DESTRUCTION OF INDIANS BY DISEASE. 



163 



As stated in a preceding chapter, small-pox and measles 

 produced a great mortality among the Wood Indians 

 north of the Saskatchewan in 1816, 1817, and 1818. The 

 ravages of this scourge began to tell in a fearful manner 

 upon the native races in the valley of the St. Lawrence 

 as early as the latter part of the seventeenth century. 

 Charlevoix relates in 1670 that there were rarely less 

 than 1200 Indians to be seen encamped at Tadousac, the 

 entrepot of the fur trade at that period during the trading 

 season. The small-pox put an end to the trade by almost 

 annihilating the Indians. Some tribes were quite exter- 

 minated, others amalgamated with surviving tribes, or 

 carried their furs to the English Fort on Hudson's 

 Bay. 



When the Iroquois, who formerly occupied permanent 

 villages on the south shore of Lake Ontario and the 

 south bank of the St. Lawrence, were first known to 

 Europeans, they alone were estimated by La Hontan at 

 70,000 souls. The numbers of the Indian population of 

 British North America, on the east side of the Eocky 

 Mountains, amounted to 67,000 in 1856, according to the 

 Hudson's Bay Company. During that year the small-pox 

 again visited the plain tribes, coming up the Missouri Eiver, 

 and destroying fully 3000 from among those who hunt 

 on the Upper Missouri and between both branches of 

 the Saskatchewan. In 1857 and 1858 it still lingered 

 near the foot of the Eocky Mountains, and despair was 

 stamped on the faces of the unhappy Mandans who were 

 visited by Lieut. Warren soon after the scourge appeared 

 amongst them. Wars, disease, and starvation have re- 

 duced to at least one-twentieth part of its former num- 

 bers an aboriginal population which two centuries ago 

 occupied this vast area. How long will the remnant be 

 preserved to minister to the cupidity of the white race 



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