American Indian demographics
American Indian demographics
Significance: After European contact, most American Indian nations experienced dramatic population losses, but by the early twenty-first century, they represented one of the fastest-growing segments of American society.
When Europeans arrived on the shores of North America, they encountered an estimated 1.2 million to 18 million people. They were the “original Americans,” descendants of people who journeyed to North America thousands of years before Europeans. Over the millennia, American Indians evolved hundreds of unique cultural traditions with their own worldviews, perhaps two hundred languages (of several distinct families), ecological adaptations to every environmental situation, and a range of forms of governance. Native North America, before the arrival of Europeans, represented one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the world. Tragically, much of this cultural mosaic was extinguished by massive population declines after European contact. Yet American Indians survived this demographic and cultural onslaught to represent one of the fastest-growing segments of American society in the 2000s.
Prehistoric Trends
The colonization of the Americas by Paleo-Indians (an anthropological term for the ancestors of American Indians) was one of the greatest demographic events in global history. There has been considerable controversy regarding the dates for early migrations to North America. Some scholars have suggested that the earliest migrations occurred as far back as fifty thousand years ago; some have said that migration may also have occurred as recently as three thousand years ago. A more generally agreed-upon time frame for the migrations, however, is between twenty-five thousand and twelve thousand years ago.
Although many American Indians reject the hypothesis that their ancestors immigrated from greater Eurasia, archaeological evidence suggests that some first Americans may have entered the Western Hemisphere during the many glacial periods that exposed Beringia, the Bering Strait land bridge. Beringia periodically linked Siberia with the Americas, allowing animals and humans access to both continents. Others may have made the journey using boats, following a maritime route or traveling down a coastal corridor. In any event, these irregular waves of colonizers represented the last great global movement of people into unoccupied land—a migration hallmark in human history.
How many “first Americans” entered the Americas is unknown. Archaeologists note that the Late Wisconsin glacier’s recession about fifteen thousand years ago allowed American Indian people to migrate southward, eventually colonizing the remainder of the Americas. Before then, the glacier largely prevented further immigration and colonization. What specific routes they took and how rapidly people dispersed across both continents are topics of considerable archaeological debate. Firm evidence exists that by 9400 b.c.e. American Indians had reached southern South America, indicating that American Indians had dispersed widely across the New World’s landscape. Despite hypotheses that argue for an accelerated population growth rate, it is likely that during this early colonization period, the American Indian population’s growth rates were slow to moderate, with cyclical rates of growth and decline. These population fluctuations reflected a complex array of changing social, demographic, and ecological conditions as local populations adapted to regional conditions.
In North America, American Indian demographic distribution and redistribution paralleled closely the glacial retreat north, the trend toward regional and climatic aridity that altered local resources, and cultural innovations. The above factors, by 9000 b.c.e., eventually enabled the colonization of every available area on the North American continent. These hunter-gatherers and, later, the cultural traditions known as Archaic societies, developed a greater variety of lifeways, producing marked differences in population size, distribution, and vital events.
Paleopathological evidence indicates that prehistoric American Indian populations faced a number of health risks. Documented cases of malnutrition, anemia, tuberculosis, trachoma, trepanematoid infections, and degenerative conditions occurred in pre-Columbian North America. These afflictions, coupled with periodic trauma, accidents, and warfare, affected the demographic structure of regional populations.
A cultural innovation that had significant demographic consequences was the invention and diffusion of agriculture. Sometime before 3500 b.c.e. in Mesoamerica, maize, beans, and squash were domesticated. As this cultural knowledge spread northward, many American Indian societies east of the Mississippi River, in the Southwest, and along the major waterways of the greater Midwest adopted agriculture. Demographically, agriculture promoted the development of larger populations, residing in sedentary villages or cities. Near present-day Alton, Illinois, along the Mississippi River, for example, was the urban center of Cahokia. At its height about 1100 c.e., Cahokia extended over five square miles and had a population of perhaps thirty thousand people. Although regional population concentrations arose across native North America, by 1300 c.e. many areas containing high population densities began to decline. The causes of the decline and social reorganization in some regions are open to debate. It is clear that in a number of regions, high population densities and size remained until the European encounter.
By the time of European contact, native North America demographically contained a variety of population sizes and densities, ranging from fewer than one person per ten square miles in the Great Basin to the densely settled, resource-rich regions of the Pacific Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest. These areas may have supported from five to more than one hundred people per ten square miles. By the time Europeans arrived, American Indians already had undergone a number of profound demographic events.
