In 1598 Juan de Oñate brought 500 Spanish settlers and soldiers north with 7,000 head of livestock, founding the first Spanish settlement in New Mexico. These were the original European pioneers of the West, New Mexico natives can trace their ancestry to These settlers brought: Smallpox, Malaria, Measles, Mumps, Tuberculosis, the Flu, Cholera,
Dysentery, Alcoholism, Urologic Diseases, Dysentery, and Trachoma to spread throughout the West during the ~200 years before Vancouver charted Puget Sound. Indigenous population estimates differ greatly from the founding of Santa Fe, let’s assume a population then of 1 million in Cascadia Floristic Region and that a 90% disease reduction occurred between 1554 and 1792. In another 100 years there appears to have been another 90% reduction (firearms, slaughter, and doubling down on diseases) leaving 7,500 Native Americans alive in this State in 1901, with far fewer in Oregon and Northern California. There are 29 Federally recognized tribes in WA, all but 4 west of the Cascades, 4 that are large, that’s ~120 souls per 25 tribes in 1900. This writer’s grandparents told of Indigenous sleeping under their kitchen table on the Pilchuck; most often lonely guys who loved fresh baked bread and warmth. Exactly, how many “Pilchuck Charlies” were alive in our area in 1884? It is not the present or projecting forward that interests us. If it were 750 alive in 1900 (468 on Tulalip Reservation), 7,500 at the time of Vancouver’s survey, 75,000 when Oñate marched? That’s our area (+/- 40 miles) with 75,000 population, most living in large longhouses made of degradable material, without iron, leaving only a few stones turned? They must have had agriculture; evidence is that they used only native plant species. Consider their many diverse languages; it may have been more than 1 million in Salish Sound. Might the Stanwood area have had more populace then than it does today?
California Coast saw 90% drop between 1769 and 1848.
- The Parliament of England passes the Vagabonds Act, that allows transportation of convicts to colonies.
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