Estimates of population for the southern New England area are
variable. The most widely quoted figure is that arrived at by
Mooney—25,000 for the entire New England area, prior to the 1616-17
plague.[5] Other writers place the number at around 20,000 for
southern New England alone.[6] In all likelihood, the lower number
is the more nearly correct. Population estimates made by visitors to
the New England area in the 16th and 17th centuries were based in the
main upon what could be observed in the course of a coastwide voyage.
And while Indian population appeared dense, the actual situation was
one of a considerably concentrated population along the immediate
coast, where rich marine resources were available, and a very sparse,
often seasonal, occupation of vast tracts further inland.[7]
By the time the Pilgrims arrived, the population of eastern
Massachusetts had declined greatly, as a result of the epidemic
which we have mentioned before. No one really knows what the disease
was that took such great numbers of Indians. The Massachusetts
were virtually destroyed—first by the plague and then by wars with
the Abnaki during the early decades of the seventeenth century.
Population declined from perhaps three thousand to a mere five
hundred between the years 1615 and 1630.[8] The Wampanoags had
suffered less, but the effects of the plague were still felt heavily
by them. Prior to the plague their numbers are estimated to have
been two to three thousand, but death depopulated large tracts of
land.[9] Altham writes that the nearest Indian town to Plymouth was
fourteen miles away.[10] Gookin called them, “a potent nation in
former times....”[11] In 1620 they numbered perhaps something over
one thousand.[12] The Narragansetts, however, were untouched by the
plague; they are said to have numbered some four thousand.[13]
The general result of the settlement of Europeans in New England was
to further the trend of Indian depopulation. Whereas the Europeans
might hope to have developed or inherited a degree of immunity to
the diseases which they carried, such infections proved fatal to
the Indians almost without exception. In 1632-33 the Narragansetts
suffered a smallpox epidemic which killed some seven hundred, and
at the same time it destroyed what remained of the Massachusetts
tribe.[14] The well-meaning attempts of missionaries to Christianize
the Indians by civilizing them and putting them into European clothes
and houses also brought changes to the detriment of their general
health. The “civilized” custom of washing, for example, removed the
coating of animal fat that the Indian customarily wore to protect
himself from cold and insects and exposed his body to previously
unknown physiological shocks. Wars of the colonial period also took
their toll of the Indian population.
As far as can be told from available information, the density of
population in New England just prior to European colonization was .22
Indians per square mile.[15]