When it is remembered that Prof. Blyden is a citizen of Liberia and knows whereof he speaks, there will be no reason to doubt the truth of the above statement.
—One of the workers in the Liberia movement met a wise, old colored man in Shreveport, La. He was describing the great benefits the negro would enjoy by emigrating, and told him that there the negro did not have to work; bread and sugar trees covered the forests, and bananas, cocoanuts, pine-apples, lemons, and all the tropical fruits, grew everywhere. “Dat’s ’nough of dat story,” said the old man; “dat ain’t so, kase if it was, de white man would a went dar long ago, and the niggers neber would hah known nuffin ’bout it.”
—We notice now, as the most recent movement, that a State convention of the Mississippi Colonization Society, held a few weeks since, to consider the project of emigrating from the South, was attended by some 4,000 persons, including 300 delegates from other States than Mississippi. The proposition to emigrate to Africa was not looked upon with favor, but the proposition to emigrate to Arizona, New Mexico or Texas was approved. The following resolution was adopted:
_Resolved_, By the people of color of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, that we earnestly entreat our countrymen throughout the Union to form a national colonization association, with branches in every county and State in the Union, for the purpose of effecting a peaceable separation of the blacks from the whites, and concentrating our numbers as a body in certain States or Territories within this Union, as may be hereafter agreed upon in national convention assembled.
A national convention is to be held in February next, at Corinth, Miss., in furtherance of this project.
—Are the Indians dying out? Major S. N. Clark, of the Bureau of Education, has compiled these various estimates of their population as follows:
1789—Estimate of Secretary of War 76,000 1790-91—Estimate of Gilbert Imlay 60,000 1820—Report of Morse on Indian Affairs 471,036 1825—Report of the Secretary of War 129,366 1829—Report of the Secretary of War 312,930 1834—Report of the Secretary of War 312,610 1836—Report of Superintendent Indian Affairs 253,464 1837—Report of Superintendent Indian Affairs 302,498 1850—Report of H. R. Schoolcraft 388,229 1853—Report of United States Census of 1850 400,764 1855—Report of Indian Office 314,622 1857—Report of H. R. Schoolcraft 379,264 1860—Report of Indian Office 254,300 1865—Report of Indian Office 294,574 1870—Report of United States Census 313,712 1870—Report of Indian Office 313,371 1875—Report of Indian Office 305,068 1876—Report of Indian Office 291,882