Mr. Catlin gives the following account of the melancholy fate of Mah-to-toh-pa. “He sat in his wigwam and saw every one of his family die about him,--his wives and his little children. He was attacked with the disease himself, but he recovered. He then walked out, and, passing around the village, wept over the destruction of his tribe. His braves and warriors, whose sinewy arms once seemed to defy danger, were now but as heaps of clay. He came back to his lodge, and covered the bodies of his family in a pile with a number of robes; he threw another around himself, and went out upon a hill at a little distance and sat down. Despite the entreaties of some traders who chanced to be there, he utterly refused to eat. He remained on the earth till the sixth day, when, faint and exhausted, he staggered back to the village, and entered the horrid gloom of his own wigwam. Laying his body down beside the group of his sleeping wife and children, he drew his robe over his face, and, lingering for three days, at last died.”
Thus, in the course of two months, the whole tribe of Mandans perished, with the exception of some thirty or forty, that were taken as slaves by the Ricarees, who moved from their own abodes and took possession of the Mandan village. This remnant of the valiant Mandans could not endure a state of bondage. Some months after they had been reduced to captivity, when the Ricarees were attacked by their enemies, the Sioux, they ran out together upon the prairie, calling to the Sioux to kill them. “We are Ricaree dogs!” said they. “Our friends are dead,--our warriors are no more,--our villages are in the hands of strangers. We will not, we cannot live!” Then, brandishing their weapons in a manner to provoke the enemy, they were all cut in pieces. Not one escaped, and the Mandans are no more. Where is there a sadder page of history than this?
PRESENT CONDITION OF THE WESTERN INDIANS IN THE UNITED STATES.
From our previous pages it will be seen that numerous causes have contributed to reduce the number of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country, so that but a remnant are now found in the States and Territories of this republic. By the most recent report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Congress, the following is the estimated number of Indians in the United States. Of tribes indigenous to the country west of the Mississippi River, 168,909; of those removed, 82,594; present western population of the tribes wholly or partially removed, 89,288; remaining east of the Mississippi, 22,846.