In giving a more permanent form to the original edition of this
document, a more convenient reference title has been prefixed to it.
The aboriginal nation, whose statistics and history, past and present,
are brought into discussion in the following report, stand out
prominently in the foreground of our own history. They have sustained
themselves, for more than three centuries and a half, against the
intruding and progressive races of Europe. During the period of the
planting of the colonies, their military exploits gave them a name
and a reputation which are coeval with Europe. These events are
intermingled, more or less, with the history of each of the colonies,
and impart to them much of their interest. But while we have made an
extraordinary progress in population and resources, and gone far to
build up a nationality, and commenced a national literature, very
little, if any, progress has been made in clearing up and narrowing
the boundaries of historical mystery, which shroud the INDIAN
PERIOD prior to 1492. This forms, indeed, the true period of
American Ethnology.
It was a desideratum in American statistics, that a complete census of
one of these primary stocks, who had lived in our neighborhood all this
time, and still preserved their nationality, should be taken. This task
New-York executed in 1845. It appeared desirable to the agent appointed
to carry the act of the legislature, embracing this feature, into
effect, that the opportunity should not be lost of making some notes
of the kind here indicated; and it is in this feature, indeed, if any
thing, in the report now presented, that it aspires to the character
of research, though it be intended only to shadow forth outlines to be
filled up hereafter.
_New-York, Feb. 7, 1846._