ABSTRACT
In order to understand the contemporary character and distribution of Indian populations in Latin America, it is necessary to know something about the nature of indigenous societies at the time of European discovery. European conquest radically disturbed the aboriginal societies. The European strategy was to capture single families and individuals and force them to become household servants or to work as agricultural slaves. European culture was structurally complex, representing a state level of organization. In Central America, interior Venezuela, and the vast Amazon Basin, the aboriginal populations were relatively sparse at the time of European contact. Warfare may also serve to keep populations dispersed so as not to overexploit the limited resources of the tropical environment. By far the most significant indigenous populations, in terms both of numbers and of their place in national society, are the modern Indian types found in Indo-America, comprising most of Mexico, Guatemala, and the central Andean countries of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
