Revising the Conquest of Mexico: Smallpox, Sources, and Populations

The author questions some estimates of the size of central Mexicos population in the early sixteenth century at the time of the Spanish conquest. He also examines the available data concerning the decline of the indigenous population following the conquest with a focus on the role that smallpox may have played. He concludes that there is no reliable evidence for a massive pandemic of smallpox in Mexico that would have had a significant effect on Aztec mortality. (ANNOTATION)