From these statistics it will be seen that in Louisiana the negro slaves far outnumbered the Indian slaves, and that the ratio of the number of Indian slaves to the number of whites in the colony was very small. A memoir concerning Natchitoches, 1720 or 1721, states that the number of black slaves in that settlement was thirty-four, and the number of Indian slaves, six (two men and four women).[296] A report on the condition of Louisiana at large in 1744 declared that there were very few Indian slaves in the colony, “because we are at peace with all nations: these we have were taken in former wars, and we keep them.”[297] Another account, in 1750, states that the inhabitants of New Orleans consist of “French, Negroes, and some savages who are slaves—all these together do not number ... more than 1,200 persons.”[298] The smallness of the number of Indian slaves in Louisiana appears due to several reasons: the generally friendly relations of the French and the neighboring tribes; the absence of extensive agriculture at an early date; the neglect of the colonial authorities to develop a trade in savage slaves, like that of Carolina; and the rapid increase in the importation of negro slaves by the time that occupations profitable for slave labor were developed. In the northern part of the Mississippi Valley, also, Indian slavery began with the coming of the whites. Slavery at Vincennes and in the country below the present site of Terre Haute, Indiana, was regulated by the laws of Louisiana. That in the country to the north was regulated by the customs of Canada. Indian slavery in Canada began early. Record exists of Indian slaves in Montreal in 1670.[299] In Louisiana the greater number of slaves were negroes; whereas in Canada the larger portion were Indians.[300] In the early history of Vincennes most of the slaves were Indians, for the inhabitants were more extensively engaged in the Indian trade than in agricultural pursuits. The same was true of the country about Detroit. Some of these Indians went, of course, to Louisiana; but the larger portion went to Canada. A report in 1750 shows that in the five French villages of the Illinois country there were eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks and sixty Indian slaves.[301] Indian slavery, already giving way to negro slavery, continued so to do after British occupation.