RE: Apparently the United States has killed over 1.3 billion people since 1776 (lol)
July 24, 2015 at 3:03 pm
(July 24, 2015 at 2:27 pm)Yeauxleaux Wrote: I think 100 million would probably be a more sensible estimate and probably still a bit large. it's certainly at least in the tens of millions without a doubt, but nowhere near a billion.
North America was very sparsely populated by the Natives before European contact, it's estimated only around 20 million in what's now USA and Canada combined. (for reference, that's the current population of Australia, which is already sparse, spread across a continent 3 times the size)
The world only reached 2 billion in the early 1800s I think, and stayed there for decades. America can't have killed that many surely, unless the population was growing so fast all the dead were being replaced, which is unlikely.
Actually, popular perception of sparsely populated pre-Colombian America is way behind contemporary archeology and scholarship. The total population of north and South America combined on the even of 1493 was likely well over 100 million, or in other words America held 1/5-1/4 of the world population then.
Parts of central and South America was probably much more densely populated in 1492 then it is even today. The whole of the Mississippi valley in North America was also probably more densely populated than any place in Europe at the time.
The total population collapse in north and South America brought about by old world diseases probably took place mainly in the 50-100 years after Columbus. Overlooked contemporary Spanish chronicles still referred to the banks of Mississippi being like one huge continuous city, albeit one where none of the buildings are made of durable material, for hundreds and hundreds of miles as late as 1530s. After this no Europeans visited the region for a hundred years. When they came back, it was all gone.
The key is the total collapse of North American native population occurred long before founding of the U.S. in fact it took place long before the first ever English settlement. The notion of North America being sparsely populated was the artifact of the fact when the English and French finally came to 90 years after the Spanish made contact in the caribbeans, the plagues introduced by the Spanish 90 years before had already completed the almost total destruction of native population in North America.
