How Did Charles Mann's Effect On Native Americans

1491 Analysis Charles Mann investigates a new view of the effect the Native Americans had on their western lands before Columbus had visited them. Mann argues that our knowledge of the Indians may be incorrect; life before the New World may actually have been advanced, organized, and prosperous. On a visit to Beni, Mann and two archaeologists examine the Bolivian region and its few native people. One peculiar feature they noticed was the collection of forest islands, huge and almost perfectly round circles of grouped trees raised above the floodplain. The archaeologists believed this construction, which prevented the trees from being flooded, was organized by a complex society 2,000 years ago. They also reason that Indians effectively shaped

The Plymouth colony landed in Cape Cod, but found abandoned Indian towns filled with graves and corpses. Disease had ravaged Indian populations. In 1910, James Mooney first speculated that 1491 North America had a population of 1.15 million people. After being accepted for over fifty years, Henry Dobyns challenged Mooney’s conjecture. During a visit to Mexico, Dobyns read Jesuit records of births and deaths and there was much more death. Diseases, such as smallpox, decimated Indian population and allowing Europeans to easily conquer the natives. Since so many people died, Dobyns calculated that the population of the west was actually 112 million in 1491, more than Europe at the time. He estimated that after 130 years after contact with Europeans, the Native American population decreased by 95 percent. Some criticized Dobyns’s publishing's as politically driven. The critics called Dobyn out for supporting the American hate crowd. Nevertheless, the debate about pre-Columbian populations continues to this

A few pigs brought to the New World could have transmitted their diseases to the surrounding environment which could have mutated into human diseases. Native Americans did not know of these animal diseases because they did not domesticate many animals. Yet some critics doubt a few pigs could cause so much death; the Black Death would have been much less severe than what the Indians faced. They believe a multitude of plagues and the Indian’s unprepared immune system had a much greater effect. Again, archaeologists argue how many people actually live in the Americas in 1492. Those who believe a smaller amount say there is little evidence of dense population; millions of people would have left without a trace. High counters assume that a 95% death rate means the population was much larger. In the end, everyone agrees that diseases that destroyed Indian