is too hazardous for profitable speculation. Nor could it bear the expense of very distant transportation; for if sold and consumed, a corresponding reduction must be made in clothing, guns, powder, and lead, articles essential to the successful prosecution of their hunting expeditions, and without which the trader would soon find his credits unpaid, and his adventure equally ruinous to the Indians and himself.

But their own ceaseless hostilities, as indefinite in their objects, as in their duration, have, more than any other cause, led to the melancholy depopulation, traces of which are everywhere visible through the unsettled country; less, perhaps, by the direct slaughter, which these hostilities have occasioned, than by the change of habits incident to their prosecution, and by the scarcity of the means of subsistence, which have attended the interruption of the ordinary employments of the Indians. There is reason to believe, that firearms, by equalising the physical power of the combatants, have among these people, as in Europe, lessened the horrors of war.

It will be observed, that in this brief analysis of the causes, which have accompanied and accelerated the progress of Indian depopulation, we have not taken into view the situation of the small tribes in New England and Virginia, at the first settlement of these countries, and subsequently to that period. The stranger and the native were there soon brought into hostilities, and it is difficult to separate the effect of these, from the operation of other causes.

We shall refer to a few facts, in support of the speculations in which we have indulged; and as the scenes of their occurrence are separated from us by a wide interval of time or space, the white man cannot be accused of causing the depopulation, of which they are striking evidences.

Father Sagard, in 1632, estimated the Wyandots at fifty thousand, and after making all proper allowances for the good father's credulity, and for the difficulty attending even a probable enumeration, still their numbers must have been very great. In 1645, they were reduced, by war and famine, to a miserable remnant, who fled before the Iroquois, their enemies, and sought refuge with the Sioux in the country west of Lake Superior.

In 1805, when Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri, they found an intelligent man, named Jesso, living with the

Mandans. This man informed them, that when he arrived there, twenty years before, there were five inhabited villages, and four, which had been then recently abandoned. The remains of all these were distinctly visible, and were traced by the exploring party. At that time, the number was reduced to three, and now there is but one remaining. In 1763, the Arickarees, when first visited by Colonel Choteau, had thirteen villages. In 1804, they had three, and they have now but two; and one of these has been formed by a union of several dispersed bands. A woman of the Snake tribe accompanied the same party, as an interpreter. She had been taken prisoner many years before, and when they arrived at her native tribe, and of which her brother was the Chief, she found, that during the period of her captivity, they had lost more than half their people.

The Indians, in that extensive region, are to this day far beyond the operation of any causes, primary or secondary, which can be traced to civilised man, and which have had a tendency to accelerate their progressive depopulation. And yet their numbers have decreased with appalling rapidity. They are in a state of perpetual hostility, and it is believed there is not a tribe between the Mississippi and the Pacific, which has not some enemy to flee from or to pursue. The war flag is never struck upon their thousand hills, nor the war song unsung through their boundless plains.

We have only stated a few prominent facts; but, were it necessary, many others might be adduced to prove, that the decrease in the number of the Indians, whatever it may be, has been owing more to themselves, than to the whites. To humanity it is indeed consolatory to ascertain, that the early estimates of aboriginal population were made in a spirit of exaggeration; and that, although it has greatly declined, still its declension may be traced to causes, which were operating before the arrival of the Europeans, or which may be truly assigned, without any imputation upon the motives of the first adventurers or their descendants.

But after all, neither the government nor people of the United States have any wish to conceal from themselves, nor from the world, that there is upon their frontiers a wretched, forlorn people, looking to them for support and protection, and possessing strong claims upon their justice and humanity.

These people received our forefathers in a spirit of friendship, aided them to endure privations and sufferings, and taught them how to provide for many of the wants, with which they were surrounded. The Indians were then strong, and we were weak; and, without looking at the change which has occurred, in any spirit of morbid affectation, but with the feelings of an age accustomed to observe great mutations in the fortunes of nations and of individuals, we may express our regret, that they have lost so much of what we have gained. The prominent points of their history are before the world, and will go down unchanged to posterity. In the revolution of a few ages, this fair portion of the continent, which was theirs, has passed into our possession. The forests, which afforded them food and security, where were their cradles, their home, and their graves, have disappeared, or are disappearing, before the progress of civilisation.

