LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 
bo 
WATERFORD, WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO, 
iS ; November 3, 1876. 
My DEAR Sir: Your letter asking me to modify my estimates as to the aborig- 
inal population of California has been received and carefully considered. When you 
wished me to strike out the matter relating to origin and language, I did it cheerfully, 
because I was obliged to admit that it was written somewhat superficially on a subject 
that demanded profound study. But this is a different case. 1 traveled years in Cali- 
fornia, penetrated the remotest valleys, and talked with scores of trustworthy men— 
men like General Bidwell, Judge Steele, Representative Fairchild, and others—who 
had been among the Indians ten, twenty, thirty years, and seen them in their prime. 
These men gave me solid facts respecting their own limited areas. I know that the 
estimates of pioneers as to the population of large tracts are often wild and unreliable, 
but they should certainly be able to give a close guess as to single villages or valleys 
only a few miles square. 
What can I do with these facts? Take, for instance, the census made by Ormond 
along the lower Klamath; take the statement of Captain Sutter that he had over 400 
Indians, old and young, about him at Fort Sutter; take the statement of Claude 
Cheney that he had 50 or 60 about him on his ranch; take the figures of the old 
padres, which show that there were about 4,000 at San Miguel Mission at one time. 
In 1831 there were 18,683 Indians domesticated at the various missions of the State. 
Take the statement of General Bidwell that, in 1849, there must have been 1,000 
Indians in the single village where Colusa now stands; suppose he estimated the 
number twice too large; take 500; and now there are not above 20. How can I fly in 
the face of such facts as these? The State is full of them. Kit Carson says there 
were thousands in Napa Valley in 1829; but in 1859 he could not find a tenth, no, not 
a twentieth, part of them, and now there are not 50 in the whole valley. 
* * * * * * * 
I have the greatest respect for your views and beliefs, and, with your rich fund 
of personal experience and observation; if you desire to cut out the paragraph and 
insert one under your own signature, in brackets, or something of that kind, I will 
submit without a murmur, if you will add this remark, as quoted from myself, to wit: 
“T desire simply to ask the reader to remember that Major Powell has been accus- 
tomed to the vast sterile wastes of the interior of the continent, and has not visited 
the rich forests and teeming rivers of California.” But I should greatly prefer that 
you would simply disavow the estimates, and throw the whole responsibility upon me. 
This permission I give you; but I have waded too many rivers and climbed too 
many mountains to abate one jot of my opinions or beliefs for any carpet-knight who 
wields a compiling-pen in the office of the — or —. If any critic, sitting in 
his comfortable parlor in New York, and reading about the sparse aboriginal popula- 
tions of the cold forests of the Atlantic States, can overthrow any of my conclusions 
