Here you go; the Taino population and decline:
[h=2]Population decline[
edit][/h]Early population estimates of Hispaniola, probably the most populous island inhabited by Taínos, range from 100,000 to 1,000,000 people. The maximum estimates for Jamaica and Puerto Rico are 600,000 people.[SUP]
[37][/SUP] The Spanish priest
Bartolomé de Las Casas (who had lived in
Santo Domingo) wrote in his 1561 multi-volume
History of the Indies:[SUP]
[38][/SUP]
There were 60,000 people living on this island [when I arrived in 1508], including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war,
slavery and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this?
Researchers today doubt Las Casas's figures for the pre-contact levels of the Taíno population, considering them an exaggeration. For example, Anderson Córdova estimates a maximum of 500,000 people inhabiting the island.[SUP]
[39][/SUP] The Taíno population estimates vary a great deal, from a few hundred thousand up to 8,000,000.[SUP]
[40][/SUP] They had no resistance to
Old World diseases, notably smallpox.[SUP]
[41][/SUP] The encomienda system brought many Taíno to work in the fields and mines in exchange for Spanish
protection,[SUP]
[42][/SUP]
education, and a seasonal salary.[SUP]
[43][/SUP] Under the pretense of searching for gold and other materials,[SUP]
[44][/SUP] many Spaniards took advantage of the regions now under control of the
anaborios and Spanish
encomenderos to exploit the native population by stealing their
land and
wealth. It would take some time before the Taíno revolted against their oppressors — both Indian and Spanish alike — and many military campaigns before
Emperor Charles V eradicated the
encomienda system as a form of slavery.[SUP]
[45][/SUP][SUP]
[46][/SUP]
In thirty years, between 80% and 90% of the Taíno population died.[SUP]
[47][/SUP] Because of the increased number of people (Spanish) on the island, there was a higher demand for food. Taíno cultivation was converted to Spanish methods. In hopes of frustrating the Spanish, some Taínos refused to plant or harvest their crops. The supply of food became so low in 1495 and 1496 that some 50,000 died from the severity of the famine.[SUP]
[48][/SUP] Historians have determined that the massive decline was due more to infectious disease outbreaks than any warfare or direct attacks.[SUP]
[49][/SUP][SUP]
[50][/SUP] By 1507 their numbers had shrunk to 60,000. Scholars believe that
epidemic disease (
smallpox,
influenza,
measles, and
typhus) was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the indigenous people.[SUP]
[51][/SUP][SUP]
[52][/SUP][SUP]
[53][/SUP]
