44 DR. DANIEL WILSON ON 
in America the product is always superior to the two types that are mixed.” Henry, a 
traveller of the last century, who spent six years among the North American Indians, notes 
the confirmatory assurance given to him by a Cristineaux chief, that “the children borne by 
their women to Europeans were bolder warriors and better hunters than themselves.” 
Finally, of the hardy race of the Arctic Circle Dr. Kane says : “The half-breeds of the coast 
rival the Esquimaux in their powers of endurance.” There is also a fine race in Greenland, 
half Danes; and Dr. Rae informs me that numerous half-breed Eskimos are to be met 
with on the Labrador coast. They are taller and more hardy than the pure blooded Eski- 
mos; so that he always gave the preference to them as his guides. The Danish half- 
breeds are described by Dr. Henry Rink, in his “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,” 
as dating back to the earliest times of the colonization of Greenland. The mixed mar- 
riages, he says, “have generally been rich in offspring. The children for the most part 
grow up as complete Greenlanders ;” but the distinction between them and the native 
Eskimo, is unmistakable, although individuals of the hybrid offspring represent the 
mixture of Huropean and native blood in almost every possible proportion.* From the 
conquest of Mexico in 1520, and of Peru in 1534, this admixture of races of the Old and the 
New World has been going on in varying ratio according to the relative circumstances 
under which they meet. In Mexico and in the more civilized portions of South America the 
half-breeds are estimated to constitute fully one-fifth of the whole population, while the 
so-called “ colored people,” the descendants of European and African parentage now number 
not less than fifteen millions throughout the mainland and the Islands of North and 
South America. fF 
Throughout the northern, southern, and western States of America, on the Pacific 
slope, and in Canada, the growth of a mixed race of White and Indian blood has every- 
where taken place in the first period of settlement, when the frontier backwoodsman and 
the hunter were brought into contact with the native tribes. Along the borders of every 
frontier State a nearly exclusive male population is compelled to accept the services of the 
Indian women in any attempt at domestic life. The children grow up to share in perfect 
equality the rude life of their fathers. The new generation presents a mixed race of 
hardy trappers, mingling the aptitudes of both races in the wild life of the frontier. With 
the increase of population, and the more settled life of the clearing, the traces of mixed 
blood are lost sight of; but it is to a large extent only a repetition of what appears to have 
marked the advent of the Aryan immigrants into Europe. The new, but more civilized 
race predominated. Literal extermination, no doubt, did its work, and the aborigines to a 

* Among the Western Eskimos, in the vicinity of Alaska, there is evidence of Eskimo and Indian 
half-breeds, vide Tales and Traditions, Dr. Rink,p. 4. In the Southern States there are also traces of admixture of 
Indian and Negro blood; as among the Cherokees, who held numerous Negro slaves; but neither of those bybrid 
types is sufficiently numerous to be of enduring significance. 
+ In 1715 there were 58,000 Negroes in British America; in 1775 they had increased to 501,102. After the 
war of Independence the increase became more rapid. In 1790 they numbered 757,208 ; in 1800 they had increased 
to 893,041; and in 1818 to 1,191,864. At the date of Negro emancipation in 1865, there were, in round numbers, 
4,000,000 slaves ; in addition to the free coloured population. The immediate results tended for a time to check 
their progress. Nevertheless the census of 1880 sbowed the whole coloured population of the United States to 
number 6,580,793. The data for forming an estimate of the entire coloured population of the continent and islands 
of N. and 8. America are less definite: but I believe the numbers stated in the text to be based on a low estimate. 
Vide earlier estimates: Prehistoric Man, 3rd ed., vol. ii, p. 305. 
OO I 
