Were Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Descended From the Israelites?
Rabbi Mordecai Manuel Noah's Perspective
Rabbi and journalist Mordecai Manuel Noah proposed the idea that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were descended from the Israelites in his book, “The American Indians Being the Descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.” The following article was written in The Herald (New York, NY) on February 14, 1837, regarding a lecture that Rabbi Noah offered in Clinton Hall, New York City, in the same year of his book’s publication.1
A RABBI IN THE ROSTRUM.—Rabbi Noah of the Evening Star, delivers a lecture tonight in Clinton Hall, shewing that the Indian races of this continent are the legitimate descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who “went eastward of the Phrat,” after the Assyrian conquest. The Major illustrates his peculiar theory with several very pretty specimens of live Black Hawks, a young Oceola, a Jumper, and two or three Black Dirts. At least, if he does not, he ought to do so, for the benefit of science and inductive philosophy.
One of the principal facts on which Rabbi Noah rests his theory is, that the Indians and the Jews are the only races that practice circumcision. Now, if the Rabbi had read as much of Egyptian and Syrian antiquities as we have done, he would have discovered that the rite in question was a religious observance in the mysterious land of Egypt, long before the Jews existed as a nation—even before Moses was born. The original civilized races of this continent who preceded the present Indians, are nearly proved to have been Phoenicians or Egyptians, and hence carried with them all the peculiar ceremonies of their mother country. From this race the Indians, who are clearly an original race, received that rite, if they have it at all.
But this is not all, a missionary, about two years ago, discovered a nation in the interior of China, whose customs and religion resembled the ancient Hebrews so much as to convince them that they were the ten lost tribes.
We know Rabbi Noah’s object is excellent and praiseworthy. He is endeavoring to establish the identity of the Indians and the Ten Tribes, in order to organize all the Indian Tribes west of the Mississippi, and to become their Messiah or Moses, and to lead them into a new Canaan, under the brow of the Rocky Mountains. Well, we have no objections, provided he can satisfy us that his theory is right. If he can get up a Holy Land beyond the Mississippi, discover a river Jordon, build up a new Jerusalem, and adorn anther Temple, he will have some thousand excellent building lots to dispose off in Wall Street.
Professor Stillman, however, intends to controvert the Rabbi’s theory tomorrow evening.
“A Rabbi in the Rostrum,” The Herald, February 14, 1837, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030311/1837-02-14/ed-1/seq-2/.