that is the whole point: there is a shapr difference in research and conclusion, and the over 6 academics I wrote have a range of about 7 million to 18, but most around 7 to 12 million. They did not just rely on Dobyns; nor is it "demonstrably wrong" (though the 18 million quite possibly is) the work they did.
Since Ubelaker disagrees with those figures, it's no wonder he'd argue against Dobyns' work & the "entirely new paradigm". Anyway, these things have a lot of controversy, and "birds like a feather flock together", so the low estimate scholars work in their group just as the mid and high range work in theirs. My understanding, based on evidence I've seen, is that the actual numbers were about 10-12 million. However, since your edit includes from the lowest to the highest, I'll agree with it if it includes putting a section discussing these things in detail. For example, looking at the Kroeber's work & the change in the 60's; how scholarship have reacted since; and the conflicting statements from Sale & Shoemaker & others that show their disagreement. I say this because 2 million should not be given equal footing as the 7 or 18 million (too low & too high). If we put together a section on it, then it will present the info & allow the reader to make a judgement, and all relevant pov's will be present. That ok? Ebanony (talk) 19:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I have no objections against new section, but perhaps we should wait a while (few days/weeks) to see what other readers and editors have to say about it. Tobby72 (talk) 19:36, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree, and I also feel other editors should have opportunity to respond. Let's see what others have to say. This is reasonable. Any input from other editors is welcome.Ebanony (talk) 07:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hot Button

I have never read an article that seems to press so many buttons. Perhaps it is because it is so poorly written.

First off, the reader needs to remember that the article has to do with an issue that is pure speculation. The opening paragraph points this out by stating that the figures "have proven difficult to establish, relying on archaeological data and written records from European settlers". Obviously, the considerations of European settlers is questionable at best. That's fifty percent of their sources. I don't think that such an article deserves so much rhetoric. How about you?

The second issue is the part that claims "The Indian population ... suffered from a demographic weakness, particularly because of the absence of any substitute animal milk". What? I've rarely read such drivel. A person living on another continent, who wasn't around when the events in question occurred and who speculates on something in a way that has no connection with reality is cited as a resource? Is this the Wikipedia standard? Please. This is ridiculous.

Let's get real folks. This article has way too much verbage for so little evidence. And people are taking it way to seriously. It is of little value and of dubious accuracy at best. - KitchM (talk) 04:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree when you say it's poorly written. This article needs serious clean up, and so does its sister article American Indian Wars, which was in far worse condition (still needs work). Anyway, Tobby72 proposed some good ideas to improve it, and I hope you'll contribute as well. I'll check the part on the milk you mentioned. If you see a problem, you can also edit; we're happy to work with you to improve it.Ebanony (talk) 05:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Depopulation from disease

This section does not list hantavirus. Links:

--Pawyilee (talk) 11:09, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Mississippian culture destroyed by disease

The Mississippian culture was destroyed by disease before the bulk of Europeans showed up. And the natives become migratory. So when the settlers pointed to mounds and asked where they came from, the natives (who had migrated) shrugged and said they had no idea. It was actually built by their collective ancestors. But their answers for years stymied historians into thinking that their were two different peoples that populated the area. This needs to be reflected here. Student7 (talk) 13:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Genocide

The claim of genocide on the lede is unsubstantiated without sources, and should be removed until sources can be found. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE 15:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Medical SOURCES ???

Is there any medical sources that indicate how fast diseases can spread and about resistance in diseases. I happen to study medical sciences, so if no one brings up medical sources, I am removing the whole lies about natives dying from diseases while Europeans were left alive in a time period where vaccines were not invented. --UnbiasedNeutral (talk) 01:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Native Americans died in far greater numbers than Europeans in these epidemics because they were isolated populations with no immunity to those diseases. As someone studying medical sciences you should understand this. Exactly which POV are you here to push? I do admit that this section should be better sourced than it is, but removing it would not be the answer. Heiro 01:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Basic knowledge.Moxy (talk) 02:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Primary school source Samuel, Charlie (2002). Medicine in Colonial America (Primary school 1st ed.). PowerKids Press. p. 9. ISBN 0823965988. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthor= (help)
Encyclopedia Kessel, William B (2006). Encyclopedia of Native American wars and warfare. Facts on File. p. 301. ISBN 0816033374. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthor= (help)
Encyclopedia Selin, Helaine (1997). Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology and medicine in non-western cultures. Kluwer, cop. p. 321. ISBN 0792340663. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthor= (help)
I've always heard of it in relationship to natural immunity, built up by exposure. I'm not clear why someone studying medical sciences wouldn't know this. Dougweller (talk) 04:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Really.
I think "we" have just figured this out about epidemics occurring in continental natives in the last several decades. The 16th century trappers apparently brought diseases with them but didn't necessarily record their observations in a credible form or didn't know/care what they sere seeing. But Westerners (including some missionaries) were actual witnesses to this happening in Hawaii. People died of measles fever and/or exposure while trying to cool off. It was horrifying to watch, not quite understanding why it had that effect on the local population and not being able to remedy it (or old remedies which worked on European descendants not working). I suppose projecting this back (along with stories of other encounters) against stories they had heard on the continent, allowed them to understand why the huge Mississippi culture just vanished. If the 17th century colonists had encountered natives in force, Europeans would have had a "difficult time" in settling. There would undoubtedly be a different history entirely. Student7 (talk) 13:37, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, there are similar records of the massive Maori death toll during the 1800s from new diseases brought to New Zealand, and the unusual severity of symptoms. It's not that controversial. I don't think anyone is claiming something as bold as "natives [were] dying from diseases while Europeans were left alive", either. Look at mortality records among Europeans even as late as the 1800s, and you'll see that the toll from disease there was huge too, especially among children; just not as bad as for recently contacted native peoples. --Avenue (talk) 02:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
U.S. Grant's memoirs note that Northwest natives died in horrific numbers from smallpox and (typhoid, I think). Grant attributed this to their treatment of all diseases in a sauna-like mud bath. He claimed that natives (and Europeans) treated by American doctors had a high survival rate. While this cannot be used because it is anecdotal (and probably naive in some aspects), it does document a credible witness to native die-off and it's probably cause in that area.
The body's reaction to virus is to raise the temperature to kill it, this was not understood clearly until the modern era. In Hawaii (and the Northwest), Europeans tried to dissuade the natives from cooling off too much fearing exposure. And in Hawaii, at least (and it seems from Grant's memoirs) that exposure (getting too cold) was a prime reason leading to death. Student7 (talk) 20:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Violence and cultural differences in warfare

