THE PERILS OF RAPID CIVILIZATION: 231 



believes that some 10,000 or more of the tribe are elsewhere than in 

 the Indian Territory, making 30,000 in all, and cites an enumeration 

 by the War Department in 1827, preparatory to their removal, showing 

 13,567 individuals at that time. If we do not accept the view of an 

 increase of one hundred per cent in a hundred years, we must at least 

 concede a gain of fifty per cent in the last fifty years, and it is proba- 

 ble that the increase has occurred mainly in that time. The same 

 authority says the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws are increasing in 

 numbers. The fifth tribe, the Seminoles, who, after our war with them, 

 in 1842, were reduced to three hundred, now number 2,560. * The 

 " Six Nations," who remained by preference in New York, rather than 

 migrate, are of course under circumstances permitting an accurate 

 census, and their numbers seem to remain constant at about 7,000. 



The remainder of the tribes are decreasing in numbers. This can 

 not be doubted. The figures of the Government reports of the aggre- 

 gate Indian population within the last fifty years are as follows : 1822, 

 457,000 ; 1830, 313,000 ; 1840, 400,000 ; 1855, 350,000 ; 1872, 300,000 ; 

 1879, 252,897. Even if we were to admit with Colonel Otis that such 

 enumerations are vague and unreliable, and that the aggregate num- 

 ber of Indians remains about the same that it has been for the past two 

 centuries, the increase of the civilized tribes necessarily implies the 

 decrease of the remainder to keep the total unchanged. 



The same thing is shown directly by the history of such of the 

 uncivilized tribes as by reason of fortuitous historical associations 

 have been brought under special observation. For instance, the Dela- 

 ware Indians, made famous by Penn's negotiations with them, were, 

 two hundred and fifty years ago, undoubtedly a large and powerful 

 tribe, occupying much of the present States of Pennsylvania (Central) 

 and New Jersey. In 1763 they had six hundred warriors, and it was 

 even proposed to organize this tribe into a fourteenth State of the 

 American Confederation, in 1778. After the Revolution, they re- 

 moved to Ohio, then to Missouri, then to Kansas, then to the Cherokee 

 country. Now the remains of the tribe in the Indian Territory num- 

 ber only about a thousand. The history of the Pueblo tribes confirms 

 the same view. In 1540 the Spanish explorers found these people as a 

 large and flourishing kingdom. Even making the great allowance which 

 modern investigation seems to show necessary for the exaggeration of 

 the Spaniards as to the power and wealth of the aborigines, even admit- 

 ting that there was never any Aztec or Maya empire,f and that what 

 did exist was only a military democracy or league of free tribes, it can 

 not be doubted that the tribes were of great strength and importance. 

 The ruined Pueblos themselves bear witness to this. In fact, it is only 

 twelve years ago (1872) since a census showed these Indians as num- 



* Report of the Indian Commissioner, 1879. 



f Vide T, W. Higginson, in " Harper's Monthly Magazine," August, 1882 ; also, Lewis 

 H. Morgan, in the "North American Review," April, 18*76. 



