Reexamining the American Genocide Debate: Meaning Historiography

Native Americans suffered A catastrophic demographic decline following sustained contact with Europeans. From a pre-contact population of perhaps 5,000,000 or more, the number of American Indians within the continental US and its colonial antecedents fell to some 240,000 individuals by 1880-1900. The cataclysm thus ranks among the major long-term population disasters of world history. Some scholars assert that introduced diseases were the primary cause of this catastrophe, while others argue that colonialism, war, and diseases combined to wreak demographic devastation. Here, Madley discusses the debate whether or not Native Americans suffered genocide during the conquest and colonization of the Americas.