Historical Trends
The European colonization of North America launched a series of catastrophic events for American Indian populations. American Indian societies experienced tremendous population declines. American Indian populations periodically experienced mortality increases, decreases in their fertility performance, forced migration, as well as a deterioration of their societal health status.
Of all the factors that affected post-contact American Indian societies, the accelerated death rates from the introduction of European diseases remain prominent. Europeans brought smallpox, measles, cholera, and other infections that were foreign to American Indian people. It has been estimated that ninety-three epidemics of Old World pathogens affected American Indians from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Old World diseases, combined with warfare, genocide, and the introduction of alcohol, forced migration and relocation, and the overall destruction of indigenous lifeways resulted in the demographic collapse of native North America. One American Indian scholar called it the “American Indian Holocaust.”
Within decades of European contact, American Indian populations declined. The colonization of the Spanish, French, and, later, English set in motion significant population changes. Between 1500 and 1820, American Indian populations residing east of the Mississippi River declined to approximately 6 percent of their at-contact size. In the southeastern region, for example, the estimated American Indian population in 1685 was 199,400. By 1790 their population was approximately 55,900—a decline of almost three-quarters. Paralleling this demographic collapse, the ethnic diversity of indigenous societies residing east of the Mississippi River declined between 25 and 79 percent, as distinct American Indian nations were driven to extinction or forced to amalgamate with other American Indian nations.
In 1830, the remaining American Indians in the East were forcibly removed to west of the Mississippi River under President Andrew Jackson’s administration. Between 1828 and 1838, approximately 81,300 American Indians were thus removed. For their relocation efforts, the U.S. government acquired 115,355,767 acres of Indian lands and resources. Furthermore, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole, and Muskogee lost between 15 and 50 percent of their population during the forced relocation. Other removed American Indian tribal nations suffered similar demographic losses. By about 1850, the estimated American Indian population stood at 383,000.
As American Indian populations declined, the European, African American, and Latino populations grew, occupying the available lands acquired from American Indians. Aside from losing their land and resources, the increasing contact with non-Indians had other important demographic consequences. Since contact, American Indians have experienced an increased genetic exchange with European and African populations. The rise of people with American Indian–European or American Indian–African ancestry, or of all three ancestries, may have had significant implications for tribal survival and demographic recovery. Some scholars suggest that depopulation and the following demographic recovery resulted in certain physical and genetic changes in those who survived the epidemic. The incorporation of Europeans, African Americans, or other American Indians promoted further those phenotypic and genotypic processes.
As the American population of European descent surpassed twenty-three million by 1850, American Indians west of the Mississippi River began to experience directly the brunt of colonization and settlement. Before that time, western American Indian populations had experienced introduced infectious diseases, intermittent warfare with Europeans, and an erosion of their resources. The Mandan tribe of the Great Plains, for example, boasted an estimated at-contact population of possibly 15,000. After the 1837–1838 smallpox epidemic, their population collapsed to between 125 and 1,200 individuals, forcing them eventually to merge, culturally and biologically, with the Arikara and Hidatsa. Western indigenous nations, from 1850 through 1880, witnessed continued demographic upheaval. Their population changes during those decades were affected by the dramatic social and economic changes in U.S. society. The United States economy was industrializing, American society was becoming more urban, and the federal government desired a link between the east and west coasts as a completion to its nation building. In addition, the United States experienced a dramatic influx of European immigrants. In three decades, from 1850 to 1880, the European population increased to 50,155,783. This prompted the federal government to alienate American Indians from their remaining lands. To meet these economic and political demands, western lands and resources were needed. The continued demographic collapse of many Indian nations occurred under the guise of the nation’s rhetoric of manifest destiny.
In an attempt to subdue the remaining indigenous populations and force them onto reservations, the U.S. government either negotiated a series of treaties or carried out military expeditions. The combined impact of war, disease, and the continued destruction of their lifeways resulted in further population decline. By the time American Indians were relegated to reservations or rural communities in 1880, there were 306,543 American Indians surviving in the coterminous United States.
