THE RED INDIAN RACE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 13 July 1912, Page 10

THE RED INDIAN RACE.

It has been taken for granted for the past fifty years or so that the original inhabitants of North America are a dying race, and that "the noble Red Man," as the poet terms him," is fated to extinction at a comparatively early date. Up till 1890 the returns of the united States Bureau of Census gave strong support to this view. In 1870 the number of Indians in the United States was returned at 278,000. In 1890 this total had been reduced to 248,253 A return was published in 1890, for the first time, giving the Indian population of Alaska, numbering 25,354. The last return available, that of the 1910 census, which was published last month, 6L„ the total of Red Indians as m the United States, an ino^qqt °f 17 '430 in twenty years > and Z5,661 in Alaska, a decrease of only twenty-three souls in twenty years. The Indian population is scattered fairly widely.through the Western States. Oklahoma heads the list with 74,825, Arizona coming next with 29,201. Other States with a considerable red population are New Mexico, 20,503; South Dakota, 19,137; California, 16,371 Montana, 10,754, and Wisconsin, 10,142! JS 1S a Red Indian population of 10,997 m the State of Washington. In twenty-two other States the Indian population exceeds 1000. The number of tribes remains yery large, but the number of surviving members in some is now very small. Six tribes are represented each by a solitary representative. The Navajo tribe flourishes above oo\S ' with a membership of 62,455, and the Cherokee tribe runs it close with 31,489. The Chippewas num ber 20,214, the Choetaws 15,917, and the Teton Sioux 14,284. There are seventy-four other tribes with a membership in each tribe of over 500. The sexes are very evenly balanced in the Indian race at present, "the males representing 50.9 of the population and the females 49.1. The preponderance of males over females is greater in the case of the Indians than in that of the' white population of the States. In theJ Negro population the females ontnum-1 ber the males. ]