Hodgson next speaks of the ravages of small-pox and drunkenness among them, and concludes:
“... Hence, the number of Mosquito people, in their present way of life, probably never exceeded ten or eleven thousand.... From the best computation, they are not above seven thousand souls.”
1787.
George Chalmers, Secretary of Board of Trade. From MSS. Notes for use of Board.
“The present number of the Mosquito Indians is unknown. It happened among them, probably, as among the North American Indians, that they declined in numbers and degenerated in spirit in proportion nearly as the white people settled among them. The Mosquitos, like the Caribs of San Domingo, consist of three distinct races: the aborigines, the descendants of certain African negroes who were formerly wrecked on the coast, and a generation containing the blood of both. If the Spaniards earnestly desired to destroy them, they could not, I think, make a very vigorous resistance. They are chiefly defended by the rivers, morasses, and woods of the country, and, perhaps, still more by the diseases incident to the climate.”
1818.
From Roberts’ Narrative of Voyages and Excursions on the East Coast of Central America.
“In the Mosquito Shore, a plurality of mistresses is considered no disgrace. It is no uncommon circumstance for a British subject to have one or more of these native women at different parts of the coast. They have acquired great influence through them.
“I have never known a marriage celebrated among them; these engagements are mere tacit agreements, sometimes broken by mutual consent. The children here and at Bluefields are in general baptized by the captains of trading vessels from Jamaica, who, on their annual visit to the coast, perform this ceremony, with any thing but reverence, on all who have been born during their absence; and many of them are indebted to these men for more than baptism. In proof of this, I could enumerate more than a dozen acknowledged children of two of these captains, who seem to have adopted, without scruple, the Indian idea of polygamy to its fullest extent. By this licentious and immoral conduct, they have, however, so identified themselves with the natives, as to obtain a sort of monopoly of the sale of goods. They have also insinuated themselves into the good graces of some of the leading men, so that their arrival is hailed with joy by all classes, as the season of festivity, revelry, christening, and licentiousness!”