INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

THE adventurous activity of the people of the United States, joined to a wandering propensity, partly national and partly characteristic of the age, has left few, if any, considerable portions of the country unexplored. The emigrant overtakes the government surveyor, and railroads and other improvements advance with equal rapidity in the steps of the latter. It would be difficult to point out upon the map a section of much extent, however secluded, that has not been traversed by intelligent observers, taking note of the quality of its soil, its vegetable and mineral productions, and whatever else would contribute to an appreciation of its resources. In these expeditions, often conducted by topographical engineers, and accompanied by naturalists constantly looking out for objects of interest, it is hardly to be supposed that vestiges of ancient art would fail to attract attention. We can therefore anticipate little of novelty hereafter in that class of discoveries, and now that the peculiar earthworks of Wisconsin have been carefully investigated, it may reasonably be inferred that all the prominent varieties of aboriginal remains, which are found in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, have been more or less minutely described.

The memoir of Messrs. Squier and Davis, constituting the first volume of the "Smithsonian Contributions," although entitled "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," and mainly devoted to the antiquities of that extensive region, yet aimed to embrace within its scope all that was known of similar vestiges north of the Gulf of Mexico. Hence, the writers added to their own materials the results of previous and contemporary researches in other parts of the United States, as well as that to which their personal observations were confined. Their treatise contains a faithful and able exposition of the subject, corrects many errors previously entertained, and defines and classifies the information collected with great clearness and particularity.

In the second volume of the "Contributions," again under a limited title, that of the "Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York," Mr. Squier has extended his private explorations to the aboriginal relics of that State, and, in an ample appendix, has once more gone over the whole ground, for the purpose of presenting a general view of the characteristics of such antiquities in the United States, and comparing them with analogous remains in other countries. Some of his former opinions respecting the earthworks in that section are changed or modified, and the fruits of much inquiry and mature study are brought to bear upon the question of the origin and use of the various structures.

Thus, without looking beyond the publications of this institution, we have a fund of materials, of recent compilation, for a clear understanding of the nature of these remains, and a proper estimation of the kind and degree of archæological interest attached to them.

We have also other and distinct sources of information and opinion not comprehended, or only partially considered, in those volumes; some relating to the character and design of existing monuments, and others to the origin and peculiarities of ante-Columbian population in the country. Among the latter are vocabularies of the native languages, analyzed and compared by able philologists. Mr. Gallatin, especially, in his elaborate essay published by the American Antiquarian Society, and in later communications to the American Ethnological Society, has enlarged the range of that branch of inquiry, and poured a flood of light upon the subject by an acute and philosophical analysis of the subtleties of grammatical construction; the late eminent physiologist, Dr. Morton, has, in his speciality, examined the analogies belonging to the physical attributes of the American races; Mr. Schoolcraft has collected the miscellaneous results of his protracted study of the past and present history of the aborigines into the magnificent quartos published at the expense of our national government; and these are only some of the prominent writers who have studied the subject in one or another of its aspects. A mass of information has thus accumulated, gathered from our whole territory by intelligent and comparatively recent observers.

The present may therefore be a favorable occasion for introducing a retrospective view of the progress of opinion and information concerning the ethnological position and social advancement of the people by whom our soil was occupied in ages beyond the reach of history. The way would then be prepared for an estimate of the real knowledge, thus far obtained, of the customs, arts, and civil condition of those mysterious races.

This inquiry involves the necessity of referring to early hypotheses concerning the origin of American population which embrace the whole of both continents, although little beyond a mere allusion to the prolific themes of controversy they have generated is permitted by the limits to which this paper is restricted.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL OPINIONS RESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF POPULATION IN THE NEW WORLD.

