Demography and the “Great Dying”

How many students are in your school: 500? 1,000? 3,000? Has it always been this size or has it grown or shrunk in recent years? When administrators make decisions about adding a classroom or hiring staff, they use data about the school population size. That’s called demographic analysis. Historians also use demographic analysis to figure out when, where, and why the size of populations have changed. For example, you might have learned about how the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century dramatically decreased the number of people in Afro-Eurasia. A similar drastic decline happened among the indigenous people of the Americas beginning in the late 1400s, which became known as the “Great Dying.”

Demographic changes in the Americas

Most historians agree that the demographic picture of the Americas changed after the initial contact with Columbus and his crew in 1492. Diseases, such as measles, smallpox, chickenpox, and influenza, which were native to Afro- Eurasia but new to the Americas, were the cause. Most Europeans had some resistance to these diseases and carried them across the Atlantic. But these germs were a deadly new threat to indigenous Americans, who did not possess this resistance. Once transmitted to the Americas, these diseases spread quickly.

What historians don’t agree on is how many perished in the pandemics brought by Spaniards. We know there was a 50 to 90 percent decline in population, but that is a pretty wide range. The major factor in the debate is the question of how many people lived in the Americas before 1492. Historians have estimated that the indigenous population of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his men might have been as high as 112 million. It might have been as low as 8 million. Pretty big difference, right? It raises questions about the impact of European arrival in the Americas. For example, if the Americas had a sizable indigenous population, it suggests that the societies in the Americas had been large and strong. The effects of European arrival and conquest would be far more dramatic than if European settlers had encountered a much smaller population.

The debate persists. We don’t have written records of indigenous population sizes before 1492. Researchers have had to rely on the accounts Europeans created after they came, as well as archaeological data on pre-1492 indigenous population density in urban and rural settlements.

At the same time, an influx of Europeans and Africans after 1492 had the effect of altering the demographics. These migrations led to new kinds of societies. For some elite Europeans, the migration was temporary, because they weren’t looking for a new place to live. They just wanted to make quick money and carry their wealth back home. Many other European colonists had no choice. Some were sent to the Americas as punishment for crimes and forced to work as indentured servants. In addition, millions of young African men and women were enslaved and transported unwillingly across the Atlantic. The demographic picture of the Americas also changed when Europeans, Africans, and indigenous peoples had children together. The Spanish colonial government called people of mixed heritage “mestizo” and “mulatto”.

Demographic changes in Africa

The Atlantic slaving system also caused demographic changes in sub-Saharan Africa. According to historian Joseph E. Inikori, the loss of young women and men to the Atlantic slave trade network violently removed millions of productive people from African communities. The wars provoked by this system of slaving also resulted in many more deaths. Those who survived often could not grow as much food, because they had to live in the mountains or swamps in order to escape being enslaved. The toll this stress and difficulty took on women may also have artificially lowered birth-rates as well. Still, the effects of the slave trade were not felt in the same way in all parts of Africa, according to historian Walter Rodney. Africans captured and enslaved in their homelands were often transferred first to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In some cases, populations in these regions actually grew. In addition, the introduction of new crops brought over from the Americas, such as cassava and maize, may have contributed to higher birth rates in West Africa. Other parts of Africa, especially the interior around the African great lakes, were not heavily affected by the slaving networks.

Historians are working to determine the overall impact of the Atlantic slave trade and new crops on the population of Africa. The data appears to suggest that the population of Africa from 1650 to 1850 declined overall. What is certain is that this system of enslavement did lasting harm to many cultures across the African continent.

Sugarcane and the “Plantation Complex”

Millions of enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas as forced laborers. This labor system is referred to as the plantation complex. It consisted of large farming estates Europeans created for commercial agriculture in the Americas. The idea for these plantations came from the Madeira Islands off the North African coast in the 1420s. Portuguese settlers got rich exporting sugar from the islands to Europe. It seemed a profitable business model, so Spanish and Portuguese entrepreneurs brought the plantation system to their Caribbean and Brazilian colonies. The plantation complex transformed the physical environment, demography, and cultures in the Americas. Dramatically.

By the fifteenth century, sugar was one of the most desired commodities in Europe. So much so that when Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492 to search for a new route to Asia, he took sugarcane plants from his mother-in-law’s plantation in the Madeira Islands. Though he failed to reach Asia, he did start his own sugar plantation in the Caribbean. He used enslaved indigenous people to work it.

Columbus’s sugar plantation was the first of many established by Europeans. Everyone wanted in on this trade. The success of American plantations, however, came to depend on a steady supply of enslaved people from Africa rather than indigenous people.

The effects of forced labor on sugar plantations

Both male and female enslaved people were forced to do the work under harsh conditions. They planted, harvested, and processed the sugar cane into crystallized sugar and molasses. Working from sunrise to sunset, they cut the tough stalks with sharp machetes. Sugar mill workers were required to work throughout the night because the cut sugar cane had to be pressed as quickly as possible. These enslaved people could only grow food for themselves at night or on Sunday. All of this work was solely to maximize profits for Europeans.

The lives of enslaved peoples on sugar plantations were often brutal and short. Plantations owners used excessive and cruel punishment to enforce obedience. The enslaved Africans also were dehumanized, since they and their children were considered property, and could be inherited through wills. They had to go to church services on Sunday led by an approved priest. Some of the enslaved Africans were Muslims or had polytheistic beliefs, which often weren’t compatible with European Christianity. The enslaved people also couldn’t leave the plantations without permission and weren’t allowed to marry.

Atrocious working and living conditions contributed to a high death rate. Uncounted numbers of workers were worked to death. These factors fed a steady demand for more Africans to be kidnapped and transported across the Atlantic Ocean.

The demographic changes in both the Americas and Africa were mostly disastrous for indigenous peoples. European economies and communities benefitted from the deaths of indigenous Americans and the growth of the slave trade. The global interactions and population disruptions would have lasting repercussions.