Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:11:01.663Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inequality Amidst Nutritional Abundance: Native Americans on the Great Plains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2010

Richard H. Steckel
Richard H. Steckel*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The heights of Plains nomads collected by Franz Boas varied by 9 centimeters, following an inverted U-shape by latitude, a pattern also found among Union Army soldiers born east of the Plains. To understand tribal differences, I bring new explanatory variables to the table in the study of historical heights: proxies for effort prices in hunting and gathering food, including biomass, rainfall estimated from tree rings, and tribal area, as well as proximity to trails used by western settlers and movement to reservations. Collectively, these variables explain a substantial share of the systematic variation in average height across tribes.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 265 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Berkhofer, Robert F. Jr. “White Conceptions of Indians.” In History of Indian-White Relations, Vol. 4 of Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Washburn, Wilcome E., 522–47. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1988.Google Scholar
Burke, James Wakefield.Missions of Old Texas. South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes, 1971.Google Scholar
Carlson, Leonard A.Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land: The Dawes Act and the Decline of Indian Farming. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Cook, Edward R., et al. “Drought Reconstructions for the Continental United States.” Journal of Climate 12, no. 4 (1999): 1145–62.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, Dora L., and Steckel, Richard H.. “Long-Term Trends in Health, Welfare, and Economic Growth in the United States.” In Health and Welfare During Industrialization, edited by Steckel, Richard H. and Floud, Roderick, 47–89. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.Google Scholar
DeMallieRaymond J., ed. Raymond J., ed.Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 13, Plains, Parts 1–2. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
DeMallieRaymond J., ed. Raymond J., ed. “Sioux Until 1850.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 718–60. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
DeMallie, Raymond J., and Miller, David Reed. “Assiniboine.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 572–95. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Hugh A. “Blackfoot.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 604–28. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
Dobyns, Henry F. “Native American Trade Centers as Contagious Disease Foci.” In Disease and Demography in the Americas, edited by Verano, John W. and Ubelaker, Douglas H., 215–22. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1992.Google Scholar
Eidenshink, Jeff. “Coterminous U.S. Weekly Average NDVI Values, 1989–2005.” Data CD, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS), U.S. Geological Survey. Sioux Falls, SD.Google Scholar
Ewers, John Canfield.The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture: With Comparative Material from Other Western Tribes. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1955.Google Scholar
Ewers, John Canfield.“The Influence of Epidemics on the Indian Populations and Cultures of Texas.” Plains Anthropologist 18, no. 1 (1973): 104–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Loretta. “Arapaho.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 840–62. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
Gould, Benjamin Apthorp.Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers. Vol. 2. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869.Google Scholar
Grissino-Mayer, Henri D. “Ultimate Tree-Ring Web Pages.” Available at http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/.Google Scholar
Hoxie, Frederick E.A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Isenberg, Andrew C.“Indians, Whites, and the Buffalo: An Ecological History of the Great Plains, 1750–1900.” Northwestern University, 1993.Google Scholar
Jantz, Richard L.“The Anthropometric Legacy of Franz Boas.” Economics and Human Biology 1, no. 2 (2003): 277–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kavanagh, Thomas W. “Comanche.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 886–906. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
Komlos, John.“Access to Food and the Biological Standard of Living: Perspectives on the Nutritional Status of Native Americans.” American Economic Review 93, no. 1 (2003): 252–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuchler, A. W.Potential Natural Vegetation of the Conterminous United States. New York: American Geographical Society, 1975.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard B. “What Hunters Do for a Living, or How to Make It on Scarce Resources.” In Man the Hunter, edited by Lee, Richard B. and DeVore, Irven, 30–48. Chicago: Aldine, 1968.Google Scholar
Levy, Jerrold E. “Kiowa." In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 907–25. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
Marsden, Michael T., and Nachbar, Jack. “The Indian in the Movies.” In History of Indian-White Relations, Vol. 4 of Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Washburn, Wilcomb E., 607–16. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Insitution, 1988.Google Scholar
Moore, John H.The Cheyenne Nation: A Social and Demographic History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Moore, John H.The Cheyenne. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996.Google Scholar
MooreJohn H., Margot P. Liberty John H., Margot P. Liberty, and Straus, A. Terry. “Cheyenne.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C.. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
National Geophysical Data Center. “Reconstructed Pdsi Data Files.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2004.Google Scholar
Palmer, Wayne C.“Meterological Drought.” Washington, DC: U.S. Weather Bureau, Research Paper No. 45, 1965.Google Scholar
Prince, Joseph M., and Steckel, Richard H.. “Nutritional Success on the Great Plains: Nineteenth-Century Equestrian Nomads.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33, no. 3 (2003): 353–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, Roland.Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Smith, Vernon L.“The Primitive Hunter Culture, Pleistocene Extinction, and the Rise of Agriculture.” Journal of Political Economy 83, no. 4 (1975): 727–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Vernon L. “Humankind in Prehistory: Economy, Ecology, and Institutions.” In The Political Economy of Customs and Culture: Informal Solutions to the Commons Problem, edited by Anderson, Terry L. and Simmons, Randy T., 157–84. Lantham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993.Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard H.“The Economic Foundations of East-West Migration During the Nineteenth Century.” Explorations in Economic History 20, no. 1 (1983): 14–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steckel, Richard H.“Stature and the Standard of Living.” Journal of Economic Literature 33, no. 4 (1995): 1903–40.Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard H., and Prince, Joseph. “Tallest in the World: Native Americans of the Great Plains in the Nineteenth Century.” American Economic Review 91, no. 1 (2001): 287–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturtevant, William C., ed. Handbook of North American Indians. 20 vols. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978–.Google Scholar
Sundstrom, Linea.“Smallpox Used Them Up: References to Epidemic Disease in Northern Plains Winter Counts, 1714–1920.” Ethnohistory 44, no. 2 (1997): 305–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, John.“Sociocultural Effects of Epidemics on the Northern Plains: 1734–1850.” Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 7, no. 4 (1977): 55–81.Google Scholar
Thornton, Russell.American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492. 1st edition.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Trimble, Michael K.“Infectious Disease and the Northern Plains Horticulturists: A Human Behavior Model.” Plains Anthropologist 34, no. 123 (1989): 41–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voget, Fred W. “Crow.” In Handbook of North American Indians, edited by Sturtevant, William C., 695–717. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001.Google Scholar
West, Elliott.The Way to the West: Essays on the Central Plains. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.Google Scholar