American River Names

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/4/01 11:19:52 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
mclasutt at brigham.net writes:

> In this environment, I think it's more of a question of conquerors'
> attitudes, technological superiority, and speed of conquest, than of any
> population density issue.

-- in the European conquest of the Western Hemisphere, epidemological factors
were dominant.  I very much doubt the advent of a new population group was
ever accompanied by a centuries-long population decline of the magnitude we
saw in the post-Columbian Americas.

Population density did matter in most of the Spanish Empire; note the number
of Nahuatl words in Mexican Spanish, as compared to the relative absence of
loan-words in, say, Argentina.