Plains Indians and Eurasian population densities

Mongol population c. 1600: 2~3 million
Plains Indian population c. 1770: Perhaps 0.2 million

Why this imbalance? Is it simply because of Plains reliance on a wild food source vs Mongol reliance on domesticated animals? If then why did Plains people continue to rely on the buffalo?
 
Likely. They relied on it because the buffalo was their mainstay even before they got the horse. While getting the horse opened up their cultures to many new possibilities, there's a school of thought out there that suggests they didn't have ample time to incorporate the horse into their culture. Anything else they needed they acquired the traditional way likewise--trading with settled agricultural peoples who lived in the river valleys.

Also combined with other issues like smallpox and endemic warfare (the late 18th/early 19th Great Plains was one of the most violent places on Earth by per capita amount of violent deaths). Bad winters could be punishing too, in that they killed off both buffalo and horses. The cold winters also made formations of cultures like the Sioux difficult north of the Nebraska area, since peoples like the Blackfoot would lose far too many of their horses every winter thus have to spend resources acquire them through other means. Even the Sioux usually had to trade with people from the South (or fight them) for many of their horses.

So that's probably a reason right there. It's also noteworthy that after a decade of drought/harsh winters/overhunting of buffalo (1840s), the Comanche at least did adopt cattle herding as a major strategy and along with a stretch of good winters, that's what allowed them to make a comeback in the 1860s/1870s.
 
As a sidenofe the Mongols were also devastated by smallpox, to the point that many Mongol khans were exempted from traveling to Beijing for festivities since so many Mongols fell dead soon after entering China.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
In the 1770s the first contact was at least two centuries in the past. Repeated epidemics in virgin-soil population caused massive population drops and crucially shattered the lifestyle which had sustained the population; this is the same reason Mexico went from being extremely densely populated in the early 1500s to being of much lower population over the next hundred to two hundred years.
(source: 1491 and 1493)
 
In the 1770s the first contact was at least two centuries in the past. Repeated epidemics in virgin-soil population caused massive population drops and crucially shattered the lifestyle which had sustained the population; this is the same reason Mexico went from being extremely densely populated in the early 1500s to being of much lower population over the next hundred to two hundred years.
(source: 1491 and 1493)

It's also worth noting that the people who had the higher population densities on the Plains, the settled agricultural/horticulturalists like the Pawnee, faced far greater losses to disease than the hunter-gatherers did.
 
In the 1770s the first contact was at least two centuries in the past. Repeated epidemics in virgin-soil population
After 1500 the Mongols were also subject to repeated epidemics of unprecedented regularity in what was effectively virgin soil due to lack of regular commercial contact with the Chinese in the 1400s.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
After 1500 the Mongols were also subject to repeated epidemics of unprecedented regularity in what was effectively virgin soil due to lack of regular commercial contact with the Chinese in the 1400s.
There's virgin soil and virgin soil (the Indians had low HLA totals in the entire population), and from what I've been able to understand the ones that hit the Indians (smallpox being just one of them, with several others too) mashed them flat repeatedly over the course of a century or two - affecting all populations, not just the plains Indians. We're talking something like 96% die-off over the course of a century, and the population not recovering between hits.
 
Let's also not forget the white invasion of Indian lands. The Mongols may have been vulnerable to smallpox, but were (generally, to my knowledge) not facing a massive influx of settlers like the Native Americans were. As metalinvader665 points out, the plains were extremely violent. This violence would have knock-on effects beyond Natives killed-fleeing potential massacres, they might not be able to find food as refugees, and suffer from starvation and malnutrition. Essentially the butterfly effect from colonialist violence greatly exacerbated the effect of disease on the already low-density populations of the plains. As the Mongols didn't have to deal with this, their population could be higher.

I am curious if the Russian colonization of Mongolia might have had a similar effect of violence, but I don't know very much about it.
 
Also add to the fact that on the plains Europeans were better armed and supplied and had endless amounts of men and material that the Lakota could never keep up with.
 
Also add to the fact that on the plains Europeans were better armed and supplied and had endless amounts of men and material that the Lakota could never keep up with.

The interesting part about that era is demographics wise, the Lakota and I believe the Comanche too had their populations increase after the initial smallpox epidemics because they tended to incorporate women and children from defeated peoples, extorted food from the aforementioned horticulturalists (thus were better fed than ever), as well as in the case of the Lakota, got partially vaccinated against future smallpox epidemics that the US government didn't earmark enough money for and thus other Plains people like the Arikara didn't get vaccinated.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Basically, as far as I understand it:

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the population of the Americas was quite high. The people were largely settled and pastoral/agricultural, and managed the land on a large scale.
When the plagues arrived, they repeatedly devastated the societies. What was left essentially dropped back to hunter-gatherer levels because, well, that's both the society most likely to survive and the one which you can pick up again after fleeing your home.
The colonists resulted in something a lot like a Mefcane, with violent displacement of peoples by previously displaced peoples.
And then when the colonial powers actually arrived somewhere, they looked at people who'd been repeatedly plagued and stomped by war, and said "look! They're clearly savages!"
 
