Note 208 — Chapter XXV · ACCOUNT OF THE MANDAN INDIANS

There is evidence both from the number of deserted Mandan villages on the Missouri, and from the accounts of the early travellers—and this accords with Mandan tradition—that the numbers of the tribe had formerly been larger and their villages more numerous; Bougainville, in his Mémoire sur la Nouvelle France (1757), cited in Northern and Western Boundaries Ontario (Toronto, 1878), p. 83, speaks of seven fortified villages; and David Thompson, who visited them in 1797-98, found the same number. Lewis and Clark reported that forty years before their visit, there had been nine, and that the population had wasted before the attacks of the Sioux and the ravages of smallpox.—Ed.