EARLY Or IN IONS. 5 



But of all opinions having their foundation in sacred history, that which traces 

 the origin of our Indian tribes wholly, or in part, to the lost ten tribes of Israel, 

 has found the warmest and most numerous supporters. It is among the oldest 

 hypotheses, has been supposed to find the strongest corroboration in the customs 

 and traditions of the Indians, and has been continually discussed to the present 

 time. The four principal grounds on which the argument in its favor rests, are : 

 1st, that the ten tribes, on being carried into captivity by Psalmanazar, were esta- 

 blished in the northeastern provinces of the Assyrian Empire, from whence they 

 disappeared in a direction towards that part of Asia which is nearest to America, - 

 the point from whence some kind of emigration is commonly believed to have taken 

 place ; 2d, that the book of Esdras, classed among the Apocryphal Scriptures, but 

 regarded as possessing claims to historical authenticity, speaks of the tribes as having 

 resolved to go forth into a further country where never man dwelt, and as passing over 

 the waters into another land, &c. ; 3d, that many of the customs of the Indians indi- 

 cate a Hebrew origin ; 4th, that numerous Hebrew words and idioms are found in 

 the languages of the latter. Genebrard and Andrew Thevet were among the early 

 writers who traced the lost tribes in America. But a new and more vigorous 

 impulse was given to this course of investigation in the succeeding century, when 

 the labors of Mayhew and Eliot for the conversion of the natives in New England 

 began to excite much interest abroad, where a belief prevailed that the restoration 

 of the Jews was at hand. Thomas Thorowgood, a member of the Assembly of 

 Divines, published in 1650 a book entitled "Jews in America, or probabilities that 

 the Americans are of that race." This was first circulated in manuscript, and 

 attracted the attention of John Dury, a divine of some celebrity, who wrote urging 

 its publication, and communicated two remarkable stories he had heard in Holland, 

 that were printed with it. The first story was of a messenger from the ten tribes, 

 who had made his appearance in Palestine to inquire after the remnant that 

 remained when they themselves were carried into captivity. The other was the 

 narrative of Antonie Monterinos, who professed to have found a community of Jews 

 in Peru, by whom he had been entertained for several days. This had been sworn 

 to before Manasseh Ben Israel, the chief Rabbi, at Amsterdam, who testified to the 

 good character of Monterinos. The inquiries of Dury induced Manasseh Ben Israel 

 to write his well known treatise, " The Hope of Israel," in which he endeavored to 

 prove that the Israelites were " the first finders out of America." It appears to 

 have been from these sources that Mayhew, Eliot, Roger Williams, and other New 

 England preachers of Christianity to the children of the forest, received impres- 

 sions concerning the descent of the Indians from the Jews, which their own obser- 

 vations tended to confirm. 1 The Mathers, Samuel Sewall, and most of the prominent 

 scholars and theologians of Massachusetts, were inclined to the same opinion, which 

 has never failed to find supporters. The Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, who, as 



1 Dury was a friend and correspondent of the New England Clergy, and when the letters from Eliot 

 and others, giving an account of the progress of the gospel among the Indians, were printed in London, 

 he added an appendix, in which he gives some reasons for believing the Indians to be descended from 

 the Jews. This was previous to Thorowgood's publication. 



