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A Population History of North America

Posted on: Wednesday, 3 December 2003, 06:00 CST

MICHAEL R. HAINES and RICHARD H. STECKEL (eds.), A Population History of North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, xix + 736 p.

Large, edited volumes that seek to summarize the state of knowledge have been more popular among European demographers than with their North American colleagues. Thus, the appearance of this weighty book will be welcomed by specialists in the field, but even more by other historians and social scientists who need to know the demographic background of North America's populations in order to approach other topics in economic and social history.

The plan of the book is excellent and the editors deserve credit both for recruiting leading scholars as contributors and paying significant attention to regions and groups often overlooked in overviews of population history. Therefore, while the volume contains expected chapters on New France, Colonial America and Mexico's demographic transition, there are also very informative articles on the native populations of the continent, the African- American population and the Caribbean, a region that has often received too little attention.

It is impossible in a short review of such a large work to do more than highlight a few key aspects of its contents. I shall first note some striking findings that are presented and then focus on the chapters of greatest interest to readers of this journal, those dealing with Canada.

While many overviews of population history give only passing attention to the native population, usually pleading a lack of data, this book contains two extraordinary chapters by Russell Thornton and Douglas Ubelaker that provide a thorough review of our current knowledge. There is, to be sure, significant disagreement in the literature about the size of the native population prior to first contact with Europeans and on the mortality experience of the aboriginal peoples of the continent subsequent to that contact, but non-specialists will be amazed at the progress that has been made on what once seemed an insoluble problem.

Equally stimulating are the fine chapters by Michael Haines and Richard Steckel on the population of the United States in the "long" 19th century (1790-1920). Haines emphasizes the precocity of the decline in fertility among the white population of the United States, which was, as he emphasizes, still a largely rural, agricultural nation. Steckel does an outstanding job of bringing together disparate materials that help to tell the story of the African-American population during a period of exceptional social change. Steckel is careful to attend to both the slave population, largely concentrated in the South and West, and the free black population found in many other parts of the country. He underlines the easily forgotten point that the massive immigration of white Europeans during the 19th century substantially reduced the proportion of the American population that was African-American- despite a rapid natural increase of the black population throughout the period-from close to 20% in 1790 to less than 10% in 1920.

Canadian readers will be pleased to find that the editors (both American) gave ample space to Canada's population history. Unfortunately, the three chapters that deal with Canada are less rewarding than one might have wished. The chapter on New France by the team from the Universite de Montreal is a fine summary of their work, but it adds very little to what was contained in their 1993 publication, The First French Canadians. For historical demographers, it is a sad reflection of the winding down of their great project to reconstruct the composition of the population of French Canada. Two chapters by Marvin McInnis cover the rest of Canada's population history from 1760-1981. His chapter on the 20th century is a straightforward summary of the basic data, though remarkably thin on citations from the relevant literature. His chapter on the 19th century is more problematic. It is a challenging piece of work that will merit serious attention and critique. What is odd, however, is that it does not fit with the plan of the book. While all the other chapters made an effort to cover the existing literature and summarize the state of debate, McInnis chose to present his own original take on the situation, with little attention to the work of other authors. Indeed, he seems, at times, unaware of recent scholarship. Thus, he alludes to the importance of religious and cultural variations in demographic patterns and claims that limited attention has been paid to the topic. Yet the chapter contains no reference to the important work that has been done on this theme by a number of Quebec demographers, including Thornton, Olson, Gossage and Gauvreau.

In spite of some shortcomings, this volume does an excellent job of summarizing and assessing our knowledge of North America's population history. While only specialists will need to have a copy on their shelves, it will serve as a necessary reference for all whose work requires some knowledge of the demographic past.

Kevin McQuillan University of Western Ontario

Copyright Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, c/o Concordia University Department of Sociology and Anthropology Aug 2003

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