The only people who didn’t seem to be eager to embrace oblivion as a fitting epilogue to their part in the New World story were the Indians. As civilization spread westward, the Indians were engulfed in waves of deadly diseases and border conflicts that forced them to flee, holding onto what little they could and being ready to fight another day when needed. Despite their loss, they never gave up.
The terrible history of epidemics, one of which devastated the New England tribes in 1616 and cleared the way for the Plymouth settlement, amply illustrates the tremendous losses that had occurred. The fur trade was shut down for two years in 1781–1782, when a particularly severe smallpox epidemic ravaged tribes along the upper Missouri River and north as far as Great Slave Lake.
In 1837–1838, the Mandan tribe was all but exterminated. In 1849, the Pawnee tribe saw a quarter of its population loss. The wild gold miners of California killed down the Indians like rabbits, and the estimated 100,000 Indians living in the state in 1850 had dropped to less than 20,000 by 1906. Uncertain estimates suggest that by 1850, there were around 250,000 Indians living in the United States, while similarly speculative figures place the number of Indians living in Canada at 90,000. This is what was left of an estimated 850,000 Native Americans in the United States and 220,000 in Canada.
Then, first slowly, the tide began to change. It was feasible to challenge the presumption of eventual extinction throughout the first two decades of the current century. The increases were not very noticeable until around 1930, but since then, the rate of growth of the Indian population in both the United States and Canada has outpaced the rate of population growth overall. The growth rate should continue to pick up speed as health facilities are better and more accessible to Native Americans. Before the end of the current century, the number of Native Americans living north of Mexico will have returned to its pre-European levels.
The number of Indians in the United States reached 700,000 by the end of the seventh decade, whereas in Canada, where there were 220,600 Indians registered in 1967, the ground had been reclaimed. There have always been unique issues with counting Indians, which can be understood to gain some perspective on the current state of affairs in India. For instance, it should be clarified that, in the US, those who do not fit into specific categories are not considered Indians. Typically, this refers to Native Americans, for whom the federal government is obligated to provide certain services.
The administration would rather keep this figure fixed than raise it. As a result, thousands of people who are equally Indian in origin and way of life as those who are formally included are not included in the count. This is frequently the result of historical causes. The Atlantic coast and the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico were the sites of the first points of contact. Tribal lands were taken, and the native population was either wiped off or forced interior. However, it appears that the eradication was never total because more and more Indians are emerging from the forested mountains, coves, and marshes in those areas.