The Native Population of the Americas in 1492

Description

Editor: Denevan, William M.

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Pub Date: 1978 (Second edition)

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Good.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears, bends or folds.  Very light edge and corner wear.  Appears unread.

Notes: Estimates (and that’s all they are) show population of pre-Columbian contact of  the Americas ranging from eight million to 112 million (as a modern comparison–from the population of Sierra Leone or Togo to the population of Ethiopia or the Philippines).  By 1650 the native population had been decimated to less than 6 million in all of North and South America.  This collection of essays looks at pre-and-post European contact, the slave trade, diseases, military actions, and the destruction of social systems.  The editor, Denevan, provides an estimate of 54 million as the 1492 population (about the size of Myanmar or Kenya).