Jonathan Carver (part the 1st)

Moving back in time from the era of the Eastmans at Fort Snelling and the Pond brothers' mission to the Dakotas, I've been reading about Jonathan Carver, who spent six months among the Sioux in the late 1760s. I have access to a digital edition of Carver's book, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, which is very interesting indeed!

In it, he discusses the 'origin' of the indigenous peoples of North America and considers the views of one James Adair, who, as Carver puts it, 'resided forty years among the Indians , and published the history of them in 1772'. Adair thought the Native Americans were 'descended from the Israelites, either whilst they were a maritime power, or soon after their general captivity'. This kind of speculation is very typical of the age, but, even in its 18th-century context, the latter idea makes the mind boggle! After the 'general captivity', by which I take it Adair means the exile in Babylon, one group of Israelites, rather than making their way back to the Holy Land, went into some new kind of exile in North America?

Carver runs through the evidence that Adair cites for this view and - very interestingly from my point of view - he includes some discussion of language:

The Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and genius of the Hebrew. Their words and sentences being expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous, and bold; and often, both in letters, and signification, are synonimous with the Hebrew language.

Carver himself does not agree with Adair's view and I'll write more about that later :o)