PROXIMATE PRESENT POPULATION. 



361 



are engaged entirely in agricultural pursuits, and, as tax-paying In- 

 dians, would be entitled to the privileges of citizens, and of the 

 elective franchise in Texas. 



" The census taken in New Mexico the year before the entrance 

 of General Kearney into that Territory, showed the population to be 

 one hundred thousand and two Or three hundred over. This may 

 not have been taken with great accuracy, but the best informed per- 

 sons, and those who have lived there longest agree with me that we 

 have not less than ninety thousand. Dr. Wislizenius, who is gene- 

 rally correct in his accounts of travel, and who is relied upon as good 

 authority, in his statistics of that country, is certainly mistaken in 

 saying that ten-twentieths, or one-half of the population, are Pueblo 

 Indians. I have travelled through the settled parts of that country 

 two or three times a year for the last three years, and I know that 

 not a fifth, or even one-sixth are Indians. 



" There are in New Mexico from twelve to fifteen hundred resi- 

 dent. American voters, emigrants from the different States, principally 

 from the State of Missouri ; the rest of the population is Mexican 

 and Spanish." 



Upon these estimates and calculations it would perhaps be fair, in 

 arriving at a proximate enumeration of inhabitants, to give the fol- 

 lowing ratios : — 



Wild Indians, according to Governor Charles Bent, . 36,950 

 Pueblo Indians, according to enumeration, 

 White Creoles, according to Dr. Gregg, » 

 Mestizos, " " " 



Americans, according to Hon. Hugh N. Smith, 



6,524 

 1,000 

 59,000 



1,500 



104,974 



Deduct from this for Wild Indians, .... 36,950 



68,024 



Deduct from this for Pueblo Indians, . . . 6,524 



Proximate Total of Pure Whites and Mixed Races, 1 61,500 



The more civilized inhabitants of New Mexico resemble their pa- 

 rent stock in character and manners, save that they are somewhat 

 tinctured with the habits of the Indian race, whose blood is mingled 



1 There are no negroes in New Mexico, and consequently neither mulattos nor 

 zambos. The fatal epidemic fever of a typhoid character that ravaged the whole pro- 

 vince from 1837 to 1839, and the small pox in 1840, carried off nearly ten per cent, of 

 the population. 



