OF THE RED INDIAN RACE. 443 



a young colony, witli the ^^onted preponderance of males, and leave 

 no traces in subsequent generations. 



Seeing, then, that the meeting of two types of humanity so essen- 

 tially distinct as the European and the native Indian of America, 

 has, for iipwards of three centuries, led to the production of a hybrid 

 race, it becomes an interesting question, what has been the ultimate 

 result? Has the mixed breed proved infertile, and so disappeared; 

 has it perpetuated a new and permanent type of intermediate charac- 

 teristics; or has it been absorbed into the predominant European 

 race without leaving any traces of this foreign element '? These 

 questions are not without their significance even in reference to the 

 policy in dealing with the Indian settlements in our oldest centres of 

 population : for the traces of this intermingling of the races of the 

 Old and New World are neither limited to frontier settlements 

 nor to Indian reserves. 



Among Canadians of mixed blood there are men at the Bar and in 

 the Legislatui-e, in the Church, in the medical profession, holding 

 rank in the army, in aldermanic and other civic offices, and engaged 

 in active trade and commerce. A curious case was recently brought 

 before the law courts in Ontario. A son of the chief of the Wyandot 

 Indians settled in Western Canada, left the reserves of his tribe, 

 engaged in business, and acquired a large amount of real estate and 

 personal property. He won for himself, moreover, such general 

 respect that he was elected Reeve of Anderdon by a considerable 

 majority over a White candidate. Thereupon his rival applied to 

 have him unseated, on the plea that a person of Indian blood was 

 not a citizen in the eye of the law. Fortunately the Judge took a 

 common-sense view of the case, and decided that as he held a suffi- 

 cient property-qualification within the county, the election was valid. 



That an Indian ceases to be such in the eye of the law, and in all 

 practical relations to society, when he becomes an educated indus- 

 trious member of the general community, and competes not only for 

 its privileges but for its highest honours, is inevitable. But it is not 

 with the Indian as with tl^ie NegTO mixed race. The j^rivileges and 

 the disabilities of the Indian ward may both be cast off"; but a certain 

 degree of romance attaches to Indian blood, when accompanied with 

 the culture and civilization of the European. The descendants of 

 Brant and other distinguished native chiefs are still prond to claim 

 their lineage, where the physical traces of such an ancestry would 

 4 



