40 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



bearing;* and the libertinage which generally 

 prevails among the women before marriage, with 

 the habit of procuring abortions, must necessarily 

 render them more unfit for bearing children after- 

 wards.! One of the missionaries, speaking of 

 the common practice among the Natchez of 

 changing their wives, adds, unless they have 

 children by them; a proof that many of these 

 marriages were unfruitful, which may be ac- 

 counted for from the libertine lives of the women 

 before wedlock, which he had previously no- 

 ticed.:]: 



The causes that Charlevoix assigns of the ste- 

 rility of the American women, are, the suckling 

 their children for several years, during which 

 time they do not cohabit with their husbands; 

 the excessive labour to which they are always 

 condemned, in whatever situation they may be; 

 and the custom established in many places, of 

 permitting the young women to prostitute them- 

 selves before marriage. Added to this, he says, 

 the extreme misery to which these people are 

 sometimes reduced, takes from them all desire of 

 having children.^ Among some of the ruder 

 tribes it is a maxim not to burthen themselves 



* Robertson, b. iv. p. 106. Creuxii Hist. Canad. p. 57. Lafi- 

 tau, torn. i. p. 590. 



t Robertson, b. iv. p. 72. Ellis's Voyage, p. ] 98. Burke's 

 America, vol. i. p. 187. 



X Lettres Edif. torn. vii. p. 20, 22. 



§ Charlevoix, N. Fr. torn. iii. p. 304. 



