European Contact and Indian Depopulation in the Northeast: The Timing of the First Epidemics

Abstract

In order to estimate prehistoric Indian population sizes in the New World it is first necessary to gain a better understanding of the demographic effects of European-introduced diseases. To that end we have reexamined the timing of the first introduction of these diseases into one region the [northeastern United States]. A careful reexamination of the ethnohistoric record combined with a study of the history and process of smallpox has led us to conclude that this and other such diseases did not enter the Northeast until the seventeenth century long after the well-documented initial epidemics of the Caribbean and Mexico. Reasons for the lag are suggested. (EXCERPT)