136 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. i'x. 



by that of the relative ignorance of the various tribes at the 

 time they were treated with, and the urgeocy of their then 

 present wants. Looked at from this point of view, the transaction 

 loses altogether the aspect of an equitable purchase. It must 

 be evident that the Government, in such arrangements, does not 

 fully acknowledge the Indian title, the " territorial estate and 

 eminent dominion " being vested in the crown, and the claim of 

 the Indians restricted practically — though not patently in the 

 transactions as effected with the Indians — to right of compensa- 

 tion for the occupancy of their hunting grounds. 



It is very difficult to arrive at any certain conclusion regarding 

 the original number of the Indian population of this part of the 

 Continent. The New England tribes are, as we have seen, said 

 by some authorities to have each possessed several thousand war- 

 riors. The Iroquois were estimated by La Hontan at 70,000, 

 and the Hurons, at an earlier date, at from 30 to 40,000. Gar. 

 neau, on the contrary, gives, as the result of careful calculation, 

 numbers very much smaller, and supports them by remarks on 

 the exaggerated estimates of the notions formed by some travellers. 

 He allows, for instance, to the whole Algonquin race 90,000 

 only, and to the Hurons and Iroquois together 17,000. Though 

 the first estimates may be too great, these almost certainly err on 

 the other side. 



In the four eastern provinces of the Dominion, Ontario, Que- 

 bec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, 

 there are at the present day about 30,000 Indians, the remnant 

 of the former numerous population. A considerable number of 

 Indians in Quebec, and north of the settled districts, in the 

 northern and north-western part of Ontario, still remain in a con- 

 dition little, if at all, superior to that of their ante-Columbian 

 ancestors. Their lands, unsuited for agriculture, are not coveted 

 by the whites. They have only the advantage of a certain immu- 

 nity from pillage and war, and of being able to procure from the 

 Hudson Bay Company and other traders such articles of Euro- 

 pean manufacture as they may be able to afford. After describ- 

 ing the condition of these wild western tribes, Dr. Wilson, in the 

 last edition of his " Prehistoric Man," writes of them : " It is 

 not a little strange to find such pagan rites perpetuated among 

 nomads still wandering around the outskirts of settlements occu- 

 pied by descendants of colonists, who, upwards of three centuries 

 ago, transplanted to the shores of the St. Lawrence the arts and 



