Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/629

Rh The population of the district, not including neophyte and gentile natives, has been given as 520 in 1830. There are absolutely no statistics for this decade. There was probably a small decrease in the first half, and subsequently a very large one, caused by the scattering of the military force and by the depredations of Indians at the ranchos. Bandini, without giving figures, states that the depopulation was very rapid after 1836. As an estimate, I put the population in 1840 at 150, the smallest figure for more than half a century. The number of foreigners was nine in 1836, and ten in 1840, three of them having families. The neophyte population of the three missions, 5,200 in 1830, had decreased to 5,000 in 1834. After the secularization there are no definite statistics, but there are indications that in 1840 the ex-neophytes whose whereabouts were known, at the missions, in the pueblos, and in private service, may have been 2,250. Of gentiles and fugitives, as in other periods, the number cannot be given. I append a note on the ranchos occupied by private citizens during this period. Most of them had to be abandoned at