Estimating Historical Age-Sex Distributions of a Tribal Population: A Case Study of the Hopi, 1900 to 1940

Abstract

Historical information on tribal populations in the United States is scattered and discontinuous. A significant part of the discontinuity is the gap between 1900 and 1970. This paper describes a process that may partially fill this gap by developing decennial age-sex data from 1900 to 1940. Where temporally consistent, we compare these estimates to those done by others. This work provides a point of departure for generating more demographic information about the Hopi from 1900 to 1940 and, ultimately, beyond 1970, a critical turning point regarding the increased availability of American Indian data from the U.S. Census Bureau. It also can serve as a starting point for a discussion that can lead to the refinement of our estimates and the generation of more demographic information for the Hopi and other tribal populations. The key to this work is the availability of (1) a tribal census for the tribe of interest in the 1930s or 1940s and (2) assembling for the tribe of interest the age-sex (and other) data collected by the then U.S. Bureau of the Census in the 1900 census. We conclude that such work would fill the demographic gap concerning the American Indian population between 1900 and 1970.

Keywords: Demography, Indigenous Population, Sovereignty, Social Justice, Tribal Census

DOI: 10.7176/HRL/56-04

Publication date: September 30^th 2025