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Re: New world populations
Patrick J Crowe (v187ef4y@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu)
Thu, 29 Dec 1994 01:35:00 GMT
In article <JMC.94Dec25143610@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes...
>Dan Moerman includes:
>
> Regarding precolumbian populations, my reading of the
> various estimates suggests that whatever figure
> investigators select as the "original" value for 1492, they
> seem almost always to select a nadir figure of about 5% of
> it. Dobyns, for example, says roughly 10 million north of
> the Rio Grande in 1492 and 500000 in about 1930. Most
> others seem to have the same proportion of decline.
>
>Haven't American Indians within the (expanding) boundaries of the
>U.S. been counted in the censuses every ten years since 1790?
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>
Yes, they have been counted, but the definition of who counts as an
"American Indian" has changed probably every 15 years on average.
-Pat Crowe, SUNY at Buffalo
He who does arithmetic without checking sources will also talk nonsense.
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