_Taxes._--Lands bought of the U. S. government are exempted from taxation for five years after sale. All other lands owned by non-residents, equally with those of residents, are subject to taxation annually, either for state, or county purposes, or both. The mode and amount varies in each state. If not paid when due, costs are added, the lands sold, subject to redemption within a limited period;--generally two years. Every non-resident landholder should employ an agent within the state where his land lies, to look after it and pay his taxes, if he would not suffer the loss of his land.
Conjecture respecting their former numbers and condition. Present number and state.--Indian Territory appropriated as their permanent residence.--Plan and operations of the U. S. Government.--Missionary efforts and stations. Monuments and Antiquities.
The idea is entertained, that the Valley of the Mississippi, was once densely populated by aborigines;--that here were extensive nations,--that the bones of many millions lie mouldering under our feet. It has become a common theory, that previous to the settlement of the country by people of European descent, there were _two_ successive races of men, quite distinct from each other;--that the first race, by some singular fatality, became exterminated, leaving no traditionary account of their existence. And the second race, the ancestors of the existing race of Indians, are supposed to have been once, far more numerous than the present white population of the Valley.
Some parts of Mexico and South America, were found to be populous upon the first visits of the Spaniards; but I do not find satisfactory evidence that population was ever dense, in any part of the territory that now constitutes our Republic. Mr. Atwater supposes, from the mounds in Ohio, the Indian population far exceeded 700,000, at one time in that district. Mr. Flint says, "If we can infer nothing else from the mounds, we can clearly infer, that this country once had its millions." Hence, a principal argument assigned for the populousness of this country is, the millions buried in these tumuli, the bones of which, in a tolerable state of preservation, are supposed to be exhibited upon excavation. The writer has witnessed the opening of many of these mounds, and has seen the fragments of an occasional skeleton, found _near the surface_. Without stopping here to enter upon a disquisition on the hypothesis assumed, that these mounds, as they are termed, are as much the results of natural causes, as any other prominences on the surface of the globe: I will only remark, that it is a fact well known to frontier men, that the Indians have been in the habit of burying their dead on these ridges and hillocks, and that in our light, spongy soil, the skeleton decays surprisingly fast. This is not the place to exhibit the necessary data, that have led to the conviction, that not a human skeleton now exists in all the western Valley, (excepting in nitrous caves,) that was deposited in the earth before the discovery of the New World, by Columbus.