American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century (review)

American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century. By Nancy Shoemaker. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. xiii + 156 pp., preface, figures, tables, appendix, index. $39.95 cloth.) "

In the conclusion of this 1999 publication, historian Nancy Shoemaker recalls that when asked that oh so common question of demographers, “And so what was the Indian population in 1492?” she came to answer, “I don’t know, but today there are about two million Indians in the United States” (99). This exchange describes both the focus of American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century as well as one consequence of our typical fascination with Indian population decline. Namely, that it obscures the equally fascinating, and complex, phenomenon of Indian population growth over the last century. Shoemaker’s goal is to explore Indian population recovery and ultimately to explain how it happened, why the trend continues, and why it is important.

At the outset, Shoemaker observes two distinct but related population phenomena. One is a post-1940 increase related to broader demographic trends affecting mortality, life expectancy, and fertility; the other is the increasing tendency, since the U.S. Census Bureau began allowing it in 1960, for Americans to identify themselves as Indian. While self-identification probably does inflate the Indian population, techniques exist to correct for presumed inaccuracies, and it should be remembered as well that this recent overcount follows decades in which the undercounting of Indian populations was the norm.

More perplexing are the gains made from 1900 to 1940, occurring as they did in times of deepening poverty in Indian country, desperate conditions that were documented in the 1928 Meriam Report and elsewhere. To unravel this riddle, Shoemaker employs a variety of demographic techniques and applies them to five tribes: Senecas of New York, Oklahoma Cherokees, Red Lake Ojibways, Yakamas, and Navajos. In five brief chapters she builds on her review of Indian demographic history and population histories of the five tribes under consideration to analyses of individual-level census data, linkages between cultural and economic factors and population recovery, and finally an assessment of the post-recovery (1940–80) situation.

What results is an interesting exploration into the population histories of these five tribes enlightened by comparisons with trends in white and black populations nationwide. Shoemaker’s grasp of demographic theories and techniques is impressive, as is her ability to present these complex theories clearly and directly. But if readers are seeking conclusive findings, they are not forthcoming. While she suggests that Navajos and Cherokees, the tribes demonstrating the highest rate of population recovery, share cultural values that favor the accumulation of wealth as well as comparatively less-complex household structures, she cautions against reaching for broad generalizations. Tellingly, and with more than a touch of irony, Shoemaker notes that “the key to a quick population recovery may have been to have a lot of contact with Euro-Americans—or as little as possible” (73).

That contact with Euro-Americans should prove to be among the least significant of factors accounting for population recovery is surprising—and important. Notable too is Shoemaker’s argument that demographic theories, developed with Euro-American assumptions in mind, often prove inadequate for explaining Indian population trends, particularly for the 1900–40 period. Not that she doesn’t try. Moving from data set to data set, shifting, sifting, combining and recombining, encountering techniques from Richard Easterlin’s frontier thesis of fertility (which she questions) to multiple classification analysis (which she finds useful), Shoemaker attempts to grab hold of a quantitative problem that seemingly resists quantification. In an interesting way, Shoemaker’s difficulties in this area reflect the challenges faced by ethnohistorians as they focus more intently on events of the last one hundred years and find greater levels, and indeed layers, of complexity—and paradox—than they had imagined.

So, we are left with specifics but somewhat at a loss for an overarching theme. Shoemaker does find a narrowing of...