The Twentieth Century
The indigenous population of the United States reached its nadir in 1890. The 1890 U.S. census recorded 248,253 American Indians in the continental United States. Although most infectious diseases experienced during the pre-reservation era began to diminish, these acute infections were replaced with chronic diseases on reservations. Poor sanitation, poor nutrition, overcrowding, and severe cultural oppression resulted in the appearance of tuberculosis, trachoma, and intermittent measles and influenza outbreaks, as well as a rise in infant mortality. As these afflictions reached epidemic proportions, the American Indian population between 1900 and 1920 remained rather static. Most American Indians continued to live on reservations or in rural areas, isolated from society. In 1920, only 6.2 percent of American Indians resided in urban areas.
After 1930, however, American Indians began to experience a tremendous growth rate. With the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), cultural oppression lessened, health and sanitation conditions improved, and social programs began to affect American Indian demography positively. American Indian populations grew because fertility increased, infant survivorship improved, and the death rate fell. The result was a young age-sex structure.
The advent of World War II witnessed a migratory shift away from reservations and rural communities. Attracted by service in the armed forces and urban job prospects, many American Indians migrated to major cities. The outflow of American Indian immigrants to urban centers initiated a demographic trend that continued through the end of the century. The out-migration of American Indians was stimulated further by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the mid-1950s, the federal government instituted a relocation program. The program assisted American Indians through job training and support services in being placed in an urban center. In 1990, for the first time since indigenous people have been recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau, the census recorded that more American Indians resided in urban than in rural areas. The greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, for example, had 87,500 people of American Indian descent, an increase of 5 percent over the previous decade.
Since the 1950s, the American Indian population has grown tremendously. In 1960, there were 523,591 American Indians. By 1970, there were 792,730 people who identified themselves as American Indian. The 1980 U.S. Census witnessed a 79.4 percent increase. The reasons for this growth are complex and multifactorial. First, after the transfer of the Indian Health Service from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1955, American Indian health improved dramatically, especially infant and child health care. Second, American Indian fertility increased and mortality decreased, adding significantly to the population. Finally, more Americans are identifying themselves as having American Indian ancestry.
Contemporary Trends
The American Indian population of the United States is young and growing. As a result, the American Indian population suffers from social problems in which demography plays an important role. American Indian health status lags behind that of the United States’ general population. Deaths by accidents, violence, suicide, tuberculosis, diabetes, and numerous other conditions exceed national averages. Unemployment, in both rural and urban areas, remains high, although the number of American Indian–owned businesses increased by 64 percent between 1982 and 1987. Poverty also continues to plague American Indian families; in 2012, about one in four American Indians was living in poverty. In 2013, the median income in American Indian households was $36,252, compared to $52,176 for the United States as a whole. These factors conspire to promote continued poverty, low educational attainment, high unemployment, and ill health.
Population of American Indians and Total U.S. Population, 1890–2010 (in thousands)
| Year | American Indians | Total United States |
| 1890 | 248 | 62,947 |
| 1900 | 237 | 75,994 |
| 1910 | 265 | 91,972 |
| 1920 | 244 | 105,710 |
| 1930 | 332 | 122,775 |
| 1940 | 333 | 131,669 |
| 1950 | 343 | 150,697 |
| 1960 | 523 | 178,464 |
| 1970 | 792 | 203,211 |
| 1980 | 1,420 | 226,546 |
| 1990 | 2,065 | 248,718 |
| 2000 | 2,475 | 281,422 |
| 2010 | 2,932 | 308,746 |
The 2010 census counted 2,932,000 American Indians, an increase of more than 18 percent since 2000. American Indian people reside in every statein the union, but the majority of the population is concentrated in the West. Also, a major portion of the population is concentrated in ten tribes.
The phenomenal growth rate among American Indians exceeds the growth for African Americans and Americans of European descent but not the increase in the Latino or Asian American populations. American Indians and Alaska Natives compose approximately 1 percent of the United States population but continue to account for a higher proportion of the country’s cultural diversity.
Bibliography
Hodgkinson, Harold L. The Demographics of American Indians: One Percent of the People, Fifty Percent of the Diversity. Washington: Center for Demographic Policy, Institute for Educational Leadership, 1990. Print.
Reddy, Marlita A., ed. Statistical Record of Native North Americans. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993. Print.
Snipp, C. Matthew. American Indians: The First of This Land. New York: Russell Sage, 1989. Print.
Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.
Stuart, Paul. Nations within a Nation: Historical Statistics of American Indians. New York: Greenwood, 1987. Print.
Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1987. Print.
Verano, John W., and Douglas H. Ubelaker, eds. Disease and Demography in the Americas. Washington: Smithsonian Inst., 1992. Print.