NO. 7 ABORIGINAL POPULATION OK AMERICA MOONL\ 25 



CENTRAL CANADA 



In this section we include the " Northwest Territories " of Canada 

 and other Canadian territories of the great central region between 

 (Ontario on the east and British Columbia and Alaska on the west, 

 together with the Arctic shores and rivers, but excluding small 

 portions of Keewatin and Manitoba {Canada, Eastern, and Central 

 States) and larger portions of Alberta and Saskatchewan (Plains).' 

 The several jurisdictions are officially designated as Manitoba, Al- 

 berta, and Saskatchewan provinces, Keewatin, Athabaska. Mackenzie, 

 and Franklin districts, and Yukon territory. The original population 

 may have been about 51,000. It is now about 28.000. of which one- 

 half belong to the Cree tribe ; about 5,500 are Eskimo and the rest are 

 of Athapascan stock. The period of first disturbance may be con- 

 veniently put at 1670, the date of the charter of the Hudson Bay Co., 

 which until recently controlled the whole vast region. Along the 

 Eskimo coast in the Mackenzie region, however, there was no essential 

 change imtil after 1800. 



For lack of data it is impossible to make any close reliable estimate 

 for the earlier period, but reasoning from the known to the unknown 

 there appears to have been a decrease over the whole region, greatest 

 among the Eskimo and among the southern Athapascan tribes. The 

 destruction of the Eskimo has been accomplished chiefly through new 

 diseases and dissipation introduced by the whalers and by starvation 

 consequent upon the dwindling of the food supply through the same 

 agency. In the lower Mackenzie region an epidemic of scarlatina in 

 1865 is estimated to have killed about one-fourth of the population. 

 Further south the Athapascan tribes were greatly reduced early in 

 the eighteenth century by destructive wars waged against them by 

 the Cree, who were the first to procure guns from the Hudson 

 Bay Co. traders. In 178 1-2 the great smallpox epidemic already noted 

 in treating of the northern Plains, swept over the whole central Canada 

 region as far as the Great Slave Lake and across the mountains into 

 British Columbia. The Cree and Chipewyan were among the chief 

 sufferers. In 1837-8 the Cree and perhaps others lost heavily by the 

 same smallpox epidemic which nearly destroyed the Mandan, and 

 again to some extent in 1870-1. As in the cases of some others of 

 our largest tribes, the Cree seem to have made up their losses and 

 are now probably as numerous as ever before in their history. A part 

 of their recovery is due to intermarriage with whites. The Sarsi who 



' See footnote, page 23. 



