Editing Abenaki (section)

==Population and epidemics==
Before the Abenaki, except the Pennacook and [[Mi'kmaq]], had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contact with European fishermen resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 16th century. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was [[typhus]] in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English colonization of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the [[The Maritimes|Canadian Maritimes]]. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75 per, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. The more isolated Western Abenaki suffered fewer fatalities, losing about half of their original population of 10,000.<ref name="Sultzman"/>

The new diseases continued to strike in epidemics, starting with [[smallpox]] in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with [[influenza]] passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and [[diphtheria]] came through 10 years later. Smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with [[measles]], 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758.<ref name="Sultzman"/>

The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and [[King Philip's War]]. Because of this, descendants of nearly every southern New England Algonquian tribe can be found among the Abenaki people. A century later, fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remained after the [[American Revolution]].

In the [[1990 United States census|1990 US census]], 1,549 people identified themselves as Abenaki. So did 2,544 people in the [[2000 United States census|2000 US census]], with 6,012 people claiming Abenaki heritage.<ref name=UXL /> In 1991 Canadian Abenaki numbered 945; by 2006 they numbered 2,164.<ref name=UXL />