New World Depopulation and the Case of Disease

Joralemon, Donald

doi:10.1086/jar.38.1.3629951

Cited by 61 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…References to epidemics, general hardship, or natural catastrophe are evident within the texts of the visitas. For example, epidemic deaths from a particularly virulent strain of smallpox that swept through the Arequipa region in 1589-90 (Joralemon 1982;Cook 1998) were referred to in the 1591 visita of Yanquecollaguas Urinsaya (Verdugo andColmenares 1977 [1591]:97r). The subsequent 1604 revisitas (recounts 4 ) were undertaken in response to a petition to the viceroy by the protector de naturales (protector of Indians) as the remaining tributary population could not produce the required tribute levies, both because they were based on higher previous census counts and because of crop failure due to heavy ashfall from the massive eruption of the Huaynaputina volcano in 1600 (APY [Archivo Parroquial de Yanque] Laricollaguas Urinsaya 1604, ff.…”

Section: The Colca Valley Visitasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture and Inequality in the Colonial Andes: A Simulation of Production and Consumption Using Administrative Documents

Wernke

Whitmore

2009

Hum Ecol

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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, indigenous communities in the Viceroyalty of Peru suffered forced resettlement, introduced disease, and onerous colonial tribute levies. These produced an onslaught of petitions for new tribute counts, as their diminished populations were obliged to pay the head taxes set by earlier censuses. The resulting visitas (administrative surveys) provide a wealth of information on the demography and agricultural systems of colonial Andean communities. However, comparatively little quantitative research exists on the distribution of agricultural resources and the nutritional demands of households. We model agricultural production and nutritional demand using household demographic and landholding declarations in the visitas from the Colca Valley of southern highland Peru, combined with ethnographically-derived estimates of agricultural production and nutritional demand. The results indicate that despite surplus agricultural production in the aggregate, there were significant differences in intra-and intercommunity land wealth and production sufficiency ratios, leaving about 30% of households with caloric shortfalls. In contrast to regional-scale carrying capacity-type models, this simulation characterizes agricultural inequality within colonial Andean communities, and thus accounts for the hardship evidenced by tributary recount petitions, even in a breadbasket province from which much surplus production was extracted to fill colonial coffers.

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Section: The Colca Valley Visitasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture and Inequality in the Colonial Andes: A Simulation of Production and Consumption Using Administrative Documents

Wernke

Whitmore

2009

Hum Ecol

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“…'White men cause illness; if the whites had never existed, disease would never have existed either.' 6 The most spectacular killer of Amerindians was smallpox, a disease that existed in medieval and Renaissance Europe but did not rise to the first rank of maladies until the sixteenth century. From that time until the spread of vaccination in the nineteenth century, smallpox was one of the Continent's most widespread and deadly diseases, so common that it was considered inevitable among children in areas of dense population.…”

Section: The Analytic Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Interpretations of the Columbian Voyages

Crosby¹

1989

Itinerario

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The five hundredth anniversary of the Columbian discovery of America is upon us, and with it the obligation to assess existing interpretations of the significance of that voyage and the establishment of permanent links between the Old and the New Worlds. The most influential of the several schools of interpretation are, on the one hand, the newest and analytic, and the other, the classic and bardic. The former is for many recondite and discomforting. The latter, the one most often taught, dramatized, and believed in North America, is for most as comfortable as an old pair of slippers. We learned it at primary school.

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“…In part, confidence in such explanations rests on the effects that "new" diseases have in fact had on 20th century "primitive" populations that were exposed to some form of infectious disease that they might not have been exposed to before. Joralemon (1982) reviews the relevant modern literature and assesses its relevance to the historical controversy over New World depopulation after contact. While Joralemon believes that the modern evidence lends much credence to the case for rapid decimation by disease in the sixteenth century, he seems unaware that premodern European village populations were regularly swept by devastating epidemics (even worse than those he describes among modern populations) without subsequently disappearing.…”

Section: The Nature and Magnitude Of Contact Shockmentioning

confidence: 99%

The demographic history of the native peoples of North America: A selective bibliography

Johansson

1982

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

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Before contact with Europeans had begun, the native peoples of North America were varied in their demographic characteristics; nevertheless, available evidence indicates that, on an average, their life-expectancy-at-birth values fell into the same low ranges typical for other groups at similar levels of technological development. While the total population at contact is still unknown, political and cultural biases have generally forced estimates into artificially high or low ranges. There is general agreement that the shock of contact with invading Europeans led to substantial reductions among most aboriginal populations, but in North America some groups were much less disrupted than others. Many original populations disappeared altogether, but whether or not their demise was primarily a function of short-run, rapid disruption caused by disease andlor warfare, or a slower process spread out over several generations involving assimilation in its various forms, remains uncertain. With the establishment of the reservation system in the 19th century a basis was provided far continued demographic and cultural survival. By the early 20th century most reservation populations were beginning a demographic transition based on declining death rates and high fertility. For several generations rapid growth has continued. As urbanization increases recent fertility declines are expected to accelerate even further. Meanwhile the rapid urbanization of the surviving native peoples poses a real threat to their cultural distinctiveness. Finally, all phases of native American demographic history are characterized by defective and inadequate data which makes straightforward description or analysis perilous.The demographic encounter between the New World and Old is one of the most dramatic chapters in world population history. Evolving for centuries in relative isolation from the Asians, Africans, and Europeans who comprised the majority of the world's population, the natives of the Americas were abruptly brought into contact with the Old World from the fifteenth century onwards. Thereafter, successive New World populations found their existence under sustained assault. In spite of the extreme demographic stress that contact generated, the survivors adapted and ultimately rallied, demonstrating, on a continental scale, the resiliency of the human species.While the demography of the New World native populations is intrinsically interesting, there is as yet no adequate synthesis of it. Indeed, such a synthesis is probably premature. The quantity and quality of the data available rarely inspires confidence in its users. Even recent data must be handled cautiously. The techniques of estimation that must be used in conjunction with the available data still produce figures with wide margins of error. In this context, controversy flourishes and little can be said with 0096 848W8212501 0133$05 50 1982 Alan R Liss, Inc

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New World Depopulation and the Case of Disease

Cited by 61 publications

References 12 publications

Agriculture and Inequality in the Colonial Andes: A Simulation of Production and Consumption Using Administrative Documents

Agriculture and Inequality in the Colonial Andes: A Simulation of Production and Consumption Using Administrative Documents

Historical Interpretations of the Columbian Voyages

The demographic history of the native peoples of North America: A selective bibliography

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