We have extinguished their council fires, and ploughed up the bones of their fathers. Their population has diminished with lamentable rapidity. Those tribes that remain, like the lone column of a fallen temple, exhibit but the sad relics of their former strength; and many others live only in the names, which have reached us through the earlier accounts of travellers and historians. The causes, which have produced this moral desolation, are yet in constant and active operation, and threaten to leave us, at no distant day, without a living proof of Indian sufferings, from the Atlantic to the immense desert, which sweeps along the base of the Rocky Mountains. Nor can we console ourselves with the reflection, that their physical declension has been counterbalanced, by any melioration in their moral condition. We have taught them neither how to live, nor how to die. They have been equally stationary in their manners, habits, and opinions; in everything but their numbers and their happiness; and although existing more than six generations, in contact with a civilised people, they owe to them no one valuable improvement in the arts; nor a single principle, which can restrain their passions, or give hope to despondence, motive to exertion, or confidence to virtue.

Slow and embarrassing has been the progress of all barbarous tribes, through that interval of their history, which VOL. XXII.NO. 50

15

follows the first rude efforts to procure a bare subsistence, and which is terminated by the operation of those causes, that eventually lead to everything desirable in civilised life. Nor is it easy to assign the true reason for these changes, and we may seek it in vain, either in fabulous or authentic history. The first impulse may be given by accidental circumstances, by a Hercules or a Manco Capac, whose labors tradition has distorted, while it has perpetuated them. This wide interval of stationary existence is occupied by many tribes, in very different stages of improvement, from the Bosjesman and the Eskimaux, antipodes in residence, but exhibiting equally the lowest state of human degradation, to the comparatively polished hordes, who live now as they have always lived, among the earliest monuments of history and tradition. There the Arab has remained, as unchanged as his cloudless sky and sandy desert, and the Scythian Nomades yet roam through the Asiatic wastes, as they did in the days of Herodotus.

Efforts, however, have not been wanting, to reclaim the Indians from their forlorn condition; but with what hopeless results, we have only to cast our eyes upon them to ascertain. Whether the cause of this failure must be sought in the principles of these efforts, or in their application, has not yet been satisfactorily determined; but the important experiments, which are now making, will, probably, ere long put the question at rest. During more than a century, great zeal was displayed by the French Court, and by many of the dignified French ecclesiastics, for the conversion of the American aborigines in Canada; and learned, and pious, and zealous men devoted themselves with noble ardor, and intrepidity, to this generous work. At what immense personal sacrifices we can never fully estimate. And it is melancholy to contrast their privations and sufferings, living and dying, with the fleeting memorials of their labors. A few external ceremonies, affecting neither the head nor the heart, and which are retained like idle legends among some of the aged Indians, are all that remain to preserve the recollection of their spiritual fathers; and we have stood upon the ruins of St Ignace, on the shores of Lake Huron, their principal missionary establishment, indulging those melancholy reflections, which must always press upon the mind, amid the fallen monuments of human piety.

The great error of the Catholic fathers was in the importance, which they attached to speculative creeds, and unmeaning ceremonies; and in their neglect to teach their Neophytes any arts, which could be useful to them. Frivolous questions assumed a very false importance; and among other instances of this folly, it was gravely referred to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, to decide whether beavers' tails might be eaten in Canada in lent. The consequence of all this was, that no valuable nor permanent impression was made upon the Indians, and the separation of the shepherd and the flock soon scattered the latter among the forests, unsettled in their opinions, and unfitted by habit for the only pursuit before them.

The efforts, which benevolent individuals and associations are now making through the United States, in cooperation with the government, are founded upon more practical principles, and promise more stable and useful results. We consider any attempt utterly hopeless, to change the habits or opinions of those Indians, who have arrived at years of maturity, and all we can do for them is to add to the comforts of their physical existence. Our hopes must rest upon the rising generation. And, certainly, many of our missionary schools exhibit striking examples of the docility and capacity of their Indian pupils, and offer cheering prospects for the philanthropist. The union of mental and physical discipline, which is enforced at these establishments, is best adapted to the situation of the Indians, and evinces a sound knowledge of those principles of human nature, which must be here called into active exertion. A few years will settle this important question; and we have no doubt, that on small reservations, and among reduced bands, where a spirit of improvement has already commenced, its effects will be salutary and permanent.

But we confess that, under other circumstances, our fears are stronger than our hopes. Where the tribes are in their original state, with land enough to roam over, and game enough to pursue, they not only do not feel the value of our institutions, but are utterly opposed to them. Young men, sent from the missionary establishments among such tribes, may be Indians in blood and color, but they will be whites in habits, feelings, and opinions. They cannot be hunters, for