72 Inasmuch 



tion was ever greatly in excess of its numbers at 

 the present time. The chief concentrations, of the 

 native races, were found along the coast lines, 

 both east and west. In these regions contact 

 with the white race was abrupt, demoralizing, 

 and terribly destructive; reducing the aborigines, 

 it is estimated, by at least one half of their 

 numbers. &quot;The destruction by disease and dis 

 sipation has been greatest along the Pacific 

 Coast, where also the original population was 

 most numerous.&quot; A squaw, the last of her race, 

 died a few years ago in Newfoundland. Along 

 the coasts of New England, and farther south, 

 whole tribes have disappeared. Eliot s Bible is 

 now a literary curiosity ; of the people for whom it 

 was prepared not one representative remains 

 alive. 



New In several respects, however, the new arrivals 



Arrivals, Qn ^ crea t e d a new set of conditions which con- 



Conditions tinued an old state of affairg Tribal warg and 



child mortality always operated to keep the native 

 population very low. Shortly before the arrival 

 of the white man the Iroquois had exterminated 

 the Eries, and shortly after his arrival they des 

 troyed the Hurons, the Tobacco nation, the 

 Nipissings, and the Neutrals. It is probable, 

 also, that if all the sections of the Six Nations, 

 Canadian and American, were assembled they 

 could, to-day, place in the field as large a force 

 of warriors as their forebears could command 

 when the Dutch formed with them the first 

 4 Covenant Chain. The crime of the white man 



