456 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 73 
to mount up much beyond that point, hut later figures show that this 
was due to the inclusion of an almost equal number of Negro freedmen 
among them. Actually we find that the proportion of full bloods 
has decreased and that the maintenance of their numbers exclusive 
of freedmen has been due to an extensive contribution of white and 
Negro blood. Like the Chickasaw, the Creeks show a considerable 
increase during the last part of the eighteenth century and the first 
part of the nineteenth, in spite of the many Indians who removed to 
Florida. This growth may have been in part fictitious since, when a 
census was taken in 1857, both Creeks and Seminole were found much 
less numerous than had been supposed. Nevertheless the figures for 
the Seminole which can be checked show that before these tribes were 
removed to the West they were populous. Their losses during the emi- 
gration and in the period during which they were trying to adapt them- 
selves to their new surroundings may account in part for the discrepancy, 
although in the case of the Creeks there may have been some frauds 
due to the intrigues of designing contractors. Still the Creeks can 
hardly have been less than 15,000, and 20,000 would not be an exces- 
sive estimate for the mother tribe of a people of 5,000 like the Semi- 
nole. From time to time these tribeshave undergone periods of increase 
and decrease. As in the case of the Chickasaw, their apparent strength 
has been augmented by including Negro freedmen, descendants of 
those slaves formerly held by the Indians. In the case of the Creeks, 
Seminole, and Choctaw, however, the Negroes were not so numerous, 
being a little more than one-third instead of a little less than one- 
half. The number of Creek and Seminole full bloods has also declined 
progressively. In 1908 rather more than half of both were returned 
as full-blood Indians, but I am confident that the actual number is 
very much smaller, so small as to be barely a handful. In short the 
Indian blood in all of these tribes appears to be spreading out con- 
tinually, but it is spreading over a body of white and Negro blood 
ever greater in amount, while the Indian blood becomes less and less. 
Perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we assume a Creek population 
of about 7,000 in 1700, 12,000 in 1750-1760, 20,000 in 1832, 15,000 
in 1857, 10,000 in 1898 (exclusive of freedmen), and 7,000 in 1910. 
For the Seminole we may give the following estimates : 1,500 in 1780, 
4,750 in 1821, 2,500 in 1857, 3,500 in 1892, 2,500 in 1906 (including 
freedmen), and down to the present time, with the same increase of 
white and Negro blood. For the Chickasaw: 3,000 to 3,500 in 1700, 
2,000 in 1715, 1,500 in 1750-1770, 3,600 in 1821, 5,000 in 1836, 4,000 
in 1910. For the Choctaw: 15,000 in 1700, 21,000 in 1831, 16,000 in 
1910, with the reservations above made. 
