How irresistibly, to say nothing of natural rights, do these transactions establish the claim of the Indians to protection and kindness from the United States!

The purchases of land from the Indians by the British Government do not exceed ten millions of acres; for 7,491,190 of which, the Indians receive goods annually amounting in value to 41551. Halifax currency, or 16,620 dollars. The British Government has not sold its lands, but, with the exception of a few hundred acres lately disposed of near Yorkin Upper Canada, has made gratuitous grants of them.

Besides which, about 20,000 Indians annually receive from the British government, blankets, and presents of various kinds-so that while the Americans have gained so largely by their intercourse with the natives within their territories, the British are annually losers. But both are awfully deficient in using means to improve the condition of the Indians.

155

CHAPTER XII.

NAMES OF THE DIFFERENT INDIAN NATIONS HITHERTO DISCOVERED IN NORTH AMERICA, THE SITUA

TION OF THEIR COUNTRIES, WITH THE NUMBER OF THEIR FIGHTING MEN.

150

The Peantias, a wandering tribe, both sides of the Mississippi 800

The Kasgresquios or Illinois

600

The Lower Creeks, East Florida

The Caocutas, on the East of the River Alibamous

The Alibamous, West of the Alibamous

The Arkansas

700

.600

2,000

The Blanks Barbus, or White Indians with Beards
The Assiniboils, farther North near the Lakes

The Christaneaux

3,000

The Orusconsins, on the river of the same name, falling

The Conaway Crunas, near the Falls of St. Lewis

700

ditto

350

58,730 warriors, one-third old men, makes 78,306. Multiplying by six gives 469,836 souls, men, women, and children*.

* The publishers think it necessary to state that the M.S. of the above Indian names was in an almost illegible hand; and the author being in America, they had no means of correcting it.

The foregoing list I received from old Mr. Heckewelder, the Missionary, to whom I paid a visit a short time ago at Bethlehem, where he resides. His active and constant exertions, in the cause of benevolence, seem to have been rewarded with health and long life. He is now in his eighty-eighth year, and his faculties are vigorous and alert. From him I learnt that it is not in the power of man to come at any thing demonstrative as to the numbers of the Indians. The list now before the reader, refers to what was known between the years 1770 and 1780, and I have no reason whatever to doubt its accuracy. I find in the records of 1794, that a treaty was arranged at Philadelphia with the President of the United States, which comprehended upwards of fiftyseven thousand Indian warriors.

This statement, therefore, could not have included the inhabitants of the immense regions from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, and North to Hudson's Bay. But travellers have in all places found numbers, so that having reference to extent of territory, I do not overrate the population of the Indian nations at two millions; taking in from the Isthmus of Panama, and consequently including Mexico. It should be borne in mind that the great body of any Indian tribe never appear to strangers: only the scouts are seen.

158

CHAPTER XIII.

INDIAN ANECDOTES.

JUSTICE.

THE Indians have a strong innate sense of justice, which will lead them sometimes to acts which some men will call heroic, others romantic, and not a few, perhaps, will designate by the epithet barbarous; a vague indefinite word, which if it means any thing, might, perhaps, be best explained by something not like ourselves. However that may be, this feeling certainly exists among the Indians, and as I cannot describe it better than by its effects, I shall content myself with relating on this subject a characteristic anecdote which happened in the year 1793, at an Indian village called La Chine, situated nine miles above Montreal, and was told me in the same year by Mr. La Ramée, a French Canadian inhabitant of that place, whom I believe to be a person of strict veracity. I was then on my return from Detroit, in company with General Lincoln and several other gentlemen, who were present at the relation, and gave it their full belief. I thought it then so interesting, that I inserted it in my journal, from which I now extract it.

There were in the said village of La Chine, two remarkable Indians, the one for his stature, being six feet four inches in height, and the other for his