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Mooney: Mooney 1928; Ubelaker 1976, 1988. Mooney’s article was posthumous.

Kroeber’s estimates: Kroeber 1934 (“sharply localized,” 25); 1939:31, 134, 166. Greenland is included in Kroeber’s population density figure, lowering it somewhat.

Sauer, Cook, and Borah: Among their many works are Sauer 1935; Cook and Simpson 1948; Borah and Cook 1964; Cook and Borah 1963, 1979. See also, Denevan 1996c.

“Historians and anthropologists”: Dobyns 1995.

World population in 1500: United Nations Population Division 1999:5.

“greatest destruction”: Lovell 1992:426. See also, Crosby 1986:208–09; Porter 1998:163; Jacobs 1974:128.

Dobyns’s 1966 article, Denevan’s book: Dobyns 1966; Denevan 1976.

Dobyns’s ideas attacked: Author’s interviews, Dobyns, Russell Thornton, Shepard Krech. See also Thornton 1987:34–36; Krech 1999:83–84; Henige 1998, 1990, 1978b.

Dobyns revises figures: Dobyns 1983:42. The new figure was for North America only.

Henige bio, critiques: Interview, Henige; Henige 1998 (bio, 4–5; “Suspect,” 314); 1978b (Hispaniola); Osborne 1998.

“You always hear”: Interview and email, Stiffarm. The unconscious persistence of the view that before Columbus the Americas were uninhabited, or almost so, is amazing. As late as 1986 Bernard Bailyn, past president of the American Historical Society, published a book called The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction (Bailyn 1986). The book is about British immigration. But the title also suggests that before Europeans the land was not peopled. Indeed, Indians are almost not to be found in the text.

“crater”: Interview, Wilson; Wilson 1999.

4 / Frequently Asked Questions

De Soto: Duncan 1995; Mena 1930:264–66 (Challcochima). De Soto, Hemming observed, was “as brutal as any other conquistador. He [led] the force that raped the mamaconas [nuns, more or less] of Cajas during the march toward Cajamarca. His reputation among some modern writers of being more humane than his companions is undeserved” (Hemming 2004:555).

De Soto expedition: The numbers of men and animals differ somewhat in different accounts. I use Ramenofsky 1987:59. The basic sources are “Gentleman of Elvas” 1922 and its apparent predecessor, Fernández de Biedma 1922. These and other documents are collected in Clayton, Knight, and Moore eds. 1993. The state of scholarly knowledge is assayed in Galloway ed. 1997. Popular accounts include Wilson 1999:134–37; Morgan 1993:72–75; Parkman 1983 (vol. 1):28–31.

Hudson’s reconstruction of route: Interview, Hudson; Hudson 1993. For a fierce debate on the reliability of these reconstructions, see Henige 1993; Hudson, DePratter, and Smith 1993; Hudson et al. 1994.

De Soto’s passage over Mississippi: “Gentleman of Elvas” 1922 (vol. 1):112–17 (all quotes, 113); Fernández de Biedma 1922 (vol. 2):25–28. See also Rollings 1995:39–40.

La Salle expedition: Parkman 1983 (vol. 1):920–30.

Contrast between De Soto and La Salle’s experiences: Author’s interviews, Galloway, Hudson, Ramenofsky; Ramenofsky 1987:55–63; Burnett and Murray 1993:228.

Pigs as source for epidemic: Ramenofsky and Galloway 1997:271–73; Crosby 1986:172–76, 212–13 (suggesting epidemic disease may also have come before De Soto), 273; Crosby 2003b:77 (importance of pigs to Spanish).

Indian lack of domesticated animals, lactose intolerance: Crosby 1986:19, 27; Ridley 2000:192–94. Francisco Guerra notes that the Philippines did not experience epidemics from colonization, though its inhabitants were as isolated as Indians. The critical difference, he suggests, was the existence of domesticated animals, especially pigs, in the Philippines (Guerra 1988:323).

Caddo and Coosa: Perttula 1993, 1991:512–14; M. T. Smith 1994:264–65; M. T. Smith 1987.

Mass graves in the Southeast: M. T. Smith 1987:60–68.

1918 flu epidemic: Crosby 2003a.

Plague origin, losses: Epidemiologists increasingly question whether the Black Death was bubonic plague. Rats and