Thanks for your replies.
It is interesting how much intermarriage went on in Latin America, much more than here.
I read a very interesting piece a while ago, about the almost unknown plague that severely impacted the Native American population before the white man really started coming here. (The gist of the piece I read was that had that not happened perhaps the whites would not have been able to defeat the indians and settle across the continent.)
Maybe there just weren’t enough people here for that to happen.
I believe there were a number of plagues. My guess is that most haven't any idea how many...
Historical Review: Megadrought And Megadeath In 16th Century Mexico (Hemorrhagic Fever)
"The epidemic of cocoliztli from1545 to 1548 killed an estimated 5 million to 15 million people, or up to 80% of the native population of Mexico (Figure 1).In absolute and relative terms the 1545 epidemic was one of the worst demographic catastrophes in human history, approaching even the Black Death of bubonic plague..."
I've read that in North America the (European) diseases preceeded (by decades) the western advance. When the westerners reached certain areas and asked who built such and such...no one knew...so many old people died that any base of historical knowledge died with them. The usual answer was 'the ancient ones.'