Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/432

360 ordered by the legislature of New Mexico, convened in December, 1847; but it includes only individuals five years of age and upwards.

These calculations will serve to aid in the estimates of present population, for no accurate census has been prepared officially for many years.

In 1793, according to an enumeration then made, the whole population amounted to 30,953:—in 1833 it is estimated, in the statistics of Galvan's Calendar, at 52,300 individuals, who were 'divided by Mühlenpfordt and Dr. Wislizenius into pure Spanish blood,  Creoles,  Mestizos, and  Pueblo Indians. These calculations, according to the above census of Pueblo Indians, would make the whole present population not more than thirteen or fourteen thousand, which is obviously incorrect unless the census of 1847 was most inaccurately made.

In a letter from the Hon. Hugh N. Smith, delegate from New Mexico, addressed to the National Intelligencer, Washington, and published on the 25th of June, 1850, he desires to correct the mistakes which have been made in regard to the number and character of the inhabitants of New Mexico. The number, he says, has been variously stated in the Congressional debates at from ten to seventy thousand; and generally one half, and sometimes all of them, are said to be Indians. "This is a great error," continues the delegate, we have a population of at least ninety thousand, of whom from ten to twelve thousand only are Pueblo Indians, and we do not estimate in our population any other kind of Indians except Pueblos. They are a quiet, inoffensive, honest, and industrious people; they own the best farming lands in the Territory, and