I am trying to add a short blurb about how William Tecumseh Sherman viewed warfare with Native Americans. It was erased, however, repeatedly. I'm not sure why. Whoever erased it, please explain why you felt it was not germane despite its obvious relevance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.246.69.46 (talk) 05:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I just got an account to address this issue. I wrote the question above. Moreover, I would like to point out that the phrase "decisive victory," used in the section I am trying to edit, is as imprecise as it is biased. For one, the definition of victory is culturally delineated. For some cultures, victory is found through peaceful resolution without bloodshed. Victory must be defined here. For two, the diction used, "ritualistic" vs. "decisive victory," is obviously culturally patronizing as well as inaccurate. Whoever keeps editing to preserve these words needs to address these extreme flaws. --KhanlarKhan (talk) 06:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks very much for creating an account and coming here to discuss the issue. It's more complicated than I realised. You're going to have to read some of our policies and guidelines to fully understand it. Start with WP:VERIFY and WP:RS, then WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. There was an existing problem before your edit in that "equally decisive was the European approach to war, which was less ritualistic and more focused on achieving decisive victory" although possibly true has no source. You changed that to "concerned with concepts of individual prestige and more focused on killing the enemy," which is equally unsourced and I'm not at all sure about 'more focused on killing the enemy'. You also added that this was exemplified by Sherman, and that is what we call original research unless you have a reliable (by our criteria, see the links) source that says this is exemplified by Sherman - as editors, we shouldn't be making such judgements as Wikipedia articles are meant to be based on what reliable sources say about the subject (and in general they do need to specifically mention the subject), not on how we interpret them. I hope this helps. There's a learning curve here because writing an article here is very different from writing an essay or an article for a journal. I'm going to 'fact tag' the bit about decisive victory. Dougweller (talk) 08:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Dougweller, thank you for addressing my concerns. I understand now why my edit does not meet Wikipedia's guidelines. I'm grateful that the problematic nature of the biased and imprecise sentence are being addressed. Exploring the cultural differences in Native American and European warfare in this article would be extremely worthwhile to establishing why one group was depopulated and the other was not. I'll try to address this in a future pre-edit I will post to this section in the Talk page. If it meets Wiki standards, then perhaps it can be posted to the main article. Best wishes. --KhanlarKhan (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
And best wishes and thanks to you. Please do try to improve this section, it's not one I know much about. I had the same problem. I stumbled upon Where Troy Once Stood when I was fairly new. Having discussed this book quite a bit in the past, I started to edit it using material I'd gathered to rebut Wilkens. A more experienced editor kindly explained to me that none of my material actually discussed Wilkens' book and could not be used. He was right of course and I'd been wrong, but it was a bit of a culture shock. Dougweller (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)


Contemporary demography

If this article want to be about "Population History of Indigenous America" then it needs to expand to include population trends in the post-colonial and contemporary period. As it is currently the article focuses entirely on the question of population decline in the early contact period. The article also needs to include information about the variation of histories betwen different countries in the Americas - why do Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia have high populations while Argentina and Uruguay have none? What historical trends caused the differences in population histories between Latin and Anglo America? The article really is woefully inadequate and continued bickering about the guesswork about the exact nature of the decline is not conducive to improving the article. It simply needs more research and more work.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Indians Killed Themselves

According to this article, there was no genocide. There was even no invasion.

The genocide is called as "population decline" while invasion is called "pilgrim".

And some reports of christian/white/european/western people are used as "reliable sources". The article indicates that Indian people were not fighting invaders. Rather, They were massacring pilgrims!

According to this article Indians killed themselves! It's all their fault.

Once again I saw that Wikipedia is a collecetion of westernist, eurocentric, judeochristian, liberal lies. --76.31.238.174 (talk) 00:32, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't read the article that way. The natives caught (what Europeans thought of as) "everyday" diseases from which they had no natural immunity. Their attrition was horrible, maybe 90% prior to colonists, keeping records, even showing up (i.e. before 1620). Worse, their "native cures" often involved overexposure to the elements (to reduce fever). This helped to kill rather than cure them.
Europeans watched and recorded this in "real time" in the far West and in Hawaii in the 1800s. They did not realize at the time that it had occurred before in the East.
But if you have WP:RS to show otherwise, they may be used. This is an encyclopedia, not a WP:RANT. Student7 (talk) 16:36, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
  1. ^ "Microchronology and Demographic Evidence Relating to the Size of Pre-Columbian North American Indian Populations". Science 16 June 1995: Vol. 268. no. 5217, pp. 1601 - 1604 DOI: 10.1126/science.268.5217.1601.
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