All of the early French writers have much to say of the Pawnees, but there is not space in this book to quote the many interesting facts contained in their writings.  Their number in the early years of the century, according to various authors, differs materially, one enumerating them as high as twenty-five thousand, another as low as six thousand.  In 1838 the tribe suffered terribly from smallpox, which it is alleged was communicated to it by Dakota women they had taken as prisoners.  The mortality among the grown persons was not very great, but that of the children was enormous.  In 1879, according to the official census of the Indian Bureau, the tribe had been reduced to one thousand four hundred and forty.

One eminent author, Mr. John B. Dunbar, very correctly says: 
        The causes of this continual decrease are several.  The most
        constantly acting influence has been the deadly warfare with
        surrounding tribes.  Probably not a year in this century has
        been without losses from this source, though only occasionally
        have they been marked with considerable disasters.  In 1832
        the Ski-di band suffered a severe defeat on the Arkansas from
        the Comanches.  In 1847 a Dakota war-party, numbering over
        seven hundred, attacked a village occupied by two hundred and
        sixteen Pawnees, and succeeded in killing eighty-three. 
        In 1854 a party of one hundred and thirteen were cut off by
        an overwhelming body of Cheyennes and Kiowas, and killed
        almost to a man.  In 1873 a hunting party of about four
        hundred, two hundred and thirteen of whom were men, on the
        Republican, while in the act of killing a herd of buffalo,
        were attacked by nearly six hundred Dakota warriors, and
        eighty-six were killed.  But the usual policy of their
        enemies has been to cut off individuals, or small scattered
        parties, while engaged in the chase or in tilling isolated
        corn patches.  Losses of this kind, trifling when taken
        singly, have in the aggregate borne heavily on the tribe. 
        It would seem that such losses, annually recurring, should
        have taught them to be more on their guard.  But let it be
        remembered that the struggle has not been in one direction,
        against one enemy.  The Dakotas, Crows, Kiowas, Cheyennes,
        Arapahoes, Comanches, Osages, and Kansans have faithfully
        aided each other, though undesignedly in the main, in this
        crusade of extermination against the Pawnees.  It has been,
        in the most emphatic sense, a struggle of the one against
        the many.  With the possible exception of the Dakotas, there
        is much reason to believe that the animosity of these tribes
        has been acerbated by the galling tradition of disastrous
        defeats which Pawnee prowess had inflicted upon themselves
        in past generations.  To them the last seventy years have
        been a carnival of revenge.