Discussion+Questions+and+Activities

1. List the reasons given by contemporaries for large-scale deaths and a steep decline in Native American populations after the arrival of Europeans. See Student Handout 1.1 (Native American Population Decline: Why and by How Much?). About which reason(s) is there general agreement?

2. Can the evidence in Student Handout 1.1 about reasons for Native American population decline be accepted as reliable? Why or why not? Are the reasons on which there is agreement more likely to be correct than those only one observer mentions? Why or why not?

3. What can you tell about European attitudes towards Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from contemporaries’ comments as shown in Student Handout 1.1? Explain how you arrived at your conclusions.

4. What effects do you think the large number of deaths had on Native American societies before 1650? Consider possible effects on such areas as family life, producing and distributing food, relations between rulers and ruled, fighting ability, religious and other beliefs, outlook on life. How do your answers here compare to your answers to the Do Now question?

5. Compare the description of disease-caused mortality in Student Handout 1.2, Document 4 with that in Student Handout 1.2, Document 5. How would the differences affect the consequences of the heavy mortality?

6. Imagine that you are a government official in the mid-sixteenth century, sent out to travel over Spanish possessions in the New World and report to the king on the conditions of Native Americans there and their relations with the Spanish. You may take into account, and refer to, information from earlier in the century, unless you have reason to believe that the situation changed—in which case you will probably want to explain that. Based on the information in Lesson 1, what points would you definitely want to cover in your report? Why those? How might your being a government official reporting to the king influence what you say?

7. Taking into account all information in Student Handout 1.2 (What Numbers to Believe), which information about the Amerindian population would you say that twentieth-century scholars generally agree on?

8. Is there any evidence in Lesson 1 suggesting that the population estimate for central Mexico of 51.6 million just before the arrival of the Europeans should not be accepted? See Student Handout 1.2, Document 6. If so, what? Is there any evidence in favor of its acceptance? If so, what?

9. For which of the causes of population decline cited by Robert McCaa in 1995 (Student Handout 1.2, Document 8) is there confirmation in the contemporary reports included in Student Handout 1.1? Give examples. Which are most thoroughly confirmed? Explain.

10. In determining which of several different population estimates to accept as the most reliable one, which of the following factors would influence your thinking? • The recentness of the estimate • Its position in the range of estimates from highest to lowest • How many scholars cited it • Whether it was by someone considered an authority (such as, for instance, a professor who has published much in the field) • Whether it was by a specialist (such as a demographer rather than a geographer or a historian) • How it was supported by evidence. (Remember that the amount and kind of evidence available has not changed significantly since 1924 and is known to be spotty and inconsistent.)

If more than one of the above would influence you, would any carry greater weight than any other? Why or why not? If any would do so, which one?

11. Why does the estimated size of Native American populations at any time between 1490 and 1650 matter? Why do you think there is so much disagreement and controversy about population figures at the time of, and after, the European conquests in America? What choices do historians have in dealing with this situation? What ought they to do? Why?

12. What reasons might have led some Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries not to see “the decline of the … native population … as a tragedy?” (The quote is from Student Handout 1.2, Document 9.) Use information from Lesson 1 to help with your answer. Might any of those reasons still be offered today? Why or why not? If any are, then which? If not, what changed between then and now that might make a difference?

13. What moral standards can be used in assessing blame or guilt for things done long ago and far away, by people different from us? Should they be judged by their own values, or by ours? Why? Should historians try to avoid any moral judgment of actions taken by people in the past? Why or why not?

Should we assume or not that all people in a past society shared the same values? What if the values of some people in the society (e.g., the ruling class) conflicted with the values of others (e.g., rural peasants)? What difference does it make whether, and how, historians judge people in the past?

Extension Activities 1. Research the most recent estimates available of the number of Iraqi civilians killed between the US invasion of March 2003 and the end of 2009. How were the estimates arrived at?

How much agreement is there on the numbers? What hypotheses can you come up with to account for differences or unanimity regarding the estimates? Compare your findings with the information in Lesson 1 about Native American deaths and the controversies surrounding it.

2. Compare the epidemics in the Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the Black Death in Afroeurasia in the fourteenth century. (See Big Era 5.)