_Missionary Efforts and Stations._--These are conducted by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,--the Baptist Board of F. Missions,--the Methodist Epis. Missionary Society,--the Western Foreign Missionary Society,--and the Cumberland Presbyterians. Stations have been formed, and schools established, with most of these tribes. About 2,500 are members of Christian churches of different denominations. The particulars of these operations are to be found in the Reports of the respective societies, and the various religious periodicals.
Of other tribes within the Valley of the Mississippi, and not yet within the Indian territory, the following estimate is sufficiently near the truth for practical purposes.
Indians from New York, about Green Bay 725 Wyandots in Ohio and Michigan 623 Miamies 1,200 Winnebagoes 4,591 Chippeways, or O'Jibbeways 6,793 Ottawas and Chippeways of lake Michigan 5,300 Chippeways, Ottawas and Putawatomies 8,000 Putawatomies 1,400 Menominees 4,200
They are all east of the Mississippi, and chiefly found on the reservations in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, and in the country between the Wisconsin river and lake Superior. Those tribes west of the Mississippi river, and along the region of the upper Missouri river, are as follows:
Sioux 27,500 Ioways 1,200 Sauks of Missouri 500 Sauks and Foxes 6,400 Assinaboines 8,000 Crees 3,000 Gros Ventres 3,000 Aurekaras 3,000 Cheyennes 2,000 Mandans 1,500 Black Feet 30,000 Camanches 7,000 Minatarees 1,500 Crows 4,500 Arrepahas and Kiawas 1,400 Caddoes 800 Snake and other tribes within the Rocky mountains 20,000 West of the Rocky mountains 80,000
The Camanches, Arrepahas, Kiawas and Caddoes roam over the great plains towards the sources of the Arkansas and Red rivers, and through the northern parts of Texas. The Black Feet are towards the heads of the Missouri.
_Monuments and Antiquities._--Before dismissing the subject of the aborigines, I shall touch very briefly on the monuments and antiquities of the west,--with strong convictions that there has been much exaggeration on this subject. I have already intimated that the mounds of the west are natural formations, but I have not room for the circumstances and facts that go to sustain this theory. The number of objects considered as antiquities is greatly exaggerated. The imaginations of men have done much. The number of mounds on the American bottom in Illinois, adjacent to Cahokia creek, is stated by Mr. Flint at 200. The writer has counted all the elevations of surface for the extent of nine miles, and they amount to 72. One of these, Monk hill, is much too large, and three fourths of the rest are quite too small for human labor. The pigmy graves on the Merrimeek, Mo., in Tennessee, and other places, upon closer inspection, have been found to contain decayed skeletons of the ordinary size, but buried with the leg and thigh bones in contact. The _giant_ skeletons sometimes found, are the bones of buffalo.