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.
Coyoteman,
Cook’s work is one of what I would consider the old guard’s work. Even when published, there were younger anthropoligists who challenged that number. The population in the Los Angeles area has always been difficult to estimate because of the long period of occupation, the size and extent of the shell midens and the fact that the area is periodically cleansed through fire or flood. That it supported a large population is undoubted.
The California areas most significantly undercounted are the Sierra and Coastal Range foothills. Long thought to support only scattered hunters and gatherers, it is now known that the acorn-based economies in the foothills was a much stronger basis for a large population than previously believed.
Regardless of the numbers, my point remains the same. The numbers are politically charge. I think the discussion should not turn on whether there were 100 million Indians who vanished, or only 10 million. The basis for the discussion should consist of the principles of right, wrong, morality and politics as freepers know them.
I am always a bit surprised how the discussion of the mistreatment of Indians triggers such rabid denials and accusations on this board, both ways.
IMHO
Oldplayer
(Choctaw)