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In his 1825 book View of the Hebrews, Rev. Ethan Smith makes the case that Native Americans are descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. These tribes were said to have disappeared after being taken captive by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE.
Smith's speculation was inspired by the apocryphal 2 Esdras 13:41, which says that the Ten Tribes traveled to a far country, where never mankind dwelt which Smith interpreted to mean North America. Smith attempted to rescue Indians from the contemporary myth of mound builders being a separate race by making the indigenous people potential converts worthy of salvation.
If our natives be indeed from the tribes of Israel, Smith wrote, American Christians may well feel, that one great object of their inheritance here, is, that they may have a primary agency in restoring those 'lost sheep of the house of Israel.'
In arguing his position that native Americans are the lost tribes of Israel, Smith notes the following:
The American natives have one origin.
Their language appears to have been Hebrew.
They have their imitation of the ark of the covenant in ancient Israel.
They have been in practice of circumcision.
They have acknowledged one and only one God.
The celebrated William Penn gives account of the natives of Pennsylvania, which go to corroborate the same point.
The Indians having one tribe, answering in various respects to the tribe of Levi.
Several prophetic traits of character given to the Hebrews, do accurately apply to the aborigines of America.
The Indians being in tribes, with their heads and names of tribes, afford further light.
Their having something answering to the ancient cities of refuge, seems to evince their Israelitish extraction.
Their variety of traditions, historical and religious.
Smith surmises that the Mayan and Aztec pyramids were built by the lost tribes of Israel who were familiar with building pyramids from having built the Egyptian pyramids while enslaved in Egypt. Early Mormons occasionally cited the View of the Hebrews to support the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
Smith notes that the preservation of the Jews, as a distinct people, for eighteen centuries, has been justly viewed as a kind of standing miracle in support of the truth of revelation. But the arguments furnished from the preservation and traditions of the ten tribes, in the wilds of America from a much longer period, must be viewed as furnishing, if possible, a more commanding testimony.
Regarding the lost tribes, Smith exhorts the reader to teach them their ancient history; their former blessings; their being cast away; the occasion of it, and the promise of their return. Tell them the time draws near, and they must now return to God of their salvation. Tell them their return is to be as life from the dead.
Ethan Smith (17621849) was a New England Congregationalist clergyman. Smith served congregations for several years at a time in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. He accepted an appointment as City Missionary in Boston. He also served as a supply pastor for vacant pulpits.
Other works by Ethan Smith include:
A Dissertation on the Prophecies
A Key to the Figurative Language of the Prophecies
A View of the Trinity
Memoirs of Mrs. Abigail Bailey,
Four Lectures on the Subjects and Mode of Baptism
A Key to the Revelation
Prophetic Catechism
View of the Hebrews has been referred to in many modern works, including:
Latter-day Scripture
Interpreter
A Peculiar People
The Angel and Sorcerer
Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism
Believing History
Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon
The Sword of Laban
The Mormon Missionaries
Studies of the Book of Mormon
