Indian Population Decline : The Missions of Northwestern New Spain, 1687-1840

The University of New Mexico Press announces the publication of the paperback edition of Indian Population The Missions of Northwestern New Spain, 1687-1840. This ethnohistory of missions in California, Arizona, and northwest Mexico seeks to answer questions long debated about how Indians fared when relocated and placed under the Church's care. Drawing on extensive and scattered archival sources, Jackson produces a sophisticated demographic analysis that permits evaluation of the causes, manifestations, and regional variations of the demographic collapse of mission Indians. The central finding is that diseases are only part of the explanation of population decline. In addition to deaths due to such illnesses as measles and smallpox and to psychological trauma, we must consider the effects of declining fertility among Indian women manifested in abortions, miscarriages, and death in childbirth. Moreover, the unhealthy conditions in missions often resulted in nine of ten children dying before age eight. Frontmatter List of Maps, Graphs, Tables (page vi) Acknowledgments (page xi) Introduction (page 3) 1. The Formation and Dissolution of the Mission Communities (page 13) 2. Demographic Collapse of the Mission Populations (page 55) 3. Causes of Demographic Collapse (page 117) 4. Demographic Collapse in a Comparative Context (page 145) Conclusions (page 163) Appendix 1. Chronology of Major Epidemic Outbreaks in Northwestern New Spain, 1690-1851 (page 167) Appendix 2. Population of the Pimería Alta Missions (page 168) Appendix 3. Population of the Baja California Missions (page 169) Appendix 4. Population of the Alta California Missions (page 172) Appendix 5. Baptisms, Burials, and Population in Selected Alta California Missions (page 176) Appendix 6. A Chronology of Building Construction at Selected Alta California Missions, 1777-1832 (page 186) Abbreviations (page 190) Notes (page 191) Bibliography (page 211) Index (page 219) About the Book and Author (page 229)