Had it not been for their Indian allies, it would have been impossible for the French to prolong, as they did, their struggle with their much more numerous English neighbors.
The Indians have shrunk back before our advance only after fierce and dogged resistance.

They were never numerous in the land, but exactly what their numbers were when the whites first appeared is impossible to tell.

Probably an estimate of half a million for those within the limits of the present United States is not far wrong; but in any such calculation there is of necessity a large element of mere rough guess-work.

Formerly writers greatly over-estimated their original numbers, counting them by millions.

Now it is the fashion to go to the other extreme, and even to maintain that they have not decreased at all.
This last is a theory that can only be upheld on the supposition that the whole does not consist of the sum of the parts; for whereas we can check off on our fingers the tribes that have slightly increased, we can enumerate scores that have died out almost before our eyes.