Native Americans restricted births to keep class standing, enabling biological replacement by immigrants

Evidence

Walker argued in 1891 that the reproductive decline was occurring largely among the native population and that immigration rather than domestic conditions was responsible for it. In order to compete with cheap foreign labor, he said, Americans preferred to reduce the size of their families rather than lower their standard of living. Thus the foreign-born were actually replacing the native stock, not reinforcing it; in the very act of maintaining social and economic superiority, native Americans were undergoing biological defeat. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 853

Categorization

• SHARE: Walker’s birth-rate theory — choosing thinner families over lower living standards as a competitive response — is a perfect nerdy snippet for anyone into demographic transition theory or nativism.
• XREF: connects to: Immigrant rights double as the metric of native working-class citizenship vigor — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 935; Restricting immigration redirected eugenicists and energized assimilationist cultural work — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 835; Settlers often integrated with the native population instead of exterminating them — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 107 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Birth certificates and permitted birthing practices confer or deny social standing #corroborates (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1708
• Restricting immigration redirected eugenicists and energized assimilationist cultural work #expands (0.78) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 835
• Immigrant rights double as the metric of native working-class citizenship vigor #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 935
• Settlers often integrated with the native population instead of exterminating them #qualifies (0.72) — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 107