AFTER the discovery of America, the minds of the learned and ingenious were much exercised to account for its habitation by men and animals. On the presumption that all the varieties of the human race were descended from a single pair, and that after the flood the earth was indebted solely to the ark of Noah for the replenishment of man and beast, the manner in which these reached the western world became to scholars and divines a subject of anxious inquiry. The complete isolation of the newly-discovered land was not, it is true, immediately suspected; and Columbus and Vespucius both died in the conviction that they had only touched on portions of Asia. Indeed, so late as 1533, it was maintained, by the astronomer Schöner, that Mexico was the Quinsai of Marco Paulo. But when this was ascertained to be a vast continent by itself, separated by broad oceans or by frozen barriers from the rest of the globe, the solution of the mystery of population became a matter of intense philosophical interest; and the materials relied upon for such a solution, drawn from sacred and profane history, and the writings of ancient philosophers, poets, and geographers, were employed to sustain a great diversity of opinions. As these materials have continued to be reproduced in various combinations, and the hypotheses they suggested are constantly repeated by modern theorists, it becomes essential to an understanding of the subject, not only as formerly regarded, but in its existing position, that they should be succinctly enumerated.

While most authors have been content to go no further back in their speculations than the period of the division of the earth among the descendants of Noah, there are others who take a less limited flight, and assume a still earlier date for the peopling of America. It has been held that the earth before the flood was one mass of land, and that, when this was broken at the deluge, Providence made provision to save a remnant of people in every country, although we have accounts of what happened in one continent only. It has been argued, from differences in the animal kingdom, many of whose species would not survive transportation, that they must have been originally bred where they are found; and it has been maintained that, according to the prevailing traditions of antiquity, Paradise was without the eastern continent, and beyond the ocean.2

1 Burnett's "Theory of the Earth," Lond., 1684.

2 Ibid.

What the prolific fancy of Paracelsus suggested, among the bold assumptions of his peculiar genius,1 and Voltaire, Lord Kames, and others, have argued upon general philosophical principles, some naturalists are now attempting to deduce from observation, viz: that the races of men and animals were severally created in the regions which they inhabit. A distinct and intimate connection is asserted to exist between the fauna of different latitudes and the races of men associated with them. The diversity and distribution of men and animals were a stumblingblock to early writers, which but few ventured to overleap by explanations deemed inconsistent with sacred history. If we may judge from the tendency of recent publications, we must be prepared for the readvancement of an ancient theory, now based upon geological phenomena, the structure of native dialects, and other scientific data, which would give the New World precedence of the Old one, as sooner prepared for the occupancy of human and brute creation, and as actually inhabited at a more remote period."

The plausible theory of an original communication between the two continents by means of lands now submerged in the Atlantic, has always found numerous supporters. A belief has also prevailed that without such means of transmission, emigration took place from Africa to America before the flood.3

Passing from the question of an antediluvian population on the American Continent, supposed, moreover, to be indicated by Mexican traditions, we meet with writers who imagine they discover evidences of settlement in this country by the immediate descendants of Noah. For example, it has been advanced by biblical critics that Juctan, or Joctan, son of Heber, founded a city in Peru; and that colonies were planted by Ophir and Johab his sons. It was a belief entertained by distinguished Hebrew scholars, that Ophir, to which land of gold the ships hired of the Tyrians by Solomon, sailed on a three years' voyage, must be in America.

Tornielli, the annalist, was of opinion that the descendants of Shem and Ham passed to America by way of Japan.

4

From some supposed resemblance of religious rites, Gomara, De Lery, and Lescarbot, who had opportunities of personal observation in America, and in different regions, concluded that the natives were descended from. the Canaanites whom Joshua compelled to seek a new habitation; a theory which, in later times, and upon different grounds, seemed to President Stiles, of Yale College, the most probable of any that had been advanced.

1 "Omnium Stultitiam Theophrastus Paracelsus exhausit, qui duplicem Adamum, alium in Asia, in America alium creatum asserit."-Hornius de Originibus Americanis, Lib. I., Cap. 2.

2 "Types of Mankind," by Messrs. Nott and Gliddon, Ch. IX., p. 271, et seq.

Opus Chronographicum ab orbe Condito" of Peter Opmeer, Anvers, 1611.

Francesco Lopez de Gomara, professor of rhetoric, who came to Mexico to prepare his history of its conquest. Jean de Lery, a French Calvinist, who was sent to aid Villegnanon in establishing a protestant colony in Brazil, in 1556-7. An English translation of his account of Brazil was printed in 1611. Mark Lescarbot, advocate of the parliament of Paris, who aided in forming the first French establishment in Canada, and wrote "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," Paris, 1609.

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 established 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 indicate 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 impressions concerning the descent of the Indians from the Jews, which their own observations tended to confirm.' 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.