Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt
Posted on 09/07/2024 7:11:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The first inhabitants of what is now the United States appeared around 15,000 to 20,000 years ago — a blip in time compared to the annals of some of the earliest places humans lived. Initially, population growth was slow due to the continent’s geographic isolation; significant increases began only after Europeans made their way to the Americas throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. By the 20th century, the U.S. population was experiencing rapid expansion — a trend that has slowed in recent years. Here’s a look at America’s changing population through history, from early prehistoric arrivals to the decline we’re seeing today.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt
The North American continent was inhabited by prehistoric humans, although they arrived much later than humans in other parts of the world. While early human species have been around for millions of years, the first people didn’t make their way to North America until sometime between 20,000 BCE and 13,000 BCE. It’s believed they traveled via the Bering Land Bridge from modern-day Siberia to Alaska, although exactly when and how they first arrived is still a matter of debate. The number of people who were around in this era is debated as well, and while estimates vary, it’s believed some 230,000 people were living in America by 10,000 BCE.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt
By 1 CE, an estimated 640,000 people were living in what is now the United States. Indigenous peoples developed agricultural practices that helped to define their communities, especially along the Mississippi watershed. By 1100 CE, a settlement known as Cahokia, located across the Mississippi River from modern-day St. Louis, was home to about 20,000 people. The population continued to grow throughout the land, and by 1400, there were an estimated 1.74 million people in the modern-day U.S.
When Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean in 1492, that number had increased by nearly 150,000 people. But in the years that followed, as other European explorers began to map and claim parts of North America, waves of disease, displacement, and conflict had a major effect on the population. Within 100 years of the first European landing in the New World, an estimated 85% to 90% of the Americas’ Indigenous population was wiped out. In the modern-day United States alone, the population dropped almost 60% between the years 1500 and 1600, from 1.89 million to 779,000.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt
By the early 1600s, Spanish and English explorers had established permanent settlements in what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and Jamestown, Virginia, and by the mid-1600s, the Pilgrims had established themselves in modern-day Massachusetts. By 1700, the population of the colonies had grown to an estimated 250,000. Official population estimates at the time did not include Indigenous peoples, an omission that wasn’t corrected until the late 19th century; scholars who later attempted to include Indigenous populations in the count put it closer to 900,000. In 1776, when the U.S. gained independence from England, the known population had surged to approximately 2.5 million — but the new country was about to undergo even more transformation.
The period of time from the American Revolution through the end of World War II saw explosive population growth. In 1790, the first official U.S. Census Bureau counted 3.9 million Americans living in the country. This era coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution, a transformative time in the Western world. Technological innovation not only marked a societal shift from agrarian to industrial economies, but also spurred rapid urbanization. The era saw improvements in working conditions, sanitation, and medical care, too, making life expectancy longer than ever before. Ten years after the first U.S. census, in 1800, the population had shot up by almost 1.4 million people to reach 5.3 million. That surged to 23 million by 1850, fueled largely by a wave of European immigration to the U.S. By 1900, the country was home to 76 million people, a number that also reflected the country’s Indigenous residents. America’s population continued to grow during the early 20th century, reaching about 148 million by 1945.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt
The post-World War II era saw a dramatic increase in birth rates — a trend that famously became known as the baby boom. The sharp rise was due to a number of factors, key among them being economic prosperity, soldiers returning from war, and a cultural emphasis on family life. By the time the boom tapered off in 1964, some 76 million babies had been born, and these new citizens made up almost 40% of the country’s population of almost 197 million.
In 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau counted America’s population at 337 million people. And while that’s an all-time high, the rate of growth has been slowing down. The baby boom was followed by a period of lower birth rates, which remain on a downward slope. Meanwhile, an aging population means death rates are projected to meet or exceed births.
The postwar period also saw changes in U.S. immigration policy, including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which did away with previous immigration quotas, opening the doors to more new Americans. Immigration has been the main driver of the country’s population growth since 1970, and that trend is expected to continue. In 2023, the Census Bureau projected that sustaining diverse immigration will help to balance the effects of an aging population. Still, despite a projected global population increase of nearly 2 billion people in the next 30 years, the U.S. population is expected to peak at around 370 million by 2080, then decline slightly to 366 million by 2100.
