ABSTRACT

The expansion of white women across the American continent during the early nineteenth century could not have occurred without the dispossession of the Indian women and their families who had lived there for centuries. This dispossession had a long history. Before the arrival of Columbus, the Indian population of North America was at least 4 million and may have been as high as 18 million. Yet by 1600 it numbered less than 1 million, and by 1750 it had fallen to 600,000.