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AND CHRISTIANITY.
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The slightest glance at this table shews instantly the fact, that where the white settlers have been the longest there the Indians have wofully decreased. The farther you go into the Western wilderness the greater the Indian population. Where are the populous tribes that once camped in the woods of New York, New England, and Pennsylvania? In those states there were twenty years ago about 8000 Indians; since then, a rapid diminution has taken place. In the middle of the seventeenth century, and after several of the tribes were exterminated, and after all had suffered severely, there could not be less, according to the historians of the times, than forty or fifty thousand Indians within the same limits. The traveller occasionally meets with a feeble remnant of these once numerous and powerful tribes, lingering amid the now usurped lands of their country, in the old settled states; but they have lost their ancient spirit and dignity, and more resemble troops of gipsies than the noble savages their ancestors were. A few of the Tuscaroras live near Lewistown, and are agriculturists: and the last of the Narragansets, the tribe of Miantinomo, are to be found at Charlestown, in Rhode Island, under the notice of the Boston missionaries. Fragments of the Six Nations yet linger in the State of New York. A few Oneidas live near the lake of that name, now christianized and habituated to the manners of the country. Some of the Senecas and Cornplanters remain about Buffalo, on the Niagara, and at the head-waters of the Alleghany river. Amongst these Senecas, lived till 1830, the famous orator Red-Jacket; one of the most extraordinary men which this singular race has produced.