Demography and the “Great Dying”

How many students are in your school: 500? 1,000? 3,000? Are those numbers growing or shrinking? When administrators make decisions about adding a classroom or hiring staff, they use data about the school population size. That’s called a 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. It became known as the “Great Dying.”

Demographic changes in the Americas

Historians agree that the indigenous population of the Americas changed following contact with Columbus and his crew in 1492. Diseases such as measles, smallpox, chickenpox, and influenza were native to Afro-Eurasia. However, they were new to the Americas. Most Europeans had some resistance to such 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 them, these deadly diseases spread quickly.

What historians don’t agree on is how many indigenous people died as a result. We know there was a 50 to 90 percent decline in population. That range, though, is pretty wide. 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 before the arrival of Columbus might have been as high as 112 million and as low as 8 million. Pretty big difference, right? It raises a lot of 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. That would mean the effects of European arrival and conquest would have been more dramatic than if the first European settlers had encountered a much smaller population.

The debate persists. We don’t have written records of indigenous population sizes. Researchers have had to rely on the records Europeans created after colonization began. They have also studied archaeological data on population density in urban and rural indigenous settlements from before the European arrival.

The influx of Europeans and Africans after 1492 also led to the creation of 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 Europeans had no choice. Some were sent to the Americas as punishment for crimes and forced to work as indentured servants. In addition, millions of African men and women were enslaved and transported unwillingly across the Atlantic. The demographic picture of the Americas continued to change as 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, it violently removed millions of young, productive people from African communities. Related wars resulted in many more deaths. Still, the effects of this slave trade network 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 moved to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In some cases, populations in these regions actually grew. In addition, new crops from the Americas, such as cassava and maize, may have contributed to higher birth rates in West Africa. Other parts of Africa were not heavily affected by the slaving networks. 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. Spanish and Portuguese entrepreneurs introduced the plantation complex to their Caribbean and Brazilian colonies. It 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. Though he failed to reach Asia, he did start his own sugar plantation in the Caribbean. 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 enslaved labor.

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. This was 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. 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 proved disastrous for indigenous peoples. European rulers built their empires on the deaths of indigenous Americans and the kidnapping of Africans. These global interactions would have lasting consequences for everyone involved.