ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the High Counters' use of written post-conquest sources and generally confine discussion to the works of Lesley B. Simpson, George M. Cook, and Woodrow W. Borah, as well as to Henry Dobyns, for this seems to be the direct line of descent of the baton. The Spanish began by having trouble estimating even the small numbers of Guanches in the Canaries — estimates of the population of Gran Canaria ranged from 6,000 to 60,000. The size of the aboriginal population of the Americas was the object of guessing games almost from the Discovery itself, and enjoyed a considerable vogue in the latter part of the eighteenth century. As an indication of the vast numbers of Indians available for baptism, Dobyns approvingly cited several cases where Motolinia justified his high figures by providing examples of hard working friars baptizing everyone in sight.
