114 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



the removal. Major Ridge (pi. 12, fig. 1) was head of the removal 

 party and Ross' principal opponent. Tahchee (Dutch) (pi. 12, fig. 2) 

 was carried west when a mere boy with one of the first parties to cross 

 the Mississippi, distinguished himself in wars with the Osage, and 

 later joined Chief Bowl's band in Texas. Another early emigrant 

 was Tooan Tuh or Dustu, "Spring Frog" (pi. 13, fig. 1), who was a 

 noted ball player and hunter and was prominent among the Cherokee 

 auxiliaries in Jackson's army at the battles of Emuckfa and Horse- 

 shoe Bend. 



Cherokee population, — ^Mooney estimates that there were 22,000 in 

 1650. In 1715 there were reported officially as follows: 11 Lower 

 Towns with a population of 2,100; 30 Middle Towns with 6,350; 19 

 Upper Towns with 2,760; total, 60 towns with 11,210. This same year 

 Colonel Chicken was assured that a portion, evidently the Middle and 

 Upper Towns, had 2,370 fighting men and this agrees very well with 

 the figures above given. In 1720 we find one estimate of 10,000 and an- 

 other of 11,500. In 1721 appears a census giving 53 towns, 3,510 war- 

 riors, and a total population of 10,379. In 1729 there were said to be 

 20,000 Cherokee, including 6,000 warriors, distributed in 64 towns and 

 villages, which agrees closely with the recollection of traders inter- 

 viewed by Adair. They admitted at the same time that there was also 

 a rapid decline in the next 40 years and this is borne out by the figure of 

 2,590 warriors given in 1755. Adair's informants agreed very nearly 

 with this — about 2,300 warriors in 1761. A town by town census in 

 1808-9 gave a total population of 12,395 in the east. In 1819 it was 

 estimated that the tribe numbered about 15,000, of whom one-third 

 were already west of the Mississippi. A census taken in 1825 returned 

 13,564 in their old territories, and 10 years later, in 1835, there were 

 16,542, including 8,946 in Georgia, 3,644 in North Carolina, 2,528 in 

 Tennessee, and 1,424 in Alabama. This was just before the removal and 

 there were estimated to be 6,000 already beyond the Mississippi. As 

 above noted, about one-fourth of the eastern Cherokee perished dur- 

 ing the removal, and the Civil War again exacted a considerable toll. 

 Mooney estimates that they then shrank from 21,000 to 14,000. In 

 1867 an enumeration of the western Cherokee showed 13,566. Mean- 

 time there was a census of the eastern Cherokee in 1848 which re- 

 turned 2,133 and another in 1884 raised this to 2,956, though there 

 was some demur among the Indians as to the legitimacy of the claims 

 of some of those classed as Cherokee. At about the same time 

 the western Cherokee were believed to number about 17,000. In 1902 

 there were officially reported 28,016 persons of Cherokee blood, but this 

 includes several thousand individuals formerly repudiated by the 

 tribal courts. In 1895 the eastern Cherokee were returned as 1,479, 

 evidently a purified roll, and in 1900 the number given was 1,376. In 



