ESTIMATE OF THE INDIAN POPULATION OF EUPEET'S LAND. 149 



posterity, continued to be Cayugas and of the Hawk tribe, although they 

 resided with the Senecas, and by successive intermarriage with them had 

 lost nearly every particle of Cayuga blood. Neither could intermarriage 

 with one of a foreign nation confer the Iroquois nationality upon the wife or 

 children of the marriage, and the same vice versa. If a Mohawk married a 

 Delaware woman, she and her children were not only Delaware still, but 

 ever continued aliens, unless naturalized as Mohawks, with the forms and 

 ceremonies prescribed in case of adoption." 



The difficulty of obtaining reliable information respect- 

 ing the Indian population has been acknowledged by all- 

 who have given attention to this subject. I am con- 

 vinced that the number of Indians inhabiting Eupert's 

 Land has been considerably overrated. The estimates 

 published in the Appendix to the Eeport from the Select 

 Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company furnish the 

 following result : — 



Thickwood Indians on the east side of the Rocky Mountains . 85,000 

 The Plain Tribes (Blackfeet, &c.) 25,000 



60,000 



The Indian population of Eupert's Land is estimated at 

 42,870. Over the plain or prairie tribes the Hudson's Bay 

 Company profess to have no control, and they are re- 

 turned as numbering 25,000 souls. Excellent authorities, 

 noticed in the following pages, do not assign more than 

 half that number to the most numerous tribes of Prairie 

 Indians who hunt on the Saskatchewan and Missouri and 

 their tributaries. 



The Plain Crees and Thickwood Indians are under the 

 control of the Company, but I think that their numbers 

 are also over estimated, and the grounds on which this 

 opinion is advanced are stated in the following para- 

 graphs. 



The basis of the census for the Thickwood Indians and 

 the Plain Crees is the number frequenting the establish- 

 ments of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1856, and the 



L 3 