Baby bust.
So, who gets to lay claim to the victim group “Indigenous”?
Didn’t that evil Base-tard Columbus murder all the Indigenous peoples?
Or did that Indigenous gang just take it all from a previous Indigenous gang?
Who took it all from the previous indigenous gang . . .
Apropos of nothing, I'd like some serious work done for nailing down the dating for the Meteor Crater.
Bookmark.
And the rise of sea levels after the last Ice Age ended put the traces of that migration well under water. But it is a close to scientific certainty now that humans got to southern Chile roughly 30,000 years ago, and various places in between, and that they got here via the Pacific coast route.
Remember when they used to teach something called "grammar" in American schools?
“But it is a close to scientific certainty now that humans got to southern Chile roughly 30,000 years ago, and various places in between, and that they got here via the Pacific coast route.”
I have studied this in depth for years now. And there is absolutely no reason why a southern route wasn’t just as possible.
The Mercator projection completely skews our perspective and even the experts are subconsciously fooled by it. And this is why we refuse to accept it. Visually the distance looks impossible by the Mercator projection. But in reality it isn’t far at all from Australia to Tierra del Fuego. The currents favor it, the winds favor it, and there is food and water all along the ice packs of Antarctica. If the inuit can live on ice now so could early man then. If man could float down the coast from the north then they could float across in the south. It could have even happened simultaneously or a southern migration before. There is some real explaining to be done why the oldest sites found are in Tierra del Fuego and not in the north.
They didn’t include 20 million illegals in their today’s population.
There were about 134 million when I was born on the eve of WW2, when America was still America. With ongoing filthification of the country, we are way overcrowded. Can’t be good.
And what’s with this “BCE” language manipulation?
So Putin could claim the US belongs to Russia. Except that the inhabitants of Siberia came from some where around Mesopotamia (geography changes).
Meanwhile, research shows it took about 300 years for the population to grow from 350 in 1610 (est., and did not include Native Americans until 1860) to its first 100 million (about 1915), then 50 years to attain to 200 million (1968), then about 40 years to grow to 300 million (2007), and this is estimated to grow to 400 million by 2060(about 50 years from 2007).
You just may be right.
But you're surely bucking the "narrative."
From what I see, the narrative is just another word for "That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!"
Just remember, "trust the science" except when it's not the truth, which may be a frequently occurring phenomenon.
I think I need to point out that what you quoted was what I quoted from Thud’s comment. My own comment about a southern route is after that. Did you mean to reply to Thud or me?
I'm not sure.
Whoever made the statement was probably correct, but it's not the so-called "narrative."
That is, I tend to agree with the statement -- not the "trust the science" narrative.
“That is, I tend to agree with the statement — not the “trust the science” narrative.”
Thud originally made that comment and I quoted it in my comment. But you replied to mine not his so just giving credit where credit is due.
Yes, me neither. The official narrative dictates that all early man were hydrophobic and too stupid to float. Yet there appears to be evidence of Neanderthal on islands in the Mediterranean. And the indigenous Australians floated crossed the Wallace line over 65,000 years ago.
The Solutrians pre-date the Asiatics.
Now if you contend that ancient extra-terrestrial aliens took them that far ...
“Humans were not then capable of sea navigation without sight of land for weeks.”
They didn’t have to be... All they had to do was jump in the water on a floaty and the circumpolar winds and currents would take them right along Antarctica to the tip of South America.
No need for complicated navigation at all. And they could survive the trip by hugging the ice pack of Antarctica where there is abundance of food and water.
If the pre-Thule could do it they could do it. Ice pack travel and survival ability is not uniquely possible to the north Arctic.
Lol. I’d like to know how to go “through” history, too. Is there a door? A passageway? Or is history a fluid, like water or air?
The DNA doesn’t support it, and there was no reason for Australasians to go anywhere, anyway: plenty of land and a very small population. They didn’t even make it to New Zealand.
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