How many Indians remained in Virginia by the mid-1660s?

• A. 24,000
• B. 6,000
• C. Only 2,000 remained from 24,000
• D. 10,000

Answer: (C)

This question is about how Native populations in Virginia changed after English settlement and why only a small number remained by the mid-1660s. The big idea is that Indigenous communities faced a dramatic decline due to exposure to new diseases, repeated conflicts with settlers, and loss of land and resources to plantation expansion. By the mid-1660s, historians estimate only about two thousand Indigenous people remained in Virginia, a stark drop from roughly twenty‑four thousand at the start of English settlement. The other numbers would imply far less decline than occurred, which doesn’t fit the strong pattern of depopulation and displacement seen in this period.