Population. In the middle of the 18th century, when Russians first
explored the place, the islands were nearly
all inhabited. The number
of the Aleuts was estimated at approximately
25,000. Mass murder
and enslavement of the natives reduced their
numbers drastically.
According to the data supplied by the
missionary I. Veniaminov in
1834 there were less than 2,500 Aleuts left.
The 1918 epidemics of
smallpox and grippe took a further toll. In
1945 the anthropologist A.
Hrolicka estimated the number of Aleuts at
about 1,400. Nowadays
the world number of the Aleuts is believed to
be about 6,000. Part of
the Eskimos of southeastern and southern
Alaska also consider
themselves Aleut. In the 1970s there were
about 500 Aleuts living on
the Commander Islands, but by 1984 their
number had dropped to
300. On the US part of the Aleutian Islands a
census was carried out
in 1960 according to whose data there were
2,100 Aleut (mostly
half-bred) who made up 35 % of the local
population.
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