And as it was on the Columbia with its enormous supply of fish, so was it elsewhere in the United States.

Even the practice of agriculture, with its result of providing a more certain and bountiful food supply, seems not to have had the effect of materially augmenting the Indian population.  At all events, it is in California and Oregon, a region where agriculture was scarcely practiced at all, that the most dense aboriginal population lived.  There is no reason to believe that there ever existed within the limits of the region included in the map, with the possible exception of certain areas in California, a population equal to the natural food supply.  On the contrary, there is every reason for believing that the population at the time of the discovery might have been many times more than what it actually was had a wise economy been practised.

The effect of wars in decimating the people has often been greatly exaggerated.  Since the advent of the white man on the continent, wars have prevailed to a degree far beyond that existing at an earlier time.  From the contest which necessarily arose between the native tribes and invading nations many wars resulted, and their history is well known.  Again, tribes driven from their ancestral homes often retreated to lands previously occupied by other tribes, and intertribal wars resulted therefrom.  The acquisition of firearms and horses, through the agency of white men, also had its influence, and when a commercial value was given to furs and skins, the Indian abandoned agriculture to pursue hunting and traffic, and sought new fields for such enterprises, and many new contests arose from this cause.  Altogether the character of the Indian since the discovery of Columbus has been greatly changed, and he has become far more warlike and predatory.  Prior to that time, and far away in the wilderness beyond such influence since that time, Indian tribes seem to have lived together in comparative peace and to have settled their difficulties by treaty methods.  A few of the tribes had distinct organizations for purposes of war; all recognized it to a greater or less extent in their tribal organization; but from such study as has been given the subject, and from the many facts collected from time to time relating to the intercourse existing between tribes, it appears that the Indians lived in comparative peace.  Their accumulations were not so great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare were not excessively destructive.  Armed with clubs and spears and bows and arrows, war could be prosecuted only by hand-to-hand conflict, and depended largely upon individual prowess, while battle for plunder, tribute, and conquest was almost unknown.  Such intertribal wars as occurred originated from other causes, such as infraction of rights relating to hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener prejudices growing out of their superstitions.