NO. 7 ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF AMERICA MOONEV I9 



who had extended opportunity for observation, but little scientific 

 training or knowledge of earlier history, estimated it from 500,000 

 to 700,000 stoutly refusing to lower his figures when challenged. 

 Merriam, after close investigation of every section of the state, both 

 from the ethnologic and the biologic or subsistence standpoint, makes 

 it 260,000 in 1800, at which time, however, 18 of the 22 missions 

 were already in operation, resulting in a steady thinning out of the 

 natives within their jurisdiction. Kroeber makes the original num- 

 ber "perhaps 150,000." Barrett, basing his opinion upon close study 

 of the Pomo region, is " inclined to support Merriam's view " and 

 estimates it at " upwards of 200,000." In view of Merriam's oppor- 

 tunities and detailed investigation we may take his figures (beginning 

 with 1800) as the best approximation for the whole region, although 

 the known decrease among the Mission Indians, almost from the start. 

 would seem to make even his figures conservative. 



In 1853 the Indian population of the state was officially estimated 

 at 100,000; in 1856 at 48,100; in 1864 at not more than 30,000; and 

 in 1906, exclusive of 200 Paiute in the northeastern corner, and less 

 than a dozen Shasta in Oregon, at 19,014, a decrease of nearly 

 93 per cent. 



Among the principal causes of decrease may be noted : evil effects 

 of unaccustomed confinement, and a number of epidemics including 

 smallpox, together with widely prevalent infanticide, among the Mis- 

 sion Indians from 1769 to 1834; a great fever epidemic throughout 

 the whole central region in 1833, officially estimated to have killed 

 70,000 Indians and reported to have come from the " English settle- 

 ments " (i. e., Hudson's Bay Co. posts) in the north, and possibly 

 connected with the great fever epidemic of Oregon in 1823 and later ; 

 dispersal and starvation of surviving Mission Indians after confis- 

 cation of missions in 1834; wholesale massacres, clearances, and 

 robberies of food stores by American miners and settlers from i84() 

 to the close of the Modoc war in 1873, together with the general 

 demoralization consequent upon association of the two races. For 

 details and special instances see Powers, Merriam, and Bancroft. 



1769 1907 



Total of state, ]\Ierriam estimate for 1800 260,000* 18,797 



'A careful and very detailed estimate of the Indian population of California 

 in 1770 has been made more recently by Professor Kroeber and incorporated 

 in his Handbook of the Indians of California (Bull. 78, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., 

 1925, p. 883). This is only a year later than the date selected by Merriam for 

 his earliest estimate, the one which Mooney adopts, but the figure whicli 

 Kroeber fixes upon, 133,000 is scarcely more than half of Merriam's. 



