betgo

Were there few to start with or was it British policy to kill them off?

The Reality

This my friends is a dark topic....

Swagganaut

A mix of epidemics and genocides.

civfanatic

1. There were few natives in lands north of Mexico to begin with. The entire pre-Columbian population of the modern United States was probably no more than 4-5 million. In contrast, pre-Columbian Mexico has been estimated to have as many as 20-25 million people, due to the greater prevalence of settled agriculture and urbanization.

2. Epidemics, especially smallpox, probably killed off over 90% of the pre-Columbian population in modern-day U.S. and Canada. Already by 1800 there were only a few hundred thousand natives remaining.

Wodz Mikolaj

And add to that wars, forced expulsions, racially motivated murders, and poor living conditions on reservations for already small populations...

royal744

Any numbers of native Americans are bound to be guesses. How could they be anything else?

Tairusiano

There is no serious study on the pre-columbian populations of the continent, so yep all the estimates are guesses, representing the various interests and bias.

This graphics shows the various "estimates", and how variable they are. normally the number change, according to the agenda of who is making the counts.

Copperknickers

Firstly, the majority of them were wiped out by diseases accidentally introduced by Westerners. Estimates suggest that as many as 90% of indigenous Americans were wiped out by disease. But the British certainly did fight wars against them and probably killed many thousands.

But let's not single out the British, the indigenous populations in all of the Americas were largely wiped out, except in places like Bolivia and Peru which still have large populations. In fact the areas settled by the British were the least populated ones, it was the Spanish who wiped out most of the dense indigenous areas in Central America and the Andes. Indeed many of the indigenous populations of the modern USA and Canada were actually wiped out by the Spanish and the French, who owned most of the landmass of what is now the contiguous USA until the early 19th century.

North America in 1760

North America in 1800

Wodz Mikolaj

Fair point, but the US and Canada definitely have plenty of their own crimes during the 19th and 20th century, particularly in the Pacific-Northwest region where Spanish and French presence wasn't as strong.
Let's not forget Russia too. In Alaska they've some things to answer for...

from A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990 by James Forsyth.

mark87

1. We don't have anything close to an adequate guess even today as to what the actual Precolumbian population of the america's was, we have some educated guesses here and there but nothing definitive. Unfortunately the topic itself has become somewhat 'political' as pro European scholars tend to minimize the population on purpose (so they can claim a res nullius situation) and pro native scholars tend to give the biggest number they can come up with and claim the situation was the worlds greatest genocide (at least in my experience), the truth lies somewhere in the middle probably.

2. North America had 'less advanced' native populations than central america and parts of south america, the Aztecs and Incas and the Mayas had very good irrigation and engineering capabilities which could sustain relatively large populations due to food growth, the situation in north america was not like that at least at the moment of contact. A regions total population will always be subject to the carrying capacity of said region if there is not a major capacity to alter the growing of food and a relatively advanced capability of handling the logistics of feeding a large population. To my knowledge, excepting Cahokia that is only recently being studied, the only areas of north america that had extensive agriculture in precolumbian times were the southwestern state tribes and natives like the Anasazi and the like.

3. Disease killed off most natives before any European sword or musket could reach them, so they were starting from a disadvantages position to start with.

4. There is also of course blame on the way British, american, Canadian, new Zealand, and Australian officials and populations dealt with the natives in the 18th through 20th centuries that further hindered the populations, including war, specific instances of near genocidal behavior (not particular only to north america, south america saw some of that too) and a cultural contempt by some in the 19th century for natives founded on racism, but also a view of the native as a noble savage that would not endure and could not endure the 'modern world', this was a view taken by some as the united states expanded westward in the 19th century and white settlers and officials and the army came into increasing contact and warfare with the natives west of the Mississippi.

5. I would furthermore differentiate different areas of North America from each other because their terrain, climate, and resources differed substantially, areas in the Ohio river valley had far more resources than say the great basin area which even today is a difficult place to etch out a living, similar with the great plains, that were an extremely inhospitable place until modern agriculture turned them into the breadbasket they are (well until the dust bowl and the depression hit).