Stannard estimates that the Hispaniola population declined to what number between 1492 and 1535?

• A. 1,000,000
• B. 500,000
• C. 50,000
• D. 200,000

Answer: (D)

The question tests understanding of how quickly Indigenous populations in the Caribbean collapsed after European contact, and the scale Stannard assigns to that collapse for Hispaniola. Stannard argues that the Taíno population on Hispaniola plummeted to about 200,000 by the 1530s, after Columbus’s arrival in 1492, due mainly to introduced diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, which spread through communities with no prior exposure. Enslavement and brutal colonial conditions amplified mortality, but the central driver of the decline was disease and its rapid spread.

Seeing the number 200,000 as the best fit reflects the dramatic but not total extinction that Stannard describes—huge losses from a much larger pre-contact population, with the decline being far more severe than some higher estimates would suggest and far from as low as 50,000. This figure embodies the magnitude of the demographic impact of early colonial contact on Hispaniola.