they surpassed their neighbors in mercifulness as well
as valor. All the Algonquin tribes stood, in this respect, much on the
same plane. The Delawares, whose fate it had been to be ever buffeted
about by both the whites and the reds, had long cowered under the
Iroquois terror, but they had at last shaken it off, had reasserted the
superiority which tradition says they once before held, and had become a
formidable and warlike race. Indeed it is curious to study how the
Delawares have changed in respect to their martial prowess since the
days when the whites first came in contact with them. They were then not
accounted a formidable people, and were not feared by any of their
neighbors. By the time the Revolution broke out they had become better
warriors, and during the twenty years' Indian warfare that ensued were
as formidable as most of the other redskins. But when moved west of the
Mississippi, instead of their spirit being broken, they became more
warlike than ever, and throughout the present century they have been the
most renowned fighters of all the Indian peoples, and, moreover, they
have been celebrated for their roving, adventurous nature. Their numbers
have steadily dwindled, owing to their incessant wars and to the
dangerous nature of their long roamings.[5]

It is impossible to make any but the roughest guess at the numbers of
these northwestern Indians. It seems probable that there were
considerably over fifty thousand of them in all; but no definite
assertion can be made even as to the different tribes. As with the
southern Indians, old-time writers certainly greatly exaggerated their
numbers, and their modern followers show a tendency to fall into the
opposite fault, the truth being that any number of isolated observations
to support either position can be culled from the works of the
contemporary travellers and statisticians.[6] No two independent
observers give the same figures. One main reason for this is doubtless
the exceedingly loose way in which the word "tribe" was used. If a man
speaks of the Miamis and the Delawares, for instance, before we can
understand him we must know whether he includes therein the Weas and the
Munceys, for he may or may not. By quoting the numbers attributed by the
old writers to the various sub-tribes, and then comparing them with the
numbers given later on by writers using the same names, but speaking of
entire confederacies, it is easy to work out an apparent increase,