The interesting part about that era is demographics wise, the Lakota and I believe the Comanche too had their populations increase after the initial smallpox epidemics because they tended to incorporate women and children from defeated peoples, extorted food from the aforementioned horticulturalists (thus were better fed than ever), as well as in the case of the Lakota, got partially vaccinated against future smallpox epidemics that the US government didn't earmark enough money for and thus other Plains people like the Arikara didn't get vaccinated.
fair enough but being out numbered by the thousands upon thousands of European migrants let alone all the US military, that does not bode well for them
 
Basically, as far as I understand it:

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the population of the Americas was quite high. The people were largely settled and pastoral/agricultural, and managed the land on a large scale.
When the plagues arrived, they repeatedly devastated the societies. What was left essentially dropped back to hunter-gatherer levels because, well, that's both the society most likely to survive and the one which you can pick up again after fleeing your home.
The colonists resulted in something a lot like a Mefcane, with violent displacement of peoples by previously displaced peoples.
And then when the colonial powers actually arrived somewhere, they looked at people who'd been repeatedly plagued and stomped by war, and said "look! They're clearly savages!"

Somewhat right--the "Mfecane"-esque (apt comparison, I'd throw in the New Zealand Musket Wars too) thing started with the Iroquois expansion (a result of the fur trade and wars between England and France) that pushed various tribes into each other, and by the time it got to the Great Plains, resulted in the proto-Sioux (as well as Cheyenne and Kiowa plus a few others) becoming mounted nomads that in turn dominated the horticulturist peoples (Pawnee, Mandan, etc.) of the Great Plains (themselves offshoots of the Mississippians). It didn't end well for the horticulturalist. It also came from the South, but that was mainly because of trade--that got you the Apache groups and the Comanche. The Spanish settlers were never as dangerous as the Anglo settlers because they were smaller in number and had serious issues militarily, like chronic shortages of ammunition for instance, as well as a government less capable of defending them (economic issues).

But at least on the Great Plains, there always seemed to be distinctions between hunter-gatherer groups and horticulturist groups, and the hunter-gatherers became the horse nomads. Although there's a few exceptions--the Cheyenne and Sioux were horticulturists but abandoned that early on. And it seems like that once a few horse nomad groups existed, no more groups could really make the transition.

At no point was there ever large-scale abandonment of agriculture as a whole, though. And the losses of intensive agriculture had been ongoing, since we know the Mississippians, Ancestral Puebloans, etc. were already in the process of collapse before Europeans showed up (which finished them off). So it's quite likely that both the Great Plains (which had declined at the end of the Medieval Warm Period which seems to have been a wetter period as a whole on the Plains) and North America as a whole had less population at European contact than

fair enough but being out numbered by the thousands upon thousands of European migrants let alone all the US military, that does not bode well for them

True, but that only says doom is inevitable (it basically was), it doesn't say when. As we know, they sure didn't go down without a fight.
 
I have to wonder, if Winters were so bad for the Natives of the Plains, would things have been different if they'd been found by East Asia instead and had winter adapted Mongolian horses showing up rather than warm weather Iberian horses as the founder population?
 
I have to wonder, if Winters were so bad for the Natives of the Plains, would things have been different if they'd been found by East Asia instead and had winter adapted Mongolian horses showing up rather than warm weather Iberian horses as the founder population?

East Asia contacting them would mean things come from the west--different tribes and peoples doing the interacting, I've been interested in that alternate Plains scenario since I started reading about it. But probably--you still have to worry that harsh winters tend to depress the total number of bison for a while, and when combined with drought, also stress the river valleys where the horses were grazed. And now that means the Blackfoot and other northern Plains people will have bigger herds of horses which compete with bison for resources and also decrease the total number of bison. They'll probably also be able to kill more bison. This would mean earlier decimation of bison numbers once you start throwing in Asian (or European) settlers and especially commercial hunters into the mix.
 
