There were only maybe 2-3 million Indians on the continent north of the Rio Grande. Some experts think there not even that many. That means most of the land was virtually uninhabited. Many Indian tribes had no qualms doing what European, Asian, and African peoples had done to other peoples from the beginning of humanity...invade other people’s territories and take it by force. The lefties who propagate the lie that all native Americans were saints and all Europeans were devils have it all twisted. Extreme cruelties were practiced by both sides. But the fact remains, a modern civilization defeated a thoroughly unmodern one. That is the way of the world.
The number was perhaps greater at one time or another. The population of Mexico in 1491 was perhaps the same size as that of France. As for the superiority of the “modern” civilization, please note that the average immigrant to Virginia lived about seven years in the colony. It took the English at least three generations to acclimitate their new environment. To do so, they had to utilize the technology that that aborgines had developed over time. For the longest time, they could not survive the winters without resupply from England.
In arriving on the North American continent the white man bought the horse. An animal which ironically originated here long before humans and then migrated off of it. The horse did for the Indian what the wheel did for the rest of humanity. The whites also bought iron and steel implements and the firearm. Indians don’t ever seem to complain about their arrival.
Wow, I always thought it was more than that but then again they lived a hard life and fought many tribal wars. I hate the way Indians are portrayed as living in harmony with the Earth and all mystical and wise. I’ve read that there were areas where they had hunted deer into near extinction and they used to set forest fires to drive game.
My ancestors the Britons and the Scotts lived much as the Indians did and the clans fought over territory and raided each other. When the Anglo Saxons came with their culture and their common law which was a better system than the old tribal system of the Britons,instead of recognizing a superior way they fought with the Saxons and the Norse much as the Indians fought with the settlers. And, I think the Indians on the reservations today are in such a sorry state in part because they refuse to give up those old, irrational, mystical beliefs and embrace the 21st century.