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Reasons for fluctuating Indian population counts
Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121
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While the number of southern tribes progressively decreased from early times until many of them became wholly or nearly extinct, the surviving groups, the Creeks, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, appear at first rather to have increased. Owing to their numerous wars the Chickasaw decreased in the first half of the eighteenth century, but after that time there is evidence that they grew rapidly, until they reached about 5,000, where their population remained stationary down to the present day. In appearance they continued to mount up much beyond that point, but later figures show that this was due to the inclusion of an almost equal number of Negro freedmen among them. Actually we find that the proportion of full bloods has decreased and that the maintenance of their numbers exclusive of freedmen has been due to an extensive contribution of white and Negro blood. Like the Chickasaw, the Creeks show a considerable increase during the last part of the 18th century and the first part of the nineteenth, in spite of the many Indians who removed to Florida. This growth may have been in part fictitious since, when a census was taken in 1857, both Creeks and Seminole were found much less numerous than had been supposed. Nevertheless the figures for the Seminole which can be checked show that before these tribes were removed to the West they were populous. Their losses during the emigration and in the period during which they were trying to adapt themselves to their new surroundings may account in part for the discrepancy, although in the case of the Creeks there may have been some frauds due to the intrigues of designing contractors. Still the Creeks can hardly have been less than 15,000, and 20,000 would not be an excessive estimate for the mother tribe of a people of 5,000 like the Seminole. From time to time these tribes have undergone periods of increase and decrease. As in the case of the Chickasaw, their apparent strength has been augmented by including Negro freedmen, descendants of those slaves formerly held by the Indians. In the case of the Creeks, Seminole, and Choctaw, however, the Negroes were not so numerous, being a little more than one-third instead of a little less than one half. The number of Creek and Seminole full bloods has also declined progressively. In 1908 rather more than half of both were returned as full-blood Indians, but I am confident that the actual number is very much smaller, so small as to be barely a handful. In short the Indian blood in all of these tribes appears to be spreading out continually, but it is spreading over a body of white and Negro blood ever greater in amount, while the Indian blood becomes less and less. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we assume a Creek population of about 7,000 in 1700, 12,000 in 1750-1760, 20,000 in 1832, 15,000 in 1857, 10,000 in 1898 (exclusive of freedmen), and 7,000 in 1910. For the Seminole we may give the following estimates : 1,500 in 1780, 4,750 in 1821, 2,500 in 1857, 3,500 in 1892, 2,500 in 1906 (including freedmen), and down to the present time, with the same increase of white and Negro blood. For the Chickasaw: 3,000 to 3,500 in 1700, 2,000 in 1715, 1,500 in 1750-1770, 3,600 in 1821, 5,000 in 1836, 4,000 "in 1910. For the Choctaw: 15,000 in 1700, 21,000 in 1831, 16,000 in 1910, with the reservations above made. (Swanton)
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