(Except during 1832 and have been uniform between
1836, when the few the successive censuses;
foreigners in the islands these censuses being taken
Year were included.) at irregular intervals.
1832 130,313
4.46
1836 108,579
2.47
1853 71,019
0.81
1860 67,084
2.18
1866 58,765
2.17
1872 51,531
We here see that in the interval of forty years, between 1832 and 1872,
the population has decreased no less than sixty-eight per cent.! This
has been attributed by most writers to the profligacy of the women, to
former bloody wars, and to the severe labour imposed on conquered
tribes and to newly introduced diseases, which have been on several
occasions extremely destructive. No doubt these and other such causes
have been highly efficient, and may account for the extraordinary rate
of decrease between the years 1832 and 1836; but the most potent of all
the causes seems to be lessened fertility. According to Dr.
Ruschenberger of the U.S. Navy, who visited these islands between 1835
and 1837, in one district of Hawaii, only twenty-five men out of 1134,
and in another district only ten out of 637, had a family with as many
as three children. Of eighty married women, only thirty-nine had ever
borne children; and the official report gives an average of half a
child to each married couple in the whole island. This is almost
exactly the same average as with the Tasmanians at Oyster Cove. Jarves,
who published his History in 1843, says that families who have three
children are freed from all taxes; those having more, are rewarded by
gifts of land and other encouragements. This unparalleled enactment by
the government well shews how infertile the race had become. The Rev.
A. Bishop stated in the Hawaiian Spectator in 1839, that a large
proportion of the children die at early ages, and Bishop Staley informs
me that this is still the case, just as in New Zealand. This has been
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