The Calendar of the Virginia State Papers and other Manuscripts, 1652-1781 (Richmond, 1875),[1336] though meagre as a whole, is particularly full on the subject of the encroachments of individuals and companies on Indian lands. Among these papers is the deposition of Patrick Henry, setting forth that he felt compelled to withdraw from all connection with land schemes, when, as a member of Congress, he found himself in a position where he might be called upon to act as a judge in matters in which he was directly interested. It may be inferred from what he says that there were among his associates some who were not so scrupulous.
Many of the questions involved in the adjustment of boundaries and settlement of treaties between the Indians and the British government survived the Revolution, and reappeared before the United States Congress in the struggles of land companies for possession of their alleged purchases.[1337] Through the memorials to Congress presented by the Illinois and Ouabache Land Company, which are to be found scattered through the Senate and House documents, as well as in separate tracts, we learn that in order to sustain the claim of this company it became important to show that the Six Nations did not own the Wabash region. For that purpose Deputy-Superintendent Croghan made affidavit that "the Six Nations claim by right of conquest all the lands on the southeast side of the river Ohio down to the Cherokee River, and on the west side of the river down to the Big Miami River."[1338] The king had agreed with the Indians that his people should not go west of an established boundary line. He had warned settlers off their lands. The colonists who were in arms against the king were after the lands, by fair means or foul. What was considered fair means in those days, and what causes there were for the exasperation of the Indians, cannot be fully appreciated unless the subject be followed even beyond the days of the Revolution.
The Register of Pennsylvania[1339] also contains a variety of material relating to the subject. A number of the early documents will be found in Hubley's American Revolution (1805).
In making an estimate of the Indian population within the borders of the United States at this time, I have been obliged to rely largely upon my own deductions. Bancroft (United States, iii. ch. 22), giving an estimate of the number of Indians east of the Mississippi and south of the St. Lawrence and the chain of lakes in 1640, says: "We shall approach, perhaps exceed, a just estimate of their numbers if we allow ... one hundred and eighty thousand souls" (edition of 1841). It will be observed that the foregoing estimate includes the Canadian Indians. In the preparation of the estimate which I have given, I have examined many scattered statements of the number of warriors of the different tribes, which comprehend different areas within their respective limits, and which frequently overlap each other. The arbitrary spelling of Indian names often presents the same name in such different dress as to make its identification difficult. If we bear in mind that the name as it appears in print is a phonetic rendering of a word which from the mouths of different individuals would sound differently to the same ear, and further, that those who have given us the various renderings were men of different nationalities and of different degrees of cultivation, we shall oftentimes be able to recognize the same tribe in separate statements, under names the spellings of which at first sight have no seeming identity. As regards this Indian population, a tabulated statement will he found in Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, which relies upon Croghan, Bouquet, and Hutchins, supplemented by Dodge and Gallatin. Croghan's estimate will be found in Proud's History of Pennsylvania (vol. ii. p. 296.)[1340] Bouquet's estimate will be found in the Historical Account of his expedition,[1341] headed "Names of different Indian Nations in North America, with the numbers of their fighting men." Hutchins's estimate will be found in An historical narrative and Topographical description of Louisiana, by Thomas Hutchins (Philadelphia, 1784, App. iii. p. 65), headed "A list of the different nations and tribes of Indians in the Northern District of North America, with the number of fighting men." Sir William Johnson's estimate of the Present State of the Northern Indians,[1342] made Nov. 18, 1763, will be found in the Doc. Hist. of New York, i. p. 26, and in N. Y. Col. Docs., vii. p. 582.
The estimate of Sir James Wright is in the Georgia Hist. Soc. Coll. (Savannah, 1873), iii. part 2, p. 169. The synopsis of the Indian tribes, by Albert Gallatin, is printed in the Amer. Antiquarian Soc. Proc., ii. Still another list was published in Sketches of the History, manners, and customs of the North American Indians, with a plan for their melioration, by James Buchanan, Esq., his Britannic majesty's consul for the State of New York (New York, 1824, 2 vols.), i. ch. xii. pp. 138-39, where it is called "Names of the different Indian nations hitherto discovered in North America, the situation of their countries, with the number of their fighting men" (1770-1780).
Buchanan claimed to have received this list from Heckewelder, the missionary, and it is identical, except for certain palpable errors in transcribing, with a list in what is now known as Trumbull's Indian Wars, the authorship of which is attributed in the original edition[1343] to the Rev. James Steward, D. D. Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, in reply to a question from me, says the book was "written by Henry Trumbull, then of Norwich, when about seventeen years old."[1344]
Gilbert Imlay, in A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America, etc. (London, 1792, p. 234), gives a list of Indians on both sides of the Mississippi, and from the Gulf to the St. Lawrence. This list was made up from "Croghan, Boquet, Carver, Hutchins and Dodge." The figures that he uses are plainly intended for the number of the fighting-men, but he puts the total population in this district at less than 60,000. In a second and a third edition, the list is modified. He gives twenty-eight tribes east of the Mississippi, and his calculation of population is based upon 700 to a nation or tribe. He finds in all 20,000 souls, and "consequently between 4,000 and 5,000 warriors."
I have had occasion in this investigation to examine somewhat the question of the population west of the Mississippi, for two purposes: 1st, to determine the numbers to be eliminated from some of the general statements which include tribes whose residence was in the Far West; and 2d, to test the question of the proportion of warriors to population. Brackenridge's Views of Louisiana[1345] has proved of especial service for these purposes. There are also some statistics in Perrin du Lac's Voyage dans les deux Louisianes, etc.[1346]
The Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society contain many estimates of the population of the natives in different parts of the country, made at different times. Among these an estimate (1795, p. 99) of the Creeks, Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokees, and Catawbas, furnished by Dr. Ramsay, places their total population in 1780 at 42,033,—fighting men 13,526. An estimate of the Indian nations employed by the British in the Revolutionary War, made by Captain Dalton, superintendent of Indian affairs for the United States (Ibid. x. p. 123), was published in 1783, and gives the number of men furnished by the tribes as 12,680, of whom the Six Nations proper contributed 1,580. The Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokees, and Creeks furnished 2,200. The value of this list lies only in the opportunity which it affords for testing the probable accuracy of some of the others.[1347]