ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which quantitative research approaches and statistical sources have constructed Indigenous peoples and Indigenous histories, often to negative effect, and gives voice to the efforts of Indigenous scholars and communities to transform those practices. There are three sections. The first section describes the practice of quantitative history in relation to Indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on demographic history. We identify key critiques of the field and discuss some of the broader methodological challenges of using quantitative methods to tell Indigenous histories. The second section focuses on the statistical sources used to inform historical representations of Indigenous peoples, with an emphasis on the national population census. In the third section we explore changes to the statistical field from one in which Indigenous peoples had no say to one in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to envision largescale data collection being carried out without the consent and active participation of Indigenous experts and communities. We argue that while there have been changes in terms of statistical coverage that will inform future history-telling, this has yet to translate fully into Indigenous agency in telling of our histories in that quantitative space, and this is where attention remains most needed.
