Note 21 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY.—INDIAN TRIBES EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
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La Hontan estimated the Iroquois at from five thousand to seven thousand fighting men; but his means of information were very imperfect, and the same may be said of several other French writers, who have overrated the force of the confederacy. In 1677, the English sent one Greenhalgh to ascertain their numbers. He visited all their towns and villages, and reported their aggregate force at two thousand one hundred and fifty fighting men. The report of Colonel Coursey, agent from Virginia, at about the same period, closely corresponds with this statement. Greenhalgh’s Journal will be found in Chalmers’s Political Annals, and in the Documentary History of New York. Subsequent estimates, up to the period of the Revolution, when their strength had much declined, vary from twelve hundred to two thousand one hundred and twenty. Most of these estimates are given by Clinton, in his Discourse on the Five Nations, and several by Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia.