Customer Reviews

Numbers from Nowhere: The American Indian Contact Population Debate

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Although Henige writes cleverly, probably few laymen will choose this book as leisure reading. Likewise, few scholars (except perhaps for Henige's professional enemies and a few unfortunate graduate students) will read it all the way through without skipping pages and even whole chapters.

Henige need not worry. His book needed to be written, and his thesis is sound. "High Counters" have indeed grossly exaggerated the pre-contact population of American Indians on the basis of virtually nothing but the desire to take a currently fashionable position. Wisely, Henige reminds his readers that there are places historians cannot go because no evidence remains and that this lack of evidence can become an opportunity for wild conjecture on the part of those who have ideological axes to grind.

Of necessity whoever took on the "High Counters" had to drudge through the facts and figures to prove them misguided, and the drudging doesn't always make for engaging reading. Nevertheless, Henige ranges widely and engagingly in his series of essays, treating such profitable topics as numerical exaggerations in classical texts and even in works of imagination. Some passages are so witty I laughed out loud.

An outstanding look at the way people with an agenda can manipulate evidence.

This is NOT an argument condoning the slaughter of Indians and the habitual treaty breaking and general racism that did take place. And small pox blankets were DEFINITELY given to the Indians by the British after Pontiac's War, and probably at other times too. This book only addresses the numbers that can be documented as embellishments.

Splendid arguments accompanied by notes, a generous bibliography, and index.

The estimate of the number of American Indians prior to the arrival of the White man has long been a minor industry. Estimates have generally been low -- 8 million Indians on both continents -- and reflect a subliminal emotion that the American land had been empty and free for the taking without qualms of conscience. Recent estimates, however,-- reflecting modern politically-correct guilt -- estimate a total pre-contact Indian population of as much as 120 million. Some authorities have claimed that Mexico City was the biggest city in the world during its heyday and that Peru was the world's most populous empire.

Henige takes on what he calls the "high-counters" in an extended rant against their use and misuse of statistics to bolster their claims to a large Indian population. This is by turns funny, illuminating, and tiresome -- but has the useful purpose of putting a brake on those who get a bit over-enthusiastic in interpreting questionable information from the past.

The author's bile extends to "high counters" in the classic world who claim that Caesar and Alexander met and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of barbarians in their conquests. He pokes holes in the statements of ancient and modern writers who claimed the existence of "million man armies" by the Persians and various tribes of barbarians. All this is jolly good fun -- and a useful corrective.

The book devotes itself almost entirely to debunking. One would like to know what the author himself thinks about the numbers of people in precontact America. Clearly he is not among the "high counters." But if he is among the lowest of "low-counters" then he is surely also wrong. I suppose he would claim "lack of good data" to avoid making an estimate -- but debunking implies to me an obligation to present an alternative theory to what is being debunked.

Smallchief

What can one say? He writes well, but he can't add. Must've scored 700 on his english SAT and 420 on his math.