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Decline of Native Populations
When Christopher Columbus' three ships anchored off the coast of San Salvador, little did anyone, European or native, realize the magnitude of the impacts of the Old World meeting the New. The Spanish, who sponsored Columbus, were initially attracted to the wealth of the large complex societies of Mesoamerica. Rumors led the Spanish to believe that similar societies existed in the Southeast. Early in the 1500s, Spanish expeditions probed deep into the Southeast.

Some of the first estimates of pre-European native populations in the Southeast occurred in the early 1900s (Kroeber 1939). They were based on early English accounts, following dramatic population declines that resulted in the low estimates. Pre-European native populations of the Southeast were substantial. More recent estimates such as Dobyns (1983), have postulated larger populations not only for the Southeast, but also for the entire Western Hemisphere. Dobyns (1983) estimates native populations in the Southeast at 1.5 to 2 million people at 1500. Today population estimates are based on greater understanding of the impacts of epidemics along with the increased knowledge of the complex civilizations of the Mississippian chiefdoms.

European expeditions introduced Old World diseases that would shake the foundations of every American Indian culture in the Western Hemisphere. Of all the organisms Europeans carried to America, none were more devastating to southeastern Natives than Old World diseases (Hudson 1976, Smith 1987).

Before 1492, America was not disease free, but native diseases derived from the age-old human problems of population density, diet, and sanitation. During the period of European contact, disease-related mortality rose to levels previously unknown; and the impact of these diseases was swift and harsh. In areas of the Caribbean, entire native populations were erased. These epidemic diseases were transported from the Caribbean to Mexico and Central America and may have preceded the arrival of the Spanish in these areas (Lovell 1992, Verano and Ubelaker 1992). Epidemic diseases were introduced to the natives of the Southeast at about the same time (Thornton and others 1992). During the 100 years of Spanish exploration, disease decimated the dominant Mississippian cultures of the Southeast and resulted in their collapse by 1600 (Smith 1987).

European diseases not only depopulated American Indian cultures (depopulation is estimated as high as 90 to 95 percent), they disrupted the social structure of native societies. As in all epidemics, mortality was disproportionably greater among the young and old. Loss of the younger generation had profound effects on the integrity of American Indian societies. The loss of manpower created difficulties maintaining agricultural systems and fire regimes. Loss of the elderly eliminated a storehouse of knowledge, tradition, and custom (Hartley 1977, Hudson 1976, Smith 1987).

The arrival of the English continued the epidemic diseases and decimation of American Indians for at least another century. English trade with the natives lured them into dependence on the European fur market for European goods, which in turn diminished the traditional reasons for hunting, while devastating wildlife populations (Hartley 1977, Hudson 1976, Smith 1987). As the fire regimes and agricultural systems gradually eroded, the appearance of the land began to change. Uncontrolled vegetation began to form an unbroken shroud. The extensive canelands witnessed by English settlers as they pushed inland were signs that the thousands-of-years-old fire ecosystems created by the natives were in decline (Platt and Brantley 1997).