Johnston] NAVAHO POPULATION 135 



as 22,455. This enumeration was later criticized as having failed to 

 locate many Navahos.®^ The figures given by the Bureau of Indian 

 Affairs (Navajo Agency) for the subsequent years suggest that the 

 1910 census figure represented a serious underenumeration. The 

 annual report of 1910 gives the Navaho population as 29,624. In 

 1911, the figure reported is 30,006, and remains close to 30,000 for 

 several years. Thus the Bureau of the Census figure was about 32 

 percent lower than the Bureau of Indian Affairs figure for the Navaho 

 population in 1910. 



The reports following the census of 1910 indicated further substan- 

 tial growth in the Navaho population. The only apparent decline was 

 registered between 1918 and 1919, when a drop of 1,725 reflected the 

 evident impact of the influenza pandemic after the First World War. 

 By the time of the third special enumeration of Indians in 1930, the 

 Navaho population estimates had risen to about 40,000. At this 

 time, the report of the Bureau of the Census corresponded closely to 

 that of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The census reported 39,064 

 Navahos (Bureau of the Census, 1937, table 9) while the Bureau of 

 Indian Affairs (1930, table 2) estimated the Navaho population at 

 40,858. 



The outstanding feature of Navaho population since 1930 would ap- 

 pear to be its accelerated increase, from about 40,000 in 1930 to about 

 82,000 in 1957. This rise apparently results from relatively recent 

 declines in mortality, accompanied by persistently high levels of fertil- 

 ity, and is therefore representative of the population increases pres- 

 ently occurring in several underdeveloped areas, notably Ceylon and 

 Central America. 



In table 27 are listed a number of Navaho population estimates dat- 

 ing from the earliest period of Spanish contact to the present time, 

 arranged chronologically. The figures shown for 1890, 1910, 1930, 

 1950, and 1960, which are cited as "Bureau of the Census," are the 

 results of the decennial census enumerations of those years. 



On the basis of an examination of these population totals, the fol- 

 lowing tentative conclusions regarding the broad outlines of Navaho 

 population growth during the past 350 years can be offered : The first 

 two centuries of Spanish domination over the Southwest appear to 

 have been a period of gradual but steady growth on the part of the 

 Navaho population. This population evidently increased from less 

 than 4,000 in A.D. 1600 to over 6,000 in A.D. 1800, as the Navaho 



8» Bureau of the Census, 1915, table 9, pp. 17 fif. One criticism of this enumeration is 

 given in Weber, 1914, p. 3. Weber stated that "To my own personal Ifnowledge, a large 

 number of Navajos were not enumerated in that [the 1910] census." In the discussion 

 of the Navaho enumeration of 1910, Dr. Dixon expressed the view that the "true" popula- 

 tion figure for the Navaho in 1910 was "somewhere between" the Bureau figure of 22,455 

 and the Bureau of Indian Affairs figure of 28,000 (Bureau of the Census, 1915, p. 78). Cf. 

 Bureau of the Census, 1937, p. 40. 



