440 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY Tbdll. 7.T 
From southern Florida we have only the most general statements. 
All agree that the most populous tribe by far was the Calusa, and 
several say that the Ais were "the most numerous of all on the Atlantic 
seaboard. But in details there is no approximation to uniformity. 
Thus one writer states that there were more than 70 Calusa towns/ 
and another "more than 600," not including tributaries. 1 In any 
case these "towns" were nothing more than small hunting and fishing 
camps, the south Florida Indians not having been addicted to agricul- 
ture. In another place I have given a list of 56 Calusa towns with 
their names. 2 An expedition sent into the Calusa country in 1680 
passed through five villages said to have a total population of 960. 
From about this time on the population would probably show a 
steady decline had we the- means of registering it. 
In 1778 Bartram says of the Seminole: 
All of them, I suppose, would not be sufficient to people one of the towns in the 
Museogulge; for instance, the Uches on the main branch of the Apalachucla River, 
which alone contains near two thousand inhabitants. 3 
He probably much exaggerated the number of Yuchi, but there 
is reason to believe that his estimate for the Seminole was not far 
wrong. Upon the whole, it appears likely that the older Seminole 
with whom Bartram had to deal, those living in the peninsula before 
the Creek- American war, constituted about one-third of the total 
number after the refugees from the Upper Creeks had been incorpo- 
rated, and this would make them 1 ,500 or a little more. The Semi- 
nole seem to have been underestimated in most of the reports made 
of them. Joseph M. White, secretary to the Commission for Land 
Titles in Florida, and Mr. Penieres, subagent for Indian affairs, esti- 
mated them at about 3,000, 4 and figures are given as low as 2,000. 
In 1823, however, an actual count was furnished by the Indians 
themselves, in which 4,883 were returned, exclusive of Negroes. 5 
Later, as various bands of Seminole were captured and sent west, the 
numbers of the bands are given, and we find a total of about 4,000. 
When we allow for those who had been killed or who had died from 
other causes, and those who escaped enumeration in one way or 
another, the correctness of the Indian figure appears to be indicated. 
Another estimate by Mr. Penieres to the effect that there were about 
1,200 warriors would agree with this very well. 6 In 1836 the United 
States Indian Office reported 3,765 Seminole in the west, 7 and in 
i Lowery, MSS. 5 Ibid., p. 439. 
a See pp. 331-333. 6 ibid., p. 411. 
s Bartram, Travels, p. 209. 7 Rept. Oomm. Ind. An", for 1846, p. 397. 
* Am. State Papers, Ind. Afl., n, pp. 411, 413-414. 
