7-10 million on the whole continent is a low estimate. It appears now from pretty good recent work, that there were maybe that many in California alone, up until the early 1700’s.
The underestimate is due to the difficulty of discovering settlement remains even from semi-sedentary cultures. California Indians had large populations with not particularly “advanced” cultures because of the bounty of the land. (Some things never change! LOL)
Beware that the numbers bantied about are politically charged. Those persons wanting to show how bad the white “invaders” were, use a high number. Those who want to downplay the event, use a low number.
It’s probably best to just let the numbers be numbers and use other issues and priciples as the basis of the discussion.
IMHO
Oldplayer
(Choctaw)
The standard population estimate for California is in the range of 300,000-310,000 individuals in 1770. That is from Sherburne Cook's The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970 (1976).
That figure is likely to be low because of diseases advancing ahead of the Spanish and coming from coastal visits by the Manila galleons. We don't yet know how low that estimate is.