Implications of Catlin’s American Indian Population Estimates for Revision of Mooney’s Estimate

RUSSELL THORNTON Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

K E Y WORDS Population estimates . American Indians Prehistory

ABSTRACT Catlin’s population estimates of 37 American Indian tribes for the period 1832 to 1839 are compared with Mooney’s estimates for the same tribes that range from the year 1600 to the year 1780. The remarkably close correspondence between the two totals despite the difference in the time pe- riods indicates considerable inaccuracy on the part of either Mooney or Catlin. If Catlin is given credibility, then the necessity of current upward revisions of Mooney’s population estimate is supported.

The landmark work on the total size of the American Indian population in North America a t European contact was conducted by Mooney (’10, ’28). He compiled population figures for individual tribes from a variety of sources, particularly estimates of early ex- plorers (Ubelaker, ’761, and for the time of first European contact with the tribe (which ranged from the year 1600 to the year 1845). These figures were then summed to obtain a grand total of 1,152,950 (Mooney, ’28) as an estimate of the American Indian population north of the Rio Grande River at first Euro- pean contact.

Though there has always been considerable divergence of native population estimates a t European contact for the total Western Hemi- sphere, until recently most scholars have ar- rived a t figures for North America very close to Mooney’s (Ubelaker, ’771.’ In the last few years, however, several scholars have ques- tioned seriously the accuracy of Mooney’s to- tal estimate, and have suggested considerable upward revision of it. These revisions range from Ubelaker’s (‘77) estimate of 2,171,125 to Dobyns’ (‘66) estimate of 12,250,000.

The historic population estimates of Ameri- can Indians made by Catlin seem all but ignored by both Mooney and his critics, how- ever. Catlin wrote a detailed description of the 48 American Indian tribes he encountered from 1832 to 1839. Published originally in London in 1844 as Letters and Notes on the

Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians, this book has been reproduced recently in the United States (Cat- lin, ’73). It has been utilized in various ways by anthropologists, historians and other scho- lars but not particularly often as a source of population data for American Indians, even though i t contains population figures for 41 tribes.

Recent analysis of Mooney’s sources of data for his estimates (Ubelaker, ’76) indicates that Mooney utilized Catlin’s observations for only one tribe, the Assiniboin, and obtained i t from a secondary source.’ With this one known exception, Catlin’s figures are thus independent of Mooney’s subsequent esti- mates. Consequently a comparison between the figures of Mooney and those of Catlin for comparable tribes may contribute to the cur- rent analysis of Mooney’s total figure and therefore to the issue of the size of the pre- European American Indian population.

COMPARISON BETWEEN MOONEY’S AND CATLINS ESTIMATES

Mooney’s and Catlin’s population estimates

I Sapper’s (Ubelaker, ’77) 1924 estimate of from 2,000,000 to 3,500,000 is the only early significant departure from Mwney of which I am aware.

Of perhaps interent, the figure of 8,000 utilized by Mwney for the Assiniboin (Ubbelaker. ’76) was apparently incorrect. Catlin (’73: p. 531 estimated the ppulation of the Assiniboin as 7,000. A h , the fact that the estimates of Catlin and Moaney are identical for the Cherokee, Choctaw and Menomoni may suggest that Mwney uti- l ized Catlin in more than this one inntance.

AM, J. PHYS. ANTHROP. (1978) 49: 11-14. 11

12 RUSSELL THORNTON

TABLE 1

Comparison of Mooney’s and Catlin k population estimates for selected American Indian tribes

Mooney Catlin 11600.1780) (1832-18391

Mooney Catlin 11600 17801 (1832-18391

Arikara Assiniboin Atsina Blackfoot Cherokee Cheyenne Choctaw Comanche Cree Creek and Seminole Crow Delaware Hidatsa Iowa Kansa Kickapoo Kutenai Mandan

3,000 10,000 3,000

15,000 22,000

3,500 15,000 7,000

15,000 ‘ 18,000 4,000 8,000 ’ 2,500 1,200 3,000 2,000 1,200 3,600

1,500 ’ 7,000 4,300 ’

16,500 ’ 22,000

3,000 15,000 35,000

3,000 23,500

7,000 800

1,500 1,400 1,560

700 2,500 ’ 2,000

Menomoni Missouri Mohegan Ojibwe Omaha Osage Oto Pawnee Peoria Ponca Potawatomi Sarsi Sauk and Fox Shawnee Sioux Tuscarora Winnebago

TOTAL

3,000 1,000

600 35,000

2,800 6,200

900 10,000 1,500

800 4,000

700 6,500 3,000

25,000 5,000 3,800

246,800

3,000 400 400

6,000 ’ 1,500 6,200

600 20,000 “

200 450

2,700 2,200 ’ 5,500 1,200

45,000 500

4,000 247,110

‘ Catlm’s estimate is for number of lodges, asserting an average of 10 per lodge. . Includes Cherokee hoth east and west of the Mississippi River.

This figure is the midpoint of Catlin’s actual estimate. Includes Cree and Muskegon in Canada.

Includes Munsee. ‘The figure uaed for the Seminole 1s the midpoint uf Catlin’s actual estimate.

j This estimate 1s for only the extreme western Ojihwe, and does not include the Chippewa around Lake Superior. as does the estimate of Mooney

Includes Pawnee Picts, estimated at 9,000. “These arc listed as “Mascouten” by Mooney but are thought to be identical with the Peoria (Mwney, ‘28: p. 11)

for 37 American Indian tribes are presented in table 1. In reporting Catlin’s estimates, I have changed the spelling of certain tribal names to conform to current usage and, on occasion, have changed the name itself, following Se- beok (‘73) in both instances, e.g., Circee was changed to Sarsi, Minataree to Hidatsa, Gros- ventres des Praires to Atsina. For purposes of comparison, 1 have listed Creek and Seminole together, as did Mooney but not Catlin, and have included Catlin’s estimate for Pawnee Picts with his estimate for Pawnee? Four of Catlin’s estimates - for the Oneida, Pianka- shaw, Seneca and Wea - may not be com- pared as they are included by Mooney with tribes not considered by Catlim4 It should be noted that in two instances Mooney’s figures include considerably larger groups than Cat- lin’s, i.e., Mooney includes all Cree and Muske- gon in Canada whereas Catlin does not, and Mooney includes the total Ojibwe in the United States and Canada whereas Catlin re- fers to only the extreme western Ojibwe.

The total population figures of Mooney and Catlin for these 37 tribes are remarkably close: Mooney’s is 246,800; Catlin’s is 247,110.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The closeness of the two total population figures despite their respective times of refer- ence being from over 50 t o over 230 years apart suggests considerable inaccuracy on the part of either Mooney or Catlin.‘ I t seems well-documented that the original American Indian population in the United States de- clined sharply between the periods of the two estimates because of disease, most notably smallpox, warfare, and other factors (Crosby, ‘72: pp. 35-63; Hadley, ’57: pp. 24-25). I t also seems well-documented that this decline con- tinued until the nadir of the American Indian population was reached in either the last part of the Nineteenth Century (Driver, ’68) or the first part of the Twentieth Century (Dobyns, ’66; Hadley, ’57: p. 25). Given that the Ameri- can Indian population decreased between first

It may be the case tha l these Pawnee Picts referred t o the Wichita.

Catlin’s estimates for these tribes are: Oneida, 350; Plankashaw, 170; Seneca, 1,200; and Wea, 200.

Though Mooney’s estimates ranged from the year 1600 to the year 1845, depending on when the tribe in question had initial Euro- pean contact, his estimates for the 37 tribes of companson all range from 1600 to 1780.

Obviously, It is also possible that hoth may be very Inaccurate.

CATLINS AMERICAN INDIAN POPULATION ESTlMATES 13

European contact and the period of Catlin’s estimates and that it continued to decrease for several decades afterwards, i t is unlikely that the estimates of Mooney and Catlin are both correct.

Catlin’s population figures for the period 1832 to 1839 obviously should be evaluated in terms of both his competence as an observer and population figures obtained from other sources. There seems little doubt but that Cat- lin developed extreme familiarity with the tribes he visited, as his book contains detailed descriptions of tribes and individuals encoun- tered. The book also contains frequent discus- sions of population changes and their causes for Indian peoples from European contact until Catlin’s time. It is certain that Catlin was extremely interested in American Indian population sizes and had a good grasp of the dynamics of population change.

Whether Catlin was familiar with existing population estimates a t the time of his writ- ing seems a matter of conjecture. I t is possible that the figures he recorded had been influ- enced by or obtained from sources other than his direct observations; however, there is no evidence of this from his work.? A comparison of Catlin’s figures with other, independent work on specific tribes for the 1830’s and 1840’s indicates a high accuracy on Catlin’s part. For example, Catlin’s figure of 1,560 for the Kansa in the 1830’s is very close to the 1843 census figure of 1,588 and to other esti- mates of the period (Barry, ’731, as is his 2,000 figure for the Mandan (Glassner, ’74).

It would seem that Catlin should be given high credibility. If so, his population data lend support to the necessity of the current revi- sions of Mooney’s total figure, and could, in fact, contribute to more accurate estimation of the pre-European American Indian popula- tion. The fact that Catlin observed 247,110 Indian people in these 37 tribes in the 1830’s whereas Mooney estimated only 246,800 a t first European contact suggests that an ac- curate estimation of the total North Ameri- can native population would be considerably

larger than Mooney’s of 1,152,950. Whether it would be closer to Ubelaker’s (’77) estimate of 2,171,125 or to Dobyns’ (’66) of 12,250,000 re- mains to be demonstrated.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Support in the preparation of this paper was provided by the Center for Urban and Re- gional Affairs a t the University of Minnesota. This support is acknowledged gratefully. The author wishes to thank Tim Dunnigan, Joan Marsh-Thornton, and Douglas H. Ubelaker for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this paper. The author, however, is solely responsible for the content of the paper.

LITERATURE CITED

Barry, L. 1973 The Kansa Indians and the census of 1843. Kans. Hist. Q., 29: 478-490.

Catlin, G. 1973 Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, 2 Vols. Dover Publication, Inc. New York.

Crosby, A. W. 1972 The Columbian Exchange: Biologi- cal and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.

Dobyns, H. F. 1966 Estimating aboriginal American population: an appraisal of techniques with a new hemi- spheric estimate. Cur. Anthrop., 7: 395-416.

Driver, H. E. On the population nadir of Indians in the United States. Cur. Anthrop., 9: 30.

Glassner, M. I. 1974 Population figures for Mandan Indians. Indian Historiam, 7: 41-46.

Hadley, J. N. 1957 The demography of the American Indians. Ann. Am. Acad. Poli. SOC. Sci., 311: 23-30.

Mooney, J. 1910 Population. In: Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, F. W. Hodge,ed. B. A. E. Bull., 30: 286-287, Part 2. Washington.

1928 The aboriginal population o f America north of Mexico. J. R. Swanton, ed. Smithsonian Misc. Coll., 80: 1-40.

Sebeok, T. A , , ed. 1973 Current Trends in Linguistics. Vol. 10, Part 2. Mouton and Company, The Hague.

Ubelaker, D. H. 1976 The sources and methodology for Mooney’s estimates of North American Indian popula- tions. In: Native Population of the Americas in 1492. W. M. Denevan, ed. Universityof Wisconsin Press, Madi- son, pp. 243-288.

1977 Prehistoric New World population size: historical review and current appraisal of North Ameri- can estimates. Am. J. Phys. Anthrop., 45: 661-666.

1968

’In only one place dues Catlin cite a population estimate US another indindual. It 18 an estimate made by a superintendent of Indian affair@ a t St. b u i a and waa for the Blackfoot population.