Jewish Indian theory
Jewish Indian theory (or Hebraic Indian theory,
History
The belief that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are of
Spanish writings
The theory was discussed by Spanish writers in the sixteenth century, including Diego de Landa in his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (The Relation of the Things of the Yucatan), written around 1566, and Diego Durán's History of the Indies of New Spain (1581). The first work to address the theory systematically came in 1607: The Origin of the Indians of the New World by Dominican Gregorio García. García argued based on supposed similarities in appearance, custom (including idolatry) and language (including the frequency of glottals) that the lost tribes of Israel travelled to the Americas alongside other migrations, including of Carthaginians and Phoenicians and people from China, Tartary and Atlantis. The book also makes etymological arguments: for example, García asserted that "Mex-" in "Mexico" was based on the Hebrew term "Messiah".[4]
García argued that
Diego Andres Rocha also argued for the idea in Tratado Unico y Singular del Origen de los Indios (1687), with claims including that a broken Hebrew is spoken in Cuba and Jamaica. He argued that the Spanish first populated the Americas shortly after the Flood, with the lost tribes coming much later, via the Bering Strait.[4]
In England and the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century
More generally, the theory came to prominence in England and northwestern Europe in the 1650s, during a period of messianic millenarianism, notably, it came to prominence in England during the rule of Oliver Cromwell.[4] This occurred at a time when no Jews were officially living in England.[3] The English may have been predisposed to accept the theory because of early British Israelism, the theory that sought to prove the existence of a connection between the lost tribes and the English.[6] The theory was not just of historical concern: it carried concomitant eschatological implications as the return of the lost tribes and conversion of the entire Jewish nation would herald the Second Coming of Jesus.[3][2]
A key early publication in England was Edward Winslow's The Glorious Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England (1649), which claimed some elements of Native American life followed Mosaic laws. The publication urged further action to convert Native Americans to Christianity.[3]
Another important work was written by Thomas Thorowgood (or Thoroughgood[4]): Iewes in America, published 1650, re-issued in 1652 as Digitus Dei: New Discoveryes. This presented a detailed defense of the theory, including a focus on supposed linguistic similarities with Hebrew and on the use of circumcision. Thorowgood and Winslow shared millenalist beliefs.[6]
Hamon L'Estrange published a rebuttal of the theory in 1651, titled Americans no Iewes, which Thorowgood also argued against in his 1660 work titled Jews in America (a new work despite the similarity in name to the 1650's work Iewes in America).[3]
The Portuguese-Dutch rabbi
While the theory gathered support in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, it was less popular in New England, reflecting the New Englanders' greater familiarity with Native Americans, whereas the likes of Thorowgood and Ben Israel had never been to the continent. Some accepted the idea that the Native Americans were of Semitic descent, i.e. descended from Shem, but not that they are Jewish.[3]
Later views
James Adair's 1775 History of the American Indians was a seminal later text. It again drew linguistic comparisons and on cultural comparisons, including the seclusion of women during menstruation.[4] Notably, Adair had spent 40 years living in North America, unlike earlier authors who had not visited the continent.[5]
In 1803, Benjamin Rush, a doctor and medical advisor to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, asked Lewis to record any similarities between Native American religious practices and those of the Jews.[1]
The Jewish Indian theory remained significant in some millennialist Christian circles well into the nineteenth century,[5] otherwise, it largely fell out of favor after the mid-nineteenth century.[4] Elias Boudinot's A Star in the West, or, a Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel (1816)[4] and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews (1825) draw on Adair's work. Both of them argue for a central role for the US within a Christian millennial belief system. Boudinot argued that Native American languages could be seen to have been descended from Hebrew.[5]
The Book of Mormon (1830) revised the theory, rejecting the lost tribes as an origin, but claiming a Biblical origin for Native Americans.[5] The Book states that Jewish people emigrated to the Americas after the destruction of the first Temple and it also states that Jesus Christ appeared in the Americas and preached to Native Americans after his resurrection.[4]
The American diplomat and journalist Mordecai Manuel Noah argued in support of the idea in The American Indians Being the Descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel (1837).[7]
Chief Beverly Baker Northup
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 9781479827534
- ^ doi:10.5283/COPAS.92
- ^
- ^ ISBN 9783837633894
- ^
- ^
- ISBN 9780665454530.
- ISBN 978-1-56311-673-5.