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AND CHRISTIANITY.

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ments, while some few still retain their ancient rights, and have become partly allies of a tribe of Indians that were once their slaves." He supposes their numbers to have been reduced within thirty or forty years from 8,000 or 10,000, to 200, or at most 300, and has no doubt of the remnant being extirpated in a short time, if no measures are taken to improve their morals and to cultivate habits of civilization. It should be observed that this tribe had access to posts not comprehended within the Hudson's Bay Company's prohibition, as to the introduction of spirituous liquors, and that they miserably show the effects of the privilege.

The Copper Indians also, through ill-management, intemperance, and vice, are said to have decreased within the last five years to one-half the number of what they were.

The early quarrels between the Hudson's Bay and the North West Companies, in which the Indians were induced to take a bloody part, furnished them with a ruinous example of the savageness of Christians.[1]

SOUTH AMERICA.

In South America, British Guiana occupies a large extent of country between the rivers Orinoco and Amazons, giving access to numbers of tribes of aborigines who wander over the vast regions of the interior. The Indian population within the colony of Demerara and Essequibo, is derived from four nations, the Caribs, Arawacks, Warrows, and Accaways.

It is acknowledged that they have been diminishing ever since the British came into possession of the colony. In 1831 they were computed at 5096; and it is stated "it is the opinion of old inhabitants of the colony, and those most competent to judge, that a considerable diminution has taken place in the aggregate number of the Indians of late years, and that the dimunition, although gradual, has become more sensibly apparent within the last eight or ten years." The diminution is attributed, in some degree, to the increased use of rum amongst them.[2]

There are in the colony six gentlemen bearing the title of "Protectors of Indians," whose office it is to superintend the tribes; and
  1. ↑ See Papers relating to Red River Settlement, 1815, 1819: especially Mr. Coltman's Report, pp. 115, 125.
  2. ↑ Letter from Jas. Hackett, Esq., Civil Commissioner, to Sir B. D'Urban. Papers, Abor. Tribes, 1834, pp. 194, 198.
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