Editor,
My letter in the Oct. 24 Daily Lobo, "We need Native American history lesson," had a grave error in editing. My letter stated, "One and a half million or more native people were on the North American continent at the time of first European contact ." The published version reduced my figure considerably to "more than half a million ."
My error was correctly pointed out the next day in the form of a letter from George Ann Gregory, author of "Holocaust of Native America," stating the population at contact was between 18-22 million.
The fact that population and death estimates vary so greatly should make us wonder just how insignificant native people were to the invaders and the rest of us settlers.
The point is, many more may have died - and are still dying - at our hands than Jews by Nazis, to whom we feel so superior.
Susan Andress Bontrager
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UNM student
Editor's Note: The error pointed out in this letter was made in editing and the Daily Lobo regrets the mistake.