East Asia contacting them would mean things come from the west--different tribes and peoples doing the interacting, I've been interested in that alternate Plains scenario since I started reading about it. But probably--you still have to worry that harsh winters tend to depress the total number of bison for a while, and when combined with drought, also stress the river valleys where the horses were grazed. And now that means the Blackfoot and other northern Plains people will have bigger herds of horses which compete with bison for resources and also decrease the total number of bison. They'll probably also be able to kill more bison. This would mean earlier decimation of bison numbers once you start throwing in Asian (or European) settlers and especially commercial hunters into the mix.
True, but the Mongolians are able to get by well enough without bison, so it could still result in stronger native populations (especially when mixed with a slower trickle across the Rockies vs. Appalachians).
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
(the late 18th/early 19th Great Plains was one of the most violent places on Earth by per capita amount of violent deaths).

Let's also not forget the white invasion of Indian lands. The Mongols may have been vulnerable to smallpox, but were (generally, to my knowledge) not facing a massive influx of settlers like the Native Americans were. As metalinvader665 points out, the plains were extremely violent. This violence would have knock-on effects beyond Natives killed-fleeing potential massacres, they might not be able to find food as refugees, and suffer from starvation and malnutrition. Essentially the butterfly effect from colonialist violence

If metalinvader is talking about the Great Plains in the late 1700s-early 1800s, its mainly Indian-on-Indian violence that's at issue, rather than white-on-Indian violence. The white share of violence increased a lot after the 1820s or so.
 
True, but the Mongolians are able to get by well enough without bison, so it could still result in stronger native populations (especially when mixed with a slower trickle across the Rockies vs. Appalachians).

The Mongolians have quite a bit of things to fall back on, the natives would not (for a while) aside from game. Although possibly there might be a way to avert the low opinion that some Plains Indians groups had on horse meat (famine food) if you have different groups there. It seems to have taken the Comanche centuries to incorporate cattle even though they had been living near, trading with, and raiding people who extensively used them, but on the contrary, the Navajo pretty early on adopted sheep. Seems like a lot depends, especially when you have to cross the Rockies for effective cultural interchange rather than a more easy transmission route from the South, New Orleans, and elsewhere. And having an extra source of food than relying on hunting-gathering and trade would make a big difference. But it would possibly have to be a native group from outside the Plains cultural area that adopts this horse pastoralist culture and displaces whoever is in the northern Plains. And they'll probably have a similar story to the Sioux, but with the proper nouns changed--"Chinese/Japanese/whoever displace X tribe who displaces Y tribe which pushes Z tribe onto the Plains, where over the next century they begin to dominate or displace their neighbours while maintaining critical alliances that have a huge effect on intertribal diplomacy on the Plains in addition to affecting the dealings of European/Asian nations in the larger area."

If metalinvader is talking about the Great Plains in the late 1700s-early 1800s, its mainly Indian-on-Indian violence that's at issue, rather than white-on-Indian violence. The white share of violence increased a lot after the 1820s or so.

Yep. White-on-Indian violence at that point was a fraction of the warfare that was going on at the time, but increased over the course of the 19th century.
 
Somewhat right--the "Mfecane"-esque (apt comparison, I'd throw in the New Zealand Musket Wars too) thing started with the Iroquois expansion (a result of the fur trade and wars between England and France) that pushed various tribes into each other, and by the time it got to the Great Plains, resulted in the proto-Sioux (as well as Cheyenne and Kiowa plus a few others) becoming mounted nomads that in turn dominated the horticulturist peoples (Pawnee, Mandan, etc.) of the Great Plains (themselves offshoots of the Mississippians). It didn't end well for the horticulturalist. It also came from the South, but that was mainly because of trade--that got you the Apache groups and the Comanche. The Spanish settlers were never as dangerous as the Anglo settlers because they were smaller in number and had serious issues militarily, like chronic shortages of ammunition for instance, as well as a government less capable of defending them (economic issues).

But at least on the Great Plains, there always seemed to be distinctions between hunter-gatherer groups and horticulturist groups, and the hunter-gatherers became the horse nomads. Although there's a few exceptions--the Cheyenne and Sioux were horticulturists but abandoned that early on. And it seems like that once a few horse nomad groups existed, no more groups could really make the transition.

At no point was there ever large-scale abandonment of agriculture as a whole, though. And the losses of intensive agriculture had been ongoing, since we know the Mississippians, Ancestral Puebloans, etc. were already in the process of collapse before Europeans showed up (which finished them off). So it's quite likely that both the Great Plains (which had declined at the end of the Medieval Warm Period which seems to have been a wetter period as a whole on the Plains) and North America as a whole had less population at European contact than



True, but that only says doom is inevitable (it basically was), it doesn't say when. As we know, they sure didn't go down without a fight.
I can also say this, 19'th century, the Great plains were ideal to European style warfare at that time we were practicing. Now Arizona was a much different story.
 
themain problem with native north american peoples was the virgin field disease issue, without a POD that solves that everything else is window dressing!
 
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