SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Reading edition
From the data presented in detail in the last section we may now derive the aboriginal population of the San Joaquin Valley as a whole.
Region Population
Tulare Lake Basin 6,500
Kaweah River 7,600
Merced River 3,500
Kings River9,100
Mariposa, Fresno, Chowchilla, upper San Joaquin 19,000
Southern San Joaquin Valley 6,900
Northern San Joaquin Valley
Delta area9,350
Lower Cosumnes5,200
Lower Mokelumne5,720
Lower San Joaquin, Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus 6,800 27,070
Foothill strip (central and northern Miwok) 4,150
Total 83,820
The total, 83,820, is more than four times as large as the population estimated to be surviving in 1850 (19,000) and much exceeds any previous estimate advanced by modern students of the California Indians.
Dr. C. Hart Merriam in 1905 computed the population of the entire state of California as 260,000, of whom perhaps one-fifth may have occupied the San Joaquin Valley, although Merriam does not attempt to assess the population of this area as such. Kroeber discusses the matter at length in the Handbook (pp. 488-491, 880-891) and concludes that the population of the whole state was 133,000. Of these the Yokuts had 18,000, the Miwok (Plains and Sierra) 9,000, the Western Mono about 1,000, and the peripheral tribes in the south perhaps 2,000, a total of 30,000. Schenck is more liberal, since for the delta region he allows for a spread of between 3,000 and 15,000 persons. The present estimate for the same area, as closely as it can be determined, is in the vicinity of 13,000, or within Schenck's limits although toward his upper extreme.
Since the data and reasoning upon which the present figure of 83,820 is based are set forth in detail in the preceding pages there is little value in repeating them, nor will anything be gained by attempting a rebuttal to the arguments presented by Kroeber. At the same time the author may be permitted to recapitulate three points wherein he thinks many modern scholars have been misled.
1. All available information from the Spanish and Mexican sources must be consulted. To confine an argument or an estimate to a single account, such as that by Moraga, may lead to a false impression. Kroeber seems to have been thus deceived in his discussion of the population of the Yokuts.
2. It must be remembered that in the central valley, as contrasted perhaps with an area like the Klamath River, no informants speaking since 1900, and particularly since 1920, can possibly have furnished a true picture of conditions prior to the Spanish invasion in the decade following 1800.
3. The depletion of population in the San Joaquin Valley between 1800 and 1850 was far greater than has been appreciated, although the basic facts have always been recognized. Warfare, massacre, forced conversion, starvation, and exposure all took a tremendous toll of life but the sweeping epidemics of the 1830's were even more devastating. Together these forces destroyed in the aggregate fully 75 per cent of the aboriginal population.