Native Colombia: Contact, Conquest and Colonial Populations

Abstract

Studies done on Colombia’s population history during the last three decades have been influenced by the ideas, methods and approaches of Woodrow Borah. We will discuss three issues that he and Sherburne Cook considered in the course of their work on Latin American demography – probable size of native populations on the eve of European contact; the effects of climate and elevation on the intensity of different groups’ decline; and the impact on native populations of diseases brought from the Old World to the New. We examine the information available on Colombia’s diverse highland and lowland regions, and in that context explore questions that have arisen recently regarding nutrition and health levels of native people prior